Visit Coral Castle, a place full of secrets a few miles from Miami

If you are traveling from the Everglades or the Keys to Miami (or vice versa) and would like to make an intermediate stop, read here: you may have found it. What is the Coral Castle Museum? A castle? Yes, but not quite. A house? Also. A museum? Yes, in part. A theme park? Not quite. Along with the Bok Tower, Coral Castle is one of the most curious and unclassifiable attractions in South Florida: the idea of writing this article came along to make you curious to go and see this place with your own eyes, just as we wanted to do after hearing about it from friends who, amazed, had told us about this coral castle.

How to get there

The Coral Castle Museum is located in Homestead, a small, anonymous suburb south of Miami: the exact address is 28655 South Dixie Highway.

From Miami

• Reaching it from Miami is very easy: just follow the South Dixie Highway for 25 miles to the indicated address (50 min.).
• If instead you want to take a slightly faster route (40 min.) but you have to pay, from South Dixie take the exit towards FL-874 South (Ronald Reagan Turnpike) and reach the exit 5 (SW 288th St. – Biscayne Drive). At the end of SW 288th St., just before you cross South Dixie again, you will find Coral Castle.

From Everglades and Keys

• If you want to stop at Coral Castle coming from the Everglades, bear in mind that the closest park visitor center to the attraction is the Ernest Coe Visitor Center. It is only 13 miles and the route is very simple, as you just follow Hwy 9336 to the intersection with SW 328th St. This road then leads to the main South Dixie Highway, which you will have to take in a northerly direction to the address indicated. If you want to make a refreshing stop after Everglades, on 9336 you will find the “Robert is Here” stand, one of the most famous fresh fruit retailers in the area.
• From the Keys it is really very easy: towards the north, the Overseas Highway is just the Dixie Highway. For this reason, all you have to do is drive straight from Key Largo to the address indicated in Homestead (33 miles).

What is Coral Castle? Story of an incredible project

The story of Coral Castle does not begin in Florida or even in the United States of America, but in Latvia. The protagonist of this story is, in fact, the enigmatic Edward Leedskalnin, born in Riga in 1887, who moved to the USA around 1913. He was famous for some interesting theories on magnetism (just as his mysterious personality was magnetic). Only about 4 feet 10 inches tall, and weighing 100 lb, Edward was capable of an incredible feat: to build a castle by himself, made of huge blocks of coral rock (weighing tons) with the strangest shapes. But how did we get from Latvia to South Florida? Why did Leedskalnin embark on such an incredible feat?

Let’s go back to 1913: Edward was in love with a girl ten years younger, Agnes, whom he asked to marry. She accepted, but hours before the wedding she changed her mind and didn’t show up at the altar, claiming that Edward was too old for someone like her. Hurt by Agnes’ rejection, Edward left Europe and went to seek his fortune in Canada and the USA. He worked in California and Texas as a lumberjack and cattleman. Then, falling ill with tuberculosis, he decided to move to Florida City (south of Homestead) in 1918, to take advantage of the warmer climate. There he bought a piece of land for $12 and laid the groundwork for his venture: to build a castle for Agnes (“Sweet Sixteen,” as he liked to call her). Who knows, maybe he would change her mind. In great secrecy and without explaining anything to anyone, Edward began to move, cut and carve enormous and very heavy blocks of coral rock. He did it at night, within the walls of his own castle, without electricity, by the light of a lantern, with methods that are still shrouded in mystery: there were those who – to explain the miracle – spoke of levitation, not believing Edward when he claimed to have simply applied the system of levers and to have understood the pyramid construction method, applying it to Coral Castle. Mystery revealed!

At some point, for reasons unknown, Edward decided to move his castle to Homestead, 10 miles north of Florida City. He relocated his monumental rockwork with the help of a friend, who provided him with a truck. He continued to work tirelessly on his project, also writing 5 books, one of which (titled“A Book In Every Home“) was dedicated to 3 themes that can be traced in the castle’s “concept”: his beloved Agnes, family relationships in the home, and politics. In 1951 he fell ill and was transferred to a hospital in Miami, where he died of cancer a few days later, at the age of 64 years. It is said that Agnes never came to see Coral Castle, the unlikely but incredible open-air palace that Edward built for her out of love.

Visiting the castle

The castle is quite small, but the various areas designed by Edward are worth a thorough visit especially due to the symbolism behind them. There are numerous references: from politics to astronomy, from fables to esotericism, philosophy and ancient art.

• The Gate: a gate in which a drawing representing the path of the earth around the sun is carved. During the work, Edward always kept it closed.
• The Bell: the gate carries the writing: “Ring Bell”, while on the wall “Ring Twice”. If you rang once or more than twice, Edward would not open it for you. If you rang twice, he would open it by taking you on a short tour for 25 cents… as long as he wasn’t busy. In that case, you stayed outside.
• Ed’s Insurance Policy: simply a rock that says: “Notice, be careful. Anything you do on these premises is at your own risk”.
• Three-Ton Gate: another triangular shaped rock weighing 3 tons. The rock sits on a rotating mechanism that you can spin yourself!
• Rocking Chairs: boulders of coral rock weighing 5 tons each, carved into the shape of chairs. Sit down and marvel at how comfortable they are! Obviously, the shorter you are, the more comfortable they’ll feel….
• Florida Table: a table carved in the shape of Florida (the proportions are respected and there is even Lake Okeechobe in the middle!) with chairs for the guests. According to Edward they must have been very important guests: that head table was for the Governor of Florida, who could have sat together with the council to decide the best strategy to raise taxes.
• Polaris Telescope: built so that when you look in the right direction, you can see the North Star in the hole carved in the top of the monolith outside the walls.
• Moon Fountain: a fountain composed of three pieces of coral rock called to represent the phases of the moon. On either side there are two quarter moons, in the center the actual basin is shaped like a full moon.
• Sun Dial: no, you have never seen a sundial of this type. The times indicated by the sun were 9-16: he needed them to mark the hours of his daily work (when he wasn’t working at night).
• North Wall: to the right of the telescope. It is not the best monument in the castle, but the central piece weighs 27 tons. When he managed to carve and position it, Edward was so enthusiastic about it that he put another sculpture with the stylized shape of the crown on it (“The Crown”).
• Planets: the most beautiful and ambitious sculptures in the castle. Mars, Saturn and the Moon (“Crescent of the East”) will immediately strike you and trigger your imagination. These pieces were among those transferred from Florida City to Homestead!
• Throne Room: Edward built the throne room because there has to be one in a castle. Little does it matter if Queen Agnes never sat on her throne…. And to think that Edward had also built a seat for a child!
• Sun Couch: as anticipated, the castle is clearly in the open air. On this rock Edward could sunbathe (which beats strongly in those parts).
• Nine-Ton Gate: not the heaviest piece of the castle, but it had a special feature that made it unique. Just like the Three-Ton Gate, the boulder could be rotated thanks to a perfect mechanism… activated by the pressure of one finger. Today, due to a fault, this is no longer possible: scholars and researchers at the University of Florida have tried to calculate the precise balance of the rock, but in vain: only Edward could repair it and make it turn again.
• The Well: without running water and electricity, the ingenious Ed built this well to draw water from it and keep food cool.
• Bathroom: dug into the rock and reinforced with concrete, there is also the bathtub in which Ed would bathe. There are ladders to reach it from surface level.
• Bedroom: in the room, the two coral rock beds are separated: a rather sad solution for a love story gone wrong. Also here there is a crib for a baby.
• Obelisk: right on the wall, there is a tall and very heavy obelisk. Built in Florida City, it was moved to Homestead by the usual mysterious methods. On top of the obelisk there is a hole and above all a metal antenna that has triggered a thousand questions from the most curious.
• Repentance Corner: if Ed had become a parent, he would have been a strict father. This construction looked more like a torture device: they were slits into which disobedient children would have to insert their heads to stand still and listen attentively to their father’s words of reprimand. There was one for Agnes, too, but not for Ed….
• Ed’s BBQ: a castle without kitchens was unheard of. Ed would cook his hot dogs for the children who came to visit the castle in the BBQ built into coral rock.
• Feast of Love Table: a mammoth table (2 tons) in the shape of a heart, with a flower in the center. Perhaps the monument symbol of the whole castle, a sign of love for the beloved never forgotten.
• Grotto of Three Bears: do you know the fable of the three bears? The father bear, the mother bear and the little bear, with objects and furniture in scale according to their size? Well, Ed has reproduced a rocky version of this cute home-living idea in the castle.
• Tower: composed of several blocks of varying weights, the tower is the only covered space in the castle and includes the room where Ed spent much of his day. There is also another room used as a museum where some of Ed’s handmade tools are displayed.

Coral Castle Hours, Tickets and Tours