House on the Rock, Part the First
Jeff and I spent the first weekend in November in sunny but quite chilly Madison, Wisconsin. We took a side trip on Sunday to Spring Green and the incomparable House on the Rock. The first time I ever heard of this place was in that road trip bible, Roadside America, whose description and photos piqued my interest. It wasn't until I moved to Chicago--well within striking distance of this roadside must-see--that I enticed Jeff to come with me to take a look-see. And what a look-see it was!
Since then, we've returned a number of time to bask in its splendiferous oddity. I initiated pals Barb and Beth to its charms, and a few years later they brought their honeys, Charlie and Cortney, to experience the wonder.
So now, without further ado, let the tour begin!
The first thing you notice upon entering the property are a number of strange, bulbous planters, decorated with crazy snakes and lizards. These set the tone on the trek from your car to the lobby of the attraction. There, hints in the washrooms give you more of an idea of what you're in for. I don't know what is in the men's room, but the ladies' room is watched over by THIS tableau:
Dolls. Creepy, dead-eyed dolls. I'm not saying there are dolls EVERYWHERE on the tour. But they are a recurring theme...as you will see.
The sequence of the tour has been altered recently, so, unlike our previous trips, this one began with the Infinity Room. To get there, you have to trudge up a walkway that hugs the rock on which the house is built (hence, the name of the attraction).
This walkway affords a bird's-eye view of the construction that's currently underway--construction that includes a Japanese garden,
a new entrance complex and visitor center, and the like. As the founder of the feast (so to speak) has been dead lo, these many years, I'm not sure if there are any plans to add to the displays (although I wouldn't be surprised if the guy left several warehouses of collections behind that have yet to be catalogued).
At any rate, the walkway leads to the Infinity Room (photo courtesy House on the Rock):
Yes, indeed. The Infinity Room hangs out over Wisconsin's Wyoming Valley with nothing but Alex Jordan's engineering prowess to keep it up there. The view is lovely, especially at this time of year.
But if you are just a bit acrophobic, you probably want to stay near the entrance to the room. It's quite the thrill ride on a windy day!
From there, the tour proceeds to the house itself--the original attraction.
Alex Jordan, as the story goes, went to Frank Lloyd Wright (whose Taliesin is located only a few miles from HOTR) to ask if he could study architecture under him. Wright's apocryphal response: "I wouldn't hire you to design an outhouse!" So Alex decided to show him! He constructed an Asian-themed house atop a chimney of rock overlooking the rolling landscape of southwestern Wisconsin. In the early sixties, curious passersby began to inquire about the place. Could they see inside? Eventually, Alex started to charge admission so that the lookey-loos could gape their fill, and an attraction was born.
The house itself is a combination of the ridiculous and the absurd.
On the one hand, it has ugly plush pile on the built-in sofas and conversation pits--most of which would be right at home in a swingin' bachelor pad/makeout den of the period. It has shag carpet on the walls, throughout. And yet, it also has very cool touches, such as the layers of thick, tempered glass stacked here to form the wall of the room above. The glass edges are broken off irregularly, and some of the sheets extend out into the room to form shelves. It is a cool effect--one I wish I could figure a way to incorporate into our old condo...
As you can see, it's all pretty dark. That adds to the ambience of the place, I guess, but it also hides the fact that things there don't seem to be dusted all that often... But then, I think that having to dust the place might actually result in madness.
Also adding to the bachelor pad ambience is the mechanical chamber orchestra that plays Ravel's "Bolero" over and over and over again. (Beth, Barb, Charlie, and Cortney: It is with a heavy heart that I must break this to you: with the newly configured tour route, one is no longer able to hear "Bolero" past the "Gate House" section; no longer can one march in step with the music on one's way to the next part of the tour.)
One of the things I love about the original house is that it has some really, really lovely glass lighting fixtures in the Tiffany style, some of which are purported to be actual Tiffanies. This is my favorite:
Lest you think this is the extent of House on the Rock, I have to inform you that you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Next post.
Since then, we've returned a number of time to bask in its splendiferous oddity. I initiated pals Barb and Beth to its charms, and a few years later they brought their honeys, Charlie and Cortney, to experience the wonder.
So now, without further ado, let the tour begin!
The first thing you notice upon entering the property are a number of strange, bulbous planters, decorated with crazy snakes and lizards. These set the tone on the trek from your car to the lobby of the attraction. There, hints in the washrooms give you more of an idea of what you're in for. I don't know what is in the men's room, but the ladies' room is watched over by THIS tableau:
Dolls. Creepy, dead-eyed dolls. I'm not saying there are dolls EVERYWHERE on the tour. But they are a recurring theme...as you will see.
The sequence of the tour has been altered recently, so, unlike our previous trips, this one began with the Infinity Room. To get there, you have to trudge up a walkway that hugs the rock on which the house is built (hence, the name of the attraction).
This walkway affords a bird's-eye view of the construction that's currently underway--construction that includes a Japanese garden,
a new entrance complex and visitor center, and the like. As the founder of the feast (so to speak) has been dead lo, these many years, I'm not sure if there are any plans to add to the displays (although I wouldn't be surprised if the guy left several warehouses of collections behind that have yet to be catalogued).
At any rate, the walkway leads to the Infinity Room (photo courtesy House on the Rock):
Yes, indeed. The Infinity Room hangs out over Wisconsin's Wyoming Valley with nothing but Alex Jordan's engineering prowess to keep it up there. The view is lovely, especially at this time of year.
But if you are just a bit acrophobic, you probably want to stay near the entrance to the room. It's quite the thrill ride on a windy day!
From there, the tour proceeds to the house itself--the original attraction.
Alex Jordan, as the story goes, went to Frank Lloyd Wright (whose Taliesin is located only a few miles from HOTR) to ask if he could study architecture under him. Wright's apocryphal response: "I wouldn't hire you to design an outhouse!" So Alex decided to show him! He constructed an Asian-themed house atop a chimney of rock overlooking the rolling landscape of southwestern Wisconsin. In the early sixties, curious passersby began to inquire about the place. Could they see inside? Eventually, Alex started to charge admission so that the lookey-loos could gape their fill, and an attraction was born.
The house itself is a combination of the ridiculous and the absurd.
On the one hand, it has ugly plush pile on the built-in sofas and conversation pits--most of which would be right at home in a swingin' bachelor pad/makeout den of the period. It has shag carpet on the walls, throughout. And yet, it also has very cool touches, such as the layers of thick, tempered glass stacked here to form the wall of the room above. The glass edges are broken off irregularly, and some of the sheets extend out into the room to form shelves. It is a cool effect--one I wish I could figure a way to incorporate into our old condo...
As you can see, it's all pretty dark. That adds to the ambience of the place, I guess, but it also hides the fact that things there don't seem to be dusted all that often... But then, I think that having to dust the place might actually result in madness.
Also adding to the bachelor pad ambience is the mechanical chamber orchestra that plays Ravel's "Bolero" over and over and over again. (Beth, Barb, Charlie, and Cortney: It is with a heavy heart that I must break this to you: with the newly configured tour route, one is no longer able to hear "Bolero" past the "Gate House" section; no longer can one march in step with the music on one's way to the next part of the tour.)
One of the things I love about the original house is that it has some really, really lovely glass lighting fixtures in the Tiffany style, some of which are purported to be actual Tiffanies. This is my favorite:
Lest you think this is the extent of House on the Rock, I have to inform you that you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Next post.
Labels: House on the Rock, makeout dens, roadside attractions, skeery dolls, Wisconsin
posted by Cathy VanPatten at 2:00 PM
3 Comments:
I love your posts about the places you visit! You make everything look so fun and fascinating.
But there is NO WAY I'd go into that death room overhanging a cliff. I just wouldn't!
Heh! You can't really tell what it looks like from the outside when you're on the inside. That Alex Jordan guy wanted to make it all glass, top to bottom, but the locals wouldn't give him a permit for that, so it has a solid floor. There's one place, if you go out as far as you are allowed to go, where you can see through a window in the floor to the forest below. You can see a guy in the picture, looking through that floor/window.
As I said, if you don't do heights well, it's best just to stand in the doorway!
do you know why the infinity room was built?
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