The House on the Rock is a fantastic Wisconsin tourist attraction in Spring Green. Also in Spring Green is Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin, which is the height of elite, revered architecture. The House on the Rock is the bad-taste, pop-culture counterpart.
From Wikipedia:
[T]he inspiration for the house [allegedly arose] in a meeting between Alex Jordan Jr. and Frank Lloyd Wright, at some unspecified time between 1914 and 1923. Jordan Sr. supposedly drove with [his friend Sid] Boyum to Taliesin to show Wright the plans for a building, the Villa Maria in Madison. Jordan worshipped the famous architect and hoped for his approval. Wright looked at the plans and told Jordan: "I wouldn't hire you to design a cheese crate or a chicken coop. You're not capable." Fuming, on the drive back on Highway 23, Jordan pointed to a spire of rock and told Boyum: "I'm going to put up a Japanese house on one of those pinnacle rocks and advertise it."If you keep reading over there, you'll see this is very unlikely to be true. Wright was 50 and Jordan was 9 when that conversation would have happened. The story is, however, stylistically consistent with the House on the Rock, which is exuberant bullshit.
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Abe Lincoln once told me that I wouldn't amount to anything. Now that I think of it, he was right.
The Villa Maria is more restrained bullshit.
The House on the Rock was wince inducing after visiting Taliesin. But all in good fun I suppose. Staffers at Taliesin feel that it diverts tourist dollars away from from Mr Wright's house - which truly is all that it's advertised to be.
For something different, check out the Felsenkirche (also called the Chapel in the Rock or Crag Church) in Idar-Oberstein. I lived a mile or so from it for a couple years, still my favorite spot in Germany. Headed back there in June.
http://www.worldtravelingmilitaryfamily.com/church-in-the-rocks-idar-oberstein-germany/
Jack White hasn't made any good music since his White Stripes days.
What a waste.
Still love the calliope. Was there when I was a kid. House on a Rock was a wonder, it has coll stiff and a tree growing out of the middle of the floor.
Heartless Aztec - #Testify.
Paid the price of admission many many years ago. I was not expecting to be trapped in a maze of junk for 4 hours. But - there were some weird surprises. The carousel in there is incredible.
The doll rooms and the ramps. So many ramps. So many music machines.
You leave wondering if you'd recommend it to others. Mostly --- no. Unless you like walking thru weirdness/madness and feeling over-whelmed by the strangest collection of stuff, and doing so on your feet for several hours.
My visit to House on the Rock (and the other buildings of stuff around it) is one of the most deliciously frightening experiences of my childhood. I was never actually scared, but prepared to be so at every turn.
Whenever anyone uses the internet term "Nightmare Fuel", it is what I picture.
Huge collection of victorian dolls on a carousel? Check.
Giant pyramid of taxidermied lions? Check.
Giant room full of organs? Check.
Animatronics everywhere? Check.
It's an unnatural combination of Tommy Bartlett, the Epcot Center, and the abandoned houses of Miss Havisham, Charles Foster Kane, and some Victorian era British world-explorer, with touches of the Playboy mansion.
Loved House on Rock during my college days. But that was before they added the automatons in a separate building at the base. That was my last visit there.
It would appear that there's been considerable expansion since then. And perhaps not in a good way.
Wright induces a pre-nausea in me. I stare in delight at the cleverness and extent of the design, but the horizontalness of it all makes me exceedingly uncomfortable. I find his proportions unpleasant. A visceral response which firmly makes me deplorable, I suppose.
House on the rock is a trick. You think it's going to be a magnificent architectural marvel - with the interesting pointy room jutting out over the valley.
No. No. No.
That's just the pointy tip of the iceberg.
Most of the nonsense is hidden under-ground, in the dark.
The place was a delightful treat to visit as a child and is an interesting wonderment as an adult.
"House of Alex" is a good read for those who want a lot more of the backstory to this weird part of Wisconsin history.
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