The House on the Rock

We drove to the Wisconsin Dells area in a driving rain. We stopped twice but it never let up so we just continued on. It took a break when we first arrived so we were able to get most of our set up done before it came again. But we both needed to towel off when we got inside. Later it stopped and we went into town. Here is the dam on the Wisconsin River just gushing. There's not a lot here that interests us.


Friday, after checking to be sure there were no flooded roads where we wanted to go, we drove about 60 miles to Spring Green to visit The House on the Rock.


I'm not sure I can explain this place to you. It was built by Alex Jordan on a rock outcropping in the middle of a farm. How he managed to build this is amazing. He kept the contours of the rock and worked around it. He kept adding on either to display his collections or to fulfill a vision he had for a specific area like his "Streets of Yesteryear," a peek into the shops and homes of a century past. You can visit everyday of your life and see something you didn't see before. I think anything you name could be found here. The lighting is low. I'm not sure if this is to help preserve things or to keep you from taking pictures. I couldn't get many at all.

Large brass planters like this line the driveway into the house and are featured in the gardens surrounding it. The first garden was this Japanese one as we entered the house from the welcome center.



Here are a few pictures I was able to get of the first part of the house where the rocks are the walls. It was not a house to live in but rather a retreat to escape to so there were many cozy sitting areas.




His most amazing feat was the Infinity Room. It extends 218 feet into space, 156 feet above the valley floor. As we walked out people were turning back. The slight bounce of the floor and the height were too much for them. We walked out and took a picture of the view and one through the glass in the floor.





Mr. Jordan created many instruments using existing ones combined into a new one. Pneumatic pressure powered the levers that played violins, cellos, banjos, organs, pianos, etc. We were given tokens to make some of them play along the way. This one has five different instruments. He had a whole orchestra of 100 people and a circus band, all of which were holding instruments that were played with this pneumatic pressure. He and Walt Disney would have gotten along just fine.





This is a three story elephant, part of the circus parade. This whole building is dedicated to the circus theme and includes the band, the parade, miniature circuses, clown things, popcorn machines, anything remotely connected to the subject. It was immense. And he did this for many, many collections.



This is the women's bathroom where he displayed his glass bottle collection.



This is the Red Room also called the Mikado Music Machine. It was enormous but I could only get a small portion of it where there was enough light. There were so many beautiful and astonishing things that I just couldn't take a picture of because of the low lighting. There was a Blue Room also that looked like a ballroom in Vienna and the instruments play The Viennese Waltz.



Here is a model of the Delta Queen, a riverboat that had its home port at Cincinnati. I was glad there was enough light to take this picture. And what piece of Americana would be complete without a few Burma Shave signs.



Mr. Jordan started collecting things to build the world's largest carousel. It displays 20,000 lights and 269 hand crafted animals - not one of them a horse. So he used hundreds of them to decorate the walls.




It took us four hours to tour the house and galleries. This is the final garden we saw as we ascended the stairs to the parking lot.


I can't believe the Laurium Manor was mentioned in 1,000 Places To See Before You Die and this place wasn't. I guess there's no accounting for some people's opinion!