The Cheval postman ideal palace

The story of this house, situated in the countryside in Hauterives, Drome, one hour away from Lyon, sounds like a fairy tale: it was built by Mister Cheval, who spent thirty years of his life doing it in his freetime. One day after work, while he was riding his bicycle, he found a rock whose shape was so special and inspiring that it reminded him of some dream he had in the past. It gave him the idea to build and sculpt a palace inspired from his imagination, where he would represent his favourite themes: religion, knowledge, diversity of cultures... This is how you can see, on the same house, representations of Adam and Eve, of the Noe's arch, of Socrates and Vercingetorix, a Hindu temple and the White House...

In spite of its beauty, that palace probably required a lot of narcissism to be built, to spend such a long time and make so many sacrifices in someone's life to just leave such a track. Some quotes on it can only reinforce that impression: "By my own, I wanted to show all that will can do", "In the source of life I found my genius"... He was also very proud to show that his modest origins did not prevent him from achieving such an ambitious project.

After having managed to do so, he decided to build his own grave, which you can visit as well, not very far from his palace. And as another track of his work, he inspired a lot of artists, such as the Picasso and the Douanier Rousseau.