Official Center of the World – Felicity, California – Part Two

Inside the pink granite, mirrored pyramid is The Official Center of the World, marked by a dot on a bronze plaque set into the floor of the pyramid. A special ceremony takes place whenever visitors place a toe on this spot. An official for the town marks the exact time your toe touches the dot, places the information on an official certificate you get to take with you, and asks that you make a wish at that moment.

While this may seem a tacky means of entertainment, it is quite meaningful to Istel and the town of Felicity. The Istels may have rather eclectic tastes; however, the other monuments on their property throughout Felicity are quite notable, and just plain exciting.

For instance, they had a sculptor design God’s arm (from the Michelangelo painting in the Sistine Chapel) to act as a sundial. There is also a staircase that leads nowhere, but where the staircase came from is the cool part – it was salvaged from Paris (the Eiffel Tower to be exact) and is near the town’s entrance.

After building the pyramid to denote the center, Istel decided that his town needed a church. But, it couldn’t be just any church, and it had to be on the highest spot on the property. That posed an issue, because the entire town was flat desert in all directions. So, Istel had 300,000,000 pounds of dirt hauled in by truck and designed into the Hill of Prayer. At the top, the Church on the Hill.

With shades of brown the only color for miles around, the snow-white church with an aqua colored door immediately catches the eye. The Protestant and Catholic Churches dedicated this church to St. Felicity in 2008.

As you’ll see upon entry, this isn’t some pipe dream conjured by an old man with a dream. Instead, Istel is building something for future generations. His latest project, The World Commemorative Center, is a series of monuments with inscriptions of all that he deems worthwhile for future generations to remember. The first phase of this project includes nearly 100 monuments that will stretch nearly a half mile. The overall plan for the entire project illustrates how these monuments will eventually depict the outline of a fish that will stretch around the Church and far off into the distance near the mountains. At the very least, Istel’s dream is preserve as many memories for future generations as possible.