Forestiere Underground Gardens – Wikipedia

Forestier Underground Garden Fresno, California is a series of underground structures built over a period of 40 years by Baldassare Forestier, an immigrant from Sicily, from 1906 until his death in 1946. The gardens are operated by members of the Forestier family through the Forestier Historical Centre, and can be considered an unconventional example of vernacular architecture.^[3][4]

Baldasare forest dwellers (Italian pronunciation: [baldasˈsarre foreˈstjɛːre]; July 8, 1879 – November 10, 1946) was born in the village of Filari, near Rometta, on the northeastern tip of Sicily.^[5] He immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s after conflict with his father and shortly thereafter purchased land in Fresno on the East Coast. They found the hard soil unsuitable for citrus trees, and the weather extremely hot during the summer.^[6]

Forestier dug a small cellar to escape the heat. He was probably influenced by the Roman catacombs and wine cellars he saw in Italy. Finding it effective and comfortable, he built a series of attached rooms and resided there. Forestiers then began to experiment with growing trees in skylighted underground chambers and found that with care they would grow well, and being below ground they would be protected from frost. Forestier continued to expand and improve these underground gardens using hand tools and a pair of mules until his death in 1946.^[6]

The gardens were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and were registered as number 916 on the California Historic Places Inventory in 1978.

The Forestier Underground Garden has 65 rooms.^[7] It has a summer bedroom, a winter bedroom, a bathroom, a functional kitchen, a fishing pond and a parlor with a fireplace.^[8] Between the stone walls and archways are grottoes and courtyards that allow light. Complex routes were built section by section 10 acres (4.0 ha)Without the aid of blueprints.^[9] There are three levels within the underground structure, one 10 feet (3.0 m) deep, one 20 feet (6.1 m) deep, and a 23 feet (7.0 m) deep.

The gardens have skylights and catch basins for water. The soil that was removed to build the larger structure was used to fill planters elsewhere, create stones placed within the catacombs, and level other parts of the land. The hardpan they dug up was reused as bricks for the arches and supports. The passageways and rooms were constructed with different widths to help direct the flow of air by creating pressure as it passed through narrow sections and maintaining momentum as it bounced off the slants and bends of the cave walls. Conical skylights allow hot air to be pushed out more quickly and cool air to stay down.

The plants and trees, some of which are over 100 years old, are protected from frost during the winter months due to the construction. Each tier was planted at different times, so they bloom sequentially to lengthen the growing season. It has a variety of fruits ranging from citrus fruits and berries to exotic fruits like kumquat, loquat and plum. Trees are designed to produce more than one type of fruit, allowing a large variety of fruit to be grown throughout the region. Trees and vines were also planted over the dwellings, which acted as insulation and created canopies that provided protection from the elements.

T. Corrageson Boyle wrote a fictional account of Forestier, the short story “The Underground Gardens”, which was published the new Yorker in 1998.^[10]