Awake: 6:39am Temp 50 sleep 6+16 overcast overnight @
Spring Green, WI.
Kathy makes whole wheat sourdough pancakes with bacon & eggs for
breakfast. Then we drive (7) miles to see: “The House on the Rock.” Not
knowing what to expect, we brought with us one healthy bar each & our
water bottles. What we read about this place: “…some consider it to be an
architectural wonder; others a boondoggle; still others suggest it’s just
plain weird. “
It took us close to (8) hrs to figure this place out with no lunch break.
The 13 room original house is literally built atop a 60 ft high sandstone
rock. The interior has subdued lighting, ethnic artwork, blue stained
glass for a nighttime ambience & low-slung Japanese ceilings. Another
room was added some 25 yrs later called the Infinity room, which extends
218 ft over the scenic valley & 156 ft above the forest floor. This room
has 3,264 windows for walls that treat the guests to a truly spectacular
view.
According to the ushers, these museum like structures & attached buildings
are visited by a half-million people each year. We took our time, looked
carefully & took many pictures along the way. There were collections of
strange, unusual & rare objects: ancient suits of armor, Burma shave
signs, automatic playing instruments, statues, the world’s largest cannon,
the world’s largest carousel which twirls daily, doll collections, antique
guns, mechanical banks, vintage automobiles, hot air balloons & a
multi-story Rube Goldberg machine
Oh, there’s so much more. I should elaborate a little more about the
world’s largest carousel: its 35 ft tall, 80 ft wide, weighs 35 tons &
contains 269 handcrafted animals (not one of them a horse), 20,000 lights
and 183 chandeliers. Many of the creatures were created by House on the
Rock sculptor Tom Kupsh.
The Music of yesterday room contains what’s billed as the “greatest
collection in the world” of gigantic pipe organs & automatic music
machines. These include orchestrions(giant mechanical music boxes that
imitate the sound of an orchestra), along with the world’s only
mechanically operated symphony orchestra with wax people who move, play &
look so real as they are performing.
Well, there are just too many items yet to mention but I have pictures,
many pictures. But…who is the guy that started all of this & why? His name
is Alex Jordan Jr. & in 1946, he came to the rock & began building the
house of his dreams. It was meant to be a personal weekend retreat but
people were curious, always asking if they could see it. So in 1960 Alex
Jr. officially opened “House on the Rock” to the public. The unquenchable
thirst for more drove Alex to go beyond “the house”. He found that
dazzling visitors once was simply not enough. He wanted to create more &
more spectacles that would amaze people for yrs to come.
Interestingly enough, Alex Jr. hated to travel & never left the U.S.A. He
used the phone, sent his astute workers to wherever something of interest
came up for grabs, negotiated & made the deal without leaving the state.
Alex Jr. Jordan passed away November 6 of 1989 @ the age of 91. House on
the Rocks was sold to Art Donaldson in 1988 & the tradition of gathering
collectibles of unusual, weird, hard to find items & antiques continues
under the new leadership.
Alex never lived in the unusual house, but he did take the proceeds from
the admission fees & used them to purchase items for his ever-growing
collection of antiques & curiosities over the yrs.
We were so thoroughly impressed with what we saw; the amazing large
structured buildings & the too numerous to mention collections that were
displayed……. enough so, that I couldn’t help writing so much about it.
7:45pm dinner: Chicken stir-fry with toast.
Late evening: we watch the movie: “The Truth about Cats & Dogs.” Cute
comedy about a guy who falls in love with a radio talk-show host before he
even meets her. It’s an enjoyable romantic comedy to watch. 1996.
High today=67 Lights out: 11:29pm
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