Jose Pedro Enrique Paronella’s fate was sealed after he read a newspaper ad calling for Spanish migrants to work in the construction of train tracks in Australia.
In 1913, the 25-year-old from the Catalan region of Spain boarded a ship with hopes to work and save money, in order to return to Spain to fulfil his engagement to his beloved Matilda.
But Australia had other plans for him.
The lush rainforest of North Queensland lured Paronella, and he ended up building his own castle next to the Mena Creek waterfalls, on land sacred to the Indigenous Dyirbal people.
Highlights:
- Jose Paronella left his fiancee in Spain and embarked on a transpacific adventure bound for Australia in 1913.
- After years of hard work, in 1929, he purchased 13 acres of unspoiled bush along the Mena Creek waterfalls to build a castle.
- In 1935, the Paronella family opened their castle to the public, making it one of the most popular dance halls and cinemas in the region.
Paronella arrived in Sydney on July 24, 1913, and first tried his luck working in the mines.
A number of men who travelled with him on the ship had told him there was a lot of money to be made in Australia.
But what they didn't tell him was that this came with a high physical toll.
Construction began in 1929. Source: Paronella Park
Long and gruelling workdays in inclement weather caused Paronella to turn in his mining hammer and he decided to move north, where he joined groups of Spanish and Italian migrants working in the sugarcane fields in the Innisfail area.
He worked there for the next 11 years cutting cane and cleaning crops. Later, he got into the business of buying, improving, and reselling cane farms.
After raising enough money, he travelled back to Spain in 1924 to meet his fiancee Matilda in order to honour his marriage proposal. His plans were for her to return with him to Australia.
However, it had been years since he had written to his fiancee. He had sent her no letters from Australia.
Paronella Park in the tropical north of Queensland. Source: iStockphoto
His excuse? Paronella hated writing letters, according to Dena Leighton, author of the book, The Spanish Dreamer.
So Matilda married another man and had broken her engagement with Paronella, without him knowing.
Margarita, Matilda's sister, steps in
Fortunately for Paronella, Matilda's mother found a solution to the broken engagement in a matter of hours.
Margarita, Matilda's younger sister, stepped in to keep the family's promise.
In 1925, Margarita Soler and Jose Paronella tied the knot in Spain. As part of their honeymoon, they travelled around Europe, visiting buildings and gardens, in order to get an idea of what Paronella would later build in Queensland.
Once in Australia, the couple lived in a sugarcane field until 1929, when Paronella bought a few hectares of tropical forest to start building his dream - a castle in the middle of the tropical forests.
“I am very moved by this whole [story]. It just brought me a lot of emotions. I was really touched by the story and the man did an excellent job. My mind was just dazzled,” says Katrina, a tourist at Paronella Park who travelled from Brisbane to see the castle that the Catalan built for Margarita.
A night view of the castle. Source: Stone RF
Katrina had heard about the castle located in the tropical forests of Queensland, but after seeing it, she says "it is much better" than what she imagined.
Paronella builds his dream with his own hands
The first thing Paronella built on his new property was a 47-step staircase for access, in order to continue the construction of the rest of the castle.
The great feat in its construction was not only to have built a castle in the middle of the rainforest but to have done it with self-designed tools and with very little help from workers.
You can see Paronella’s handprints in the structure that remains to this day, especially in the vessels that adorn the castle.
The staircase build by Paronella. Source: Paronella Park
The castle featured many luxuries, including a tennis court, a movie theatre, a ballroom, picnic areas, an artificial lake, a playground for children, and even a waterfall.
In addition, Paronella built decorative bridges to cross the streams that run through his property, as well as more than 500 handmade cement pots that blend in with the natural scenery of the surrounding rainforests.
It was a monumental project that speaks of the effort that Paronella put into achieving his dream.
“The fact that everything was built by a man who had only been in Australia for 15 years is an amazing achievement. He built the whole place himself,” Luke, a visitor at Paronella Park, tells SBS Spanish.
“He cast the moulds for the planters, installed hydroelectric power to get the place up and running, got all the rich people of Cairns to come here during the summer months,” the tourist says astonished.
The castle is located in an extremely remote area, so Paronella built his own hydroelectric plant to power the castle. It was the first of its kind in North Queensland.
The golden years
By 1935, Margarita and Paronella were already fully established in their property, so they decided to open it for the enjoyment of the general public.
The story goes that during that time, the castle was a meeting point for many families in the region.
On weekends, the Paronella movie theatre became a dance hall with live bands, and the Spaniards frequently invited their friends to play tennis.
“It's amazing that he had this vision to create this unique attraction in the middle of nowhere. And it's even more special when you think back to the time he did it,” Julie says amazed. She travelled to the castle all the way from the New South Wales city of Newcastle, after hearing about it from friends.
During his life in the castle, Paronella planted more than 7500 trees and tropical plants, including some Kauris trees that make up a path in the middle of the property.
Kauris trees grow straight and can measure around 50 metres in height.
Signs in Spanish still abound around the property, to signal bathrooms and other areas.
The constant threat of mother nature
But not everything has been smooth sailing for the castle. Tragedy struck a decade after the castle was opened to the public when an avalanche of logs washed away a bridge and also destroyed part of the property.
That was the first of many natural disasters that Paronella and Margarita had to recover from. There would also be floods, fires, and cyclones in the following years.
Paronella worked relentlessly on his dream for just under 20 years. He died of cancer in 1948, leaving Margarita and her two children, Teresa and Joe, to run the property.
After Margarita's death in 1967, the couple's son and his wife were left in charge of the park's administration, renting it for parties and social events.
Years later, Paronella and Margarita's daughter-in-law and grandchildren would take charge of the castle until 1977, when they sold the property.
Source: Supplied by Paronella Park
In 1979, a terrible fire swept through the castle, leaving only the concrete structures standing. From there on, the deterioration of the property was inevitable.
In 1993, Mark and Judy Evans purchased the property and implemented a plan to maintain what was left of Paronella's dream, and turned it into one of the premier tourist attractions in the region.
After several years and refurbishing projects, the couple succeeded in restoring the site and have given it a rightful place on the map of Queensland tourist attractions.
Today, the castle stands to mark the presence of the Spanish community through the north of Queensland.
In addition to the beautiful views of the tropical forests of Australia, the castle offers a light show at night, and a unique setting to lose yourself in the dreams of an immigrant in Australia.
