FELICITY, UNITED STATES (AFP) – Every morning, Jacques-Andre Istel has breakfast in bed at the centre of the world.
Istel is founder, mayor and postmaster general of Felicity, a stretch of California’s Sonora Desert where for nearly four decades he has been building a museum of, you know… the whole of human history.
“This doesn’t exist anywhere else on this planet,” the 94-year-old told AFP.
What started in 1986 with two small houses has grown into an amphitheatre of Istel’s dreams; 1,052 hectares where the passage of time is marked by a sundial – as painted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel – to cast its shadow.
Nearby sits a bit of an old staircase that used to be part of the Eiffel Tower, its steps ascending into the void.
The town’s post office, which Istel has operated since December 1987, collects and distributes mail for a handful of residents and tourists. The USD1 stipend checks sent by the United States (US) Treasury every year are uncashed and framed.
Istel was elected mayor of Felicity shortly after it was founded in a three-vote landslide.
The ballots were cast by Istel, his wife Felicia, after whom the town is named, and the invisible dragon that stars in Istel’s storybook about the centre of the world.
A supervisor from Imperial County, in which Felicity sits, declared all three ballots valid, noting that a dragon’s vote was recognised “for the first and only time in California history”.
Visitors to Felicity – dozens of tourists stop by every day between October and April – enter between symmetrical houses and are faced with a pyramid.
This is – officially – the middle of, well, everything. Honestly. There’s paperwork to prove it: Supervisors in Imperial county declared it so.
Istel acknowledges with a twinkle in his eye that he’s using a bit of creative licence.
“The centre of the world can be anywhere,” he smiled.
Contracts with the military and a roaring civilian business made the firm a success, and provided the nest egg for what later became Felicity.
In a study lined with memories from a very full life-time – a diploma from Princeton, pre-war furniture and family photographs – Istel said his museum is not a legacy for himself, but a gift to all of humanity.
