Fresno’s Forestiere Underground Gardens
If you’ve ever been to Fresno, California in the summer, you are perfectly aware of just how excruciatingly hot it can get in the San Joaquin Valley. And this was no different back in the early 1900s either, of course. That is the era in which a certain rather eccentric Sicilian immigrant by the name of Baldasare Forestiere found his way to the area and began with the excavation of his fantastic underground home. That’s right, underground.
Not really a garden in the usual sense, though several plants and fruit trees grow out and up through holes in the surface, Forestiere spent 40 years digging through the rock-hard hardpan by hand to create this unique, 10 acre network of cool, underground rooms, archways and passages. Though originally an experiment of sorts, the Forestiere Underground Gardens, as they are called today, would soon become Baldasare Forestiere’s home – and refuge from the maddening Central Valley heat. After all, it can be well over 100F outside and yet his pleasant garden home remains wonderfully cool.
In Forestiere’s native home of Sicily at that time, tradition dictated that when the head of the house died, the oldest son received everything. Unfortunately for Forestiere, he was not the oldest son in his family and one day decided to seek his fortune in America instead of spending his life as a laborer in Sicily. But the little money he had managed to save for his passage was soon spent after his arrival in New York City and he quickly decided to move on and try his luck at farming in California.
One day in 1906 he was overwhelmed by a vision. Glancing through the skylight of his cellar in yet another attempt at trying to escape the incredible Central Valley heat, he wondered if he could get one of his citrus trees to grow underground. He realized that water would be a problem (citrus trees require a large amount of water which would damage the roots of underground trees) and quickly devised a watering system with “sump pits”, planters and overhead skylights to avoid this. He also knew that his underground trees would blossom four to five weeks later than normal citrus trees would as they would get their sunlight directly from above, but this would only increase the length of his growing season correspondingly. And he also quickly realized that his trees would never suffer from the common problem of frost, as it would never freeze underground.
He decided to give it a try and plant his first tree and lo and behold, it worked. He then moved on to plant the next tree, and then the next. He soon chose to live underground himself and began constructing what would become the elaborate labyrinth we can now visit today.
In all those forty years of digging, Forestiere would only use simple hand tools and a wheelbarrow. He made some passageways narrower or wider than others so that the air would circulate as fast or as slow as he wished. Deciding to utilize convection and other thermal concepts, he designed his skylights to be narrow above and wide below, aware that hot air rises and cold air sinks.
The National Office of Historic Preservation placed the Gardens on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and the state of California designated the Gardens a California State Registered Landmark in 1978. The city of Fresno has also given the Gardens the status of Fresno County Historical Site.
A very interesting landmark and well worth a visit, the Forestiere Underground Gardens are located very near the Shaw Avenue exit of Highway 99 in northern Fresno. Tours are given in the summer months Wednesdays through Sundays and during the weekends on off-season, weather permitting. Please call for reservations at (559) 271-0734.
Forestiere Underground Gardens
5021 West Shaw Avenue
Fresno, CA 93722
