diff --git a/lib/py/Makefile.am b/lib/py/Makefile.am
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6d3bbea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/py/Makefile.am
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+#
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+# software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+# "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+# KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the
+# specific language governing permissions and limitations
+# under the License.
+#
+
+DESTDIR ?= /
+EXTRA_DIST = setup.py src
+
+all-local:
+	$(PYTHON) setup.py build
+
+# We're ignoring prefix here because site-packages seems to be
+# the equivalent of /usr/local/lib in Python land.
+# Old version (can't put inline because it's not portable).
+#$(PYTHON) setup.py install --prefix=$(prefix) --root=$(DESTDIR) $(PYTHON_SETUPUTIL_ARGS)
+install-exec-hook:
+	$(PYTHON) setup.py install --root=$(DESTDIR) --prefix=$(PY_PREFIX) $(PYTHON_SETUPUTIL_ARGS)
+
+clean-local:
+	$(RM) -r build
+
+check-local: all