Castle was built for the family that never was
By Sharon Shapiro/Tampa Tribune Correspondent

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Originally published March 21, 1996

HOMESTEAD - You don't have to travel thousands of miles to India's Taj Mahal to see a monument to love or to Egypt's pyramids to witness an architectural mystery.

A 300-mile trip to Homestead's Coral Castle will accomplish both.

The site has been the subject of investigative television programs, such as ``In Search Of'' and ``That's Incredible'' in the 1970s. Begun in 1918 by immigrant Edward Leedskalnin, Coral Castle is an open-air home (with the exception of a small, two-story living quarters and tool shed) made entirely of oolitic limestone, called coral rock.

What inspired him to work for nearly 20 years fashioning such a magnificent creation?

Legend has it that, as a 26-year-old in Latvia, Ed was jilted on the eve of his wedding to his 16-year-old sweetheart and took refuge in America.

Brochures and literature at Coral Castle tell the story, which the Metro-Dade Historic Preservation Division has substantiated:
Ed worked in Washington state as a logger until tuberculosis forced him to a warmer climate. While wandering South Florida, Ed encountered a couple near Florida City who took him in and provided medical care.

After he regained his health, Ed decided to settle. He bought a rocky acre, and soon mystery surrounded the 5-foot, 100-pound man who read books on magnetic currents and cosmic forces by day, and by night carved huge blocks of coral from his land.

Ed said he had discovered principles of magnetism used by the Egyptians to construct the pyramids. He wrote a small book called ``Magnetic Current'' to explain his theories.

Ed used no heavy machinery or any human help in carving and constructing his home, according to sworn affidavits dated 1955 from people who knew him. The statements, which cover a wall inside the small gift shop, were collected by a later owner of the property.

Ed managed to carve out giant blocks of coral weighing up to 56,000 pounds and position them into what he named Rock Gate.

He opened his home to the public in 1923, charging people a dime to take a tour of his castle and courtyard hidden behind an 8-foot-high wall of coral blocks.

In 1936, Ed began moving his domicile piece by piece to its present location in Homestead, 10 miles away. The ``In Search Of'' version has it that a group of thugs beat up Ed in an attempted robbery, prompting him to move to a better neighborhood. However, castle literature says Ed moved his home near the site of the new U.S. 1 to attract more tourists.

``This is really quite wonderful,'' says first-time visitor Shirlee Lowry of Boca Raton.

``My sense is [that] a man of loneliness and solitude looked beyond the humanness of life and pulled something out of the universe and made many wonderful things,'' Lowry says. ``He stopped looking to others for voices and looked to the universe instead for another kind of voice.''

If you miss anything at the three recorded-tour stations around the courtyard, don't worry. Caretaker Emanuel Forth can tell you anything you want to know about Coral Castle. Forth is a small man, about Ed's size, who speaks with a heavy Jamaican accent.

``I used to see a lot of people who just look around but don't really understand what they see,'' Forth says as he fills the Moon Fountain with fresh water. ``So one day I ask this man, `Do you see anything unusual?' He says no. So, I take him around and tell him the story behind all these stones. Then he understood.''

Forth has his own theory on why Ed came to America. Several locations have six-pointed stars. Some say it's the Latvian Star; Forth thinks it's the Star of David. He says Ed might have been a Jew who came here to escape religious persecution.

Whatever Ed's reasonfor coming to America, he lived a hermit's life. Then one day in 1951, visitors saw a sign on the front door that he had gone to the hospital.

Ed died three days later. His life savings - $3,500 - were found on his property.

Ed never married and never saw the woman he called his Sweet 16 after leaving his homeland. In 1980 a group of Latvian visitors told the manager of Coral Castle that they knew who she was. The staff located Agnes Skuvst, then 83, and invited her to the monument Ed had built for her. She refused, saying she didn't want to marry him then and didn't want to know about him now.

Ed's only living relative, a nephew, inherited his home. A Chicago jeweler bought it two years later. In 1983, another Chicago businessman, Irving Barr, bought it as ``an investment for love'' as a wedding present for his bride, Irene Nemec of Miami.

Also, rock singer Billy Idol wrote a song called ``Sweet Sixteen'' inspired by his visit.

Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, Coral Castle draws about 65,000 visitors a year.