In 1879, French postman Ferdinand Cheval began building a structure that was inspired by the shape of a stone he tripped over one day. He wasn’t a mason and not more an architect and spent 33 years building his “Ideal Palace” using stones he collected on his daily mail route. The Palace was finished in 1912, took over 10,000 days and 93,000 hours to construct.
 

Ferdinand Cheval searching for stones in odd shapes, tree trunks, crown jewels, plates, rings, insects, sea shells, beads, flowers, tubes, horns, fossils and many others. The little stones he could put in his pocket, but large stones he must carry on his back.

The palace is considered an extraordinary example of native art architecture. Today, in the village of Hauterives, France, The Palace ideal is a national monument with more of the 120,000 annual visitors.