Arkansas Vacation - Day 3 - Part 2 - Quigley's Castle

 This is the second post for today.  The reason?  Well, it is picture laden!!!  Too many for just one post if I added them all in together.  This one stop alone provided over 25 pictures AFTER I threw a bunch out.  

We are on our way to War Eagle Mill and I spot a sign that says, "Quigley's Castle."  I had read about this before hand, but hadn't planned on the stop.  I would, however, love to just get a picture of the outside.  I mean -- it's a castle in Arkansas, right?

We take the exit and arrive only to discover that you cannot see anything beyond the line of trees out front.  Drat.  The attendant comes to the gate and Mister just shrugs and pay the fee.  In we go.

We are given the rules for exploring and a brief history along with a chance to ask some questions.  There is also information typed up on a post that I will share with you -  "My grandmother, Elise Fioravanti Quigley, was nine years old when she came to the Ozarks.  Her family was Italian and we think her heritage influenced her in the design of the house and in the mosaic work.  She loved the outdoors and grew up along a creek bed and collected all of the rocks on the outside of the house.  (side note by Lady - it's a house, not a castle, oh well - back to the story)  When she was 18, during the depression, she married my grandfather, Albert Quigley (1905-1972). He was the type of fellow who brought her rock collection with them to the site of his farm and lumber mill. They lived in a lumber shack and had five children. My grandfather promised her a house with the lumber cut off their own property.

They argued about it for several months. As soon as Albert headed for work at the lumber mill one June morning in 1943, Elise Quigley gathered their children around her and ordered "we're going to tear down the house." And demolish the family's three room house they did. "when Bud came home that night, "Mrs. Quigley related, "he was living in a chicken house, where we'd moved all of our stuff."  Mrs. Quigley had already designed her dream home. She wanted two things: Plenty of room for the robust family and a "home where I felt I was living in the world instead of in a box. I designed it in my mind, but I couldn't tell anybody what I wanted, so I sat down with scissors, paste, cardboard and match sticks and made a model."

The biggest obstacle was that the design which called for 28 huge windows. Mr. Quigley wanted to wait to build the house because glass was unavailable during the war, but now construction began immediately. Built entirely of lumber off their land and with their own labor, only $2000 in cash was spent on supplies and glass, which didn't become available for three years. The family survived the winters by tacking up material over the holes in layers.  

To bring nature indoors, four feet of earth was left bare between the edges of the living space and the walls. Into the soil, which borders the rooms on the inside, Mrs. Quigley planted flowering, tropical plants that grow up to the second story ceiling. The plants are over 65 years old now.  Stones that Mrs. Quigley began collecting as a girl assumed and important part of the house. Working tenderly for three years, Mrs. Quigley covered the outside walls with a collection of fossils, crystals, arrowheads and stones selected from the creak beds for their beauty. A perennial garden surrounds the house.

The inside of the house is a collection of family antiques and mementos that express Mrs. Quigley's love of nature. especially spectacular is the Butterfly Wall that is beyond imagination.

This was her home and passion for another 50 years as she continued to collect and surround herself with the nature she loved. My grandfather and she were very compatible; he took her everywhere she went to collect, as she couldnt drive. He continued to make a living with the farm and lumber mill until he passed away in 1972, at the age of 66. Elise Quigley died at the age of 74 in 1984.  The Quigley home, without intention became a favorite stopping place for people traveling through the Ozarks. Now after fifty years, the Quigley's grandchildren still welcome guests."

That was a lot, right --- here we go with the rest of the pictures  . . 

Notice some of the colored stones, they came later in her life.

More inside the windows - 

Elise Quigley had a goal to bring nature indoors.  She built-in the fish aquarium in the 1950s.  Notice also the bird cages in every room.  She especially enjoyed canaries that were allowed to fly in among the plants.  She lined the window frames with muscle shells she collected along White River, when they built Beaver Dam.  The sea shells you see through her collection were bought from the Gem and Mineral Society.

These violets are incredible.  We have violets and I know just how much effort they take to become like this.  Wow.

Upstairs are the bedrooms --- quilts adorn all of the beds and the windows rise the entire distance.  Bedroom #1

Even quilts in the case.

Bedroom #2 - This is the room with the butterfly wall.  It was her last big project.  She raised four different species of native moths as part of the project.  She assembled her collage with polyester resin and finished the wall when she was 68 years old.

This table used to sit outside the back door and was where she did her cement rock work, a row a day for nearly 30 years.  She brought the table inside and covered in with rocks and polyester resin.  She also quilted and crocheted by she used to say her fingertips were so rough from the lye in the cement that they caught on the thread.  

Bedroom #3 - 

As we go back downstairs, I spot this quilt hanging in the stairwell.  I was watching my feet while going up, so missed it.  It is a Seven Generation Quilt.  The blocks were pieced by Mrs. Allen Ash and given to her daughter, Bessie Webb, who passed the blocks down to her daughter, Etha Hull, who passed them down to her daughter-in-law, Opal Hull, who set the blocks together and quilted them.  Opal gave the quilt to her daughter, Iiving Quigley, who passed the quilt down to her daughter, Iiving, who passed the quilt down to her daughter upon marriage.  Wow.

The water supply for the house and garden is a spring on top of the hill where we drove in.  The spring water gravity flows down the hill through a pipe Albert buried straight to the tank that takes up the corner of the dining room.  The mural is painted on the concrete side of the water storage tank.

Out back in the garden area.

It was a fun, although strange stop.  The jury is still out on all the rock work, but I will give her this.  She LIVED her passion to the fullest.  Now to run through the rain once again in order to return to the car.  (It has been raining the entire time we've been in the house.)