Fort Lauderdale : News & Views
Blowing Off The Wind
By Pat Brennan
Jun 1, 2006

As south Florida gears up to face another hurricane season, residents are stockpiling those little can’t-live-withouts. You know: generators, solar blankets, six packs.

But one house in Homestead, just south of Miami, could care less. Coral Castle has stared down nearly a dozen hurricanes since it was opened in 1923, including the two most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S.—Andrew in ’92, which wiped out Homestead, and another that mangled the Florida Keys in 1935, both of which were category-five hurricanes. Constructed with massive blocks of coral by a reclusive, expat Latvian stone mason named Ed Leedskalnin, the 2,500-square-foot house is full of hefty accessories: the front door weighs nine tons, the chairs a ton each, and the largest piece of furniture—a huge home-made telescope that always tracks the North Star—weighs 14 tons.

Possibly the most astounding part of the house is its creation: nobody actually saw Leedskalnin build it. He worked at night, shunning power tools and construction equipment of any kind. The mystery died with the builder in 1951, except for one clue—his claim that he used leverage, balance and the energy of the universe.

Curiously, Ed didn’t build Coral Castle to survive hurricanes; he actually built it to honour a lost love who broke his heart ( www.coralcastle.com).