By 1943, Elise Fioravanti Quigley had already moved from California to the Ozarks, survived the Great Depression, married young, and had five children. She was also now in her mid-thirties and tired of living in a lumber shack while waiting for her husband, Albert, to finally start building the house he had promised her.
So one day in June, after Albert went to work at the lumber mill, she and her children tore down their three bedroom home and moved all their belonging into the chicken coop. When Albert returned from work, he discovered he had little choice but to finally fulfill his promise.
With the help of a neighbor, Albert built the house according to Elise’s three-dimensional model of her ideal home—a building that brought nature indoors—out of lumber from their own property. Elise then spent three years covering the exterior in the rocks, fossils, glass fragments, and arrowheads she had been collecting since childhood.
Among the “Castle’s” more unusual features are an indoor fish pond lined with shells and rocks; the large hole in the second story floor through which Elise’s tall, tropical plants grow to their full height; and the many large windows, which the Quigley’s were unable to fill until glass became available again after the war. But perhaps its most impressive attribute is its “Butterfly Wall,” a giant, complex collage made up of photographs, prints, stones, and the butterflies and moths Elise raised herself.
Elise and Albert’s grandchildren now kindly open the home to the public for about nine months of the year and host a website with more information on the Quigleys and their Castle.