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http://www.retroactive.com/south/moleman.html

Retro, July/August, 1996

“The Mole Man of Fresno”

WHAT STRANGE drive possesses a man to
toil for thirty-eight years alone, in the middle of nowhere, on an
elaborate labyrinth of underground rooms and gardens? Was it madness,
a broken heart, or something else?

Early this century, a young man returned
home to Italy to claim his childhood sweetheart as his bride. Proudly
and excitedly, he told her of a comfortable home he'd designed and
built for the two of them in America, ideally suited for the desert
climate of California. He asked that she return with him as his wife,
and share in this good fortune.

Her response was to ridicule and shame
him. How could she have waited so long only to learn of the outlandish
way that he proposed they live? She refused his offer. Heartbroken,
the man returned to California alone, and vowed that he would continue
building his home until he'd created an estate like no other; a
spectacle that would bring, instead of mockery, public wonderment and
fame.

This was the pledge of Baldasare
Forestiere. The home he had built for himself and his childhood
sweetheart — the home she had rejected — was located completely
underground.

Forestiere was born in 1879 near Messina,
Sicily, the son of a prosperous fruit rancher. He'd emigrated to
America at the age of 21 to work as a laborer on several large
projects: the Croton Aqueduct, a subway under the city of Boston, and
a tunnel connecting New York City with New Jersey. In 1908, Forestiere
decided to move west, and with his life savings and a small
inheritance, bought 200 acres of mostly barren land near Fresno,
California.

In the summertime, Forestiere found that
the temperature on his new land would soar to 120 degrees or more. He
remembered how cool and comfortable the subways he'd worked on had
been, even when the temperature on the surface had been oppressively
hot. Inspired, the little man started to dig, and soon he had
burrowed out a spacious four-room apartment under his land. On the
hottest days, his home was a refreshing seventy degrees, and in
winter, it was several degrees warmer than the surface, since the
temperature below ground varies only a few degrees throughout the
year.

Forestiere built his home to allow in
plenty of light, while keeping out the elements. Each room fronted a
patio; one on the east caught the early morning sun, and one to the
west captured the light during the rest of the day. The indoors
blended gracefully with the outdoors through the use of arches and
columns. Broad verandas, functioning like deep overhangs, kept
sunlight from directly entering the rooms. He built sliding windows in
the kitchen, and half of one wall in his summer bedroom had a large
window overlooking the sunset patio. Light was further controlled by
glass-covered skylights; rain, dust storms and winds passed harmlessly
overhead. Grapevines planted around the rims of the rooms filtered
the summer sun, and as the days shortened into fall and winter, the
leaves gradually fell away to admit more light.

As the son of a fruit rancher, he'd
learned a lot about gardening, so it was natural that an elaborate
garden was part of the plan. Grafting was a special hobby, and one
tree was modified to offer seven different kinds of fruit: navel and
valencia oranges, sweet and sour lemons, tangerines, grapefruit and
cheedro. To promote the growth of his garden and trees, Forestiere
made countless trips in his Model T pickup to dig and haul truckloads
of rich soil from ancient lake beds some 75 miles away.

After returning from his ill-fated trip
to Italy, Forestiere began enlarging his underground home with a
vengeance. First he dug a tunnel, then a room, then a passageway, then
a patio, a giant automobile tunnel, more rooms, gardens, grottos, more
passageways — until he'd developed a system of rooms that honeycombed
nearly seven acres. His work began to pique the curiosity of the
locals. A reporter once described him this way: “Forestiere has dug a
veritable Tutankhamen tomb, a catacomb such as afforded the early
Christians refuge from the persecutions of the Roman Caesars.” No one
could determine, however, what, if anything, Forestiere was seeking
refuge from, other than the oppressive heat above ground.

Forestiere at work (center) in 1923
(age 44), laying up a pillar of rock strata called hardpan. For this
room, the entire surface was dug away, columns built, roof reinforcing
laid, and the opening re-covered.

His work was not finished when he passed
away in 1946, at the age of sixty seven. After Forestiere's death, his
older brother, Joseph, added a 3500 square foot ballroom to the
home. Baldasare Forestiere's home and gardens were opened to the
general public on April 18, 1954. Visitors are constantly amazed at
the amount of work accomplished in forty years by this one tiny man,
standing all of five feet, four inches tall. Though he never learned
to read or write and spoke only halting English, Forestiere evidently
learned much from his experience working on the subways. Engineers who
have inspected the labyrinth of rooms have marveled at his self-taught
genius. It's difficult to imagine how dirt and rocks were shoveled out
of a hole more than three times the height of a man's head, or slabs
of hardpan weighing hundreds if not thousands of pounds were moved and
fitted by only Forestiere working alone. Millions of his pick marks
are still visible, fossil-like details of his day to day work.

Just what was he creating? Some locals
claimed that Forestiere said he was making an underground resort,
where people would enjoy fine Italian food, drink and dancing. The
tunnel was made so that people could drive their cars into the cool
depths, alight at a restaurant, and a valet would drive through to a
parking lot at the other end. In typical cold-war fashion, a 1959
tourist brochure called “The Secret World of the Human Mole”
hypothesized that Forestiere may have had prescient knowledge of the
nuclear age, and was thus building a bomb shelter. More likely, it was
a simple obsessive vision of a lone soul to escape from the harshness
of the elements, as well as what he felt were the harsh realities of
modern civilization. And perhaps, a broken heart.

Contact: Fresno Convention and Visitors
Bureau, 808 M St., Fresno, CA 93721; telephone (209)233-0836; fax
(209) 445-0122.