Lead Hill, Ark. • Once upon a time, a couple visited an enchanting medieval castle in France.

Jean Marc and Solange Mirat fell in love with the grand structure, with its vaulted ceilings, turrets and drawbridges. The Mirats, originally from France, decided to find a way to create a similar castle near their home in Arkansas.

They got in touch with Michel Guyot, an archaeologist who had restored ruined castles in Europe, and offered to sell part of their land in Lead Hill, a tiny town between Springfield, Mo., and Little Rock, Ark.

A group of 14 investors committed $1.5 million to building a medieval castle. A year ago, they broke ground for the Ozark Medieval Fortress. Since May, visitors have been able to see a history lesson sprung to life. The work is expected to take 20 years.

About 20 artisans are erecting the foundations of the stone castle, using the types of tools, materials and techniques that existed in the 13th century. The full-size, fortified castle will have 6-foot-wide stone walls surrounding an inner courtyard, 24-foot towers, a drawbridge and a moat.

Today, the site's wide open acres are divided into stations, each demonstrating the skills needed to construct the mammoth project.

When we visited, a blacksmith, basket-weaver and ropemaker were all at work. Potter David Schuh, of Marshfield, Mo., was experimenting with cooking meat on unglazed pottery he had made.

"It's a learning process," he said, as one of the pots cracked on the open flame.

Kathy Linn, formerly an instructor at the University of Mississippi, was weaving cloth to be used for historically accurate clothing for the staff. She explained how various plants and even insects were used to create different colors to dye clothing.

The team also includes a Belgian horse named Honey who carts stones from the nearby quarry to the construction site.

Investors hope to attract as many as 150,000 visitors this year. They would like to build a food court that would sell Renaissance Fair-type food. The site now has a gift shop and vending machines, but no place to buy a meal.

The tour is a little too detailed to hold the attention of young children, but they would enjoy the hands-on station where visitors can carve a picture or initial into a stone to take home.

And if all goes as planned, in 20 years, the Middle Ages will have made a comeback: A relic from the past, constructed piece by piece, in the middle of the Ozark Mountains.