When Robert Ferrell goes medieval, he really goes medieval. The full-blown feudal village he's hammering together on his 44-acre ranch near San Antonio isn't some Renaissance faire pastiche. It's all about authenticity. No food courts serving rat-on-a-stick, no juggling, no tights - just history, minus the plague and famine.
The 46-year-old computer security specialist for the US Department of the Interior has been planning his fiefdom, dubbed Savernake, for two decades. "I like medieval feudal villages, but I happen to have been born on the wrong continent to hang around in one," he says. "The only solutions were, move to Europe or build my own." In 1999, he bought a former llama ranch - it was cheap and too small and hilly to graze cattle - and spent the next few years teaching himself construction. Building a house is as much an act of creation as writing code, Ferrell says. "If you make it up as you go, you're hacking." His crowning achievement so far: Strawhenge, a replica (to scale) of Stonehenge's inner circle made of stucco-covered straw bales and rebar anchored in concrete. Ferrell used a topographical map to help align his 1,300-pound "stones" to lunar events and solstices, just like the real thing. It took him almost a month to finish. "Of course, then I had to build the Chapel of St. Adalbert for my very Catholic wife," he says.
Ferrell's upcoming projects include a blacksmith's forge, a monastery, and a manor house. Anon, when he finishes in 2010 or so, public tours can begin (Ferrell has already hosted up to 300 reenactors). He budgets the completed village at roughly $750,000, not including his time - just mowing all the grass takes a couple hours a day for three weeks. At least he doesn't have to battle barbarian hordes.
- Michelle Delio
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