Day 19 - The House On The Rock

"My house will stand on a rock on a hill.

Overlooking a valley deep and still."
-Alex Jordan

Yesterday we visited The House On The Rock Attraction in Spring Green, Wisconsin. It was the coolest thing I have seen in years! I would have driven 100 miles out of my way just to see this. It is ingenious and insane, super swanky and a little bit creepy in spots. It is the Hearst Castle of the Midwest-especially when you consider that when Alex Jordan started building his house on a rock, it was so remote he had to carry all the stone and mortar in on his back.

The "Infinity Room" is 200 feet long with 3,000 windows that juts out over the rocky valley - 168 feet to the bottom. And it's cantilevered. When you walk out to the end it tips and bounces.

Inside the "Infinity Room"

Alex Jordan started building the House On The Rock in 1946. He wanted to be far away from people to explore his imagination. However his visionary architecture sparked the interest of his neighbors. In an effort to discourage gawkers he started charging admission, but this had the opposite effect-it attracted more attention! Now with this ever-increasing income he was able to indulge his eccentric - bordering on obsessive compulsive - collecting. My favorite rooms were the whale room, the breathtaking organ room, and the carousel room.

The whale room at the House On The Rock. This is a replica of a whale locked into battle with a giant octopus. The whale is 200 feet tall and as long as the Statue of Liberty is tall. If you look down near the LEFT corner, you can see Michael! (Click on the picture to see larger.) What's more amazing is that this isn't even the largest room.

The actual house is 14 rooms built on a pinnacle of rock. This is every little boys fantasy! It certainly was mine. A groovy house that is part condo part cave...so cool. Following the house is a peculiar, outlandish complex of rooms, streets, buildings and gardens covering 200 acres. There is simply too much for me to talk about, so here is the website: http://www.houseontherock.com/HOTR_AttractionMain.htm

Super swanky is the word I use to describe the endless couches!

The "Winter Room"

The House On The Rock also has the largest carousel. It boasts over 20,000 lights and 269 handcrafted animals - not one of them a horse. Here is video:



I took more pictures - oh, about a gazillion pictures - far too many to post here, so I have uploaded them all to picasa. Please have a look! It's so cool: http://picasaweb.google.com/ErnestWPalmer/HouseOnTheRock#