Just Another Roadside Attraction

In his book, American God's, Neil Gaiman refers to House on the Rock as a roadside attraction. If we consider it to be just another roadside attraction we will at least have to admit to it being one of the biggest. One of the things that seem to demarcate roadside attractions is their tackiness. The House on the Rock may have much of real quality but it definitely does have a level of roadside tackiness.

Even if you have toured House on the Rock in the past it will be sure to have something new that you haven't seen before. This is one roadside attraction that just keeps growing and growing. It is currently housed in 16 buildings, on forty acres, with over two and a half miles of walking to see all of the exhibits.

The complex is on Highway 23 between Spring Green and Dodgeville, Wisconsin. This is Frank Lloyd Wright country and Alex Jordan was supposedly making a statement when he began construction of the original house on the rock. After being dismissed from Wright's School of Architecture at nearby Taliesin he purchased this property in Wyoming Valley.

Jordan's original intent was to build a weekend retreat that would be a parody of a Wright house. His efforts began to attract attention and so many visitors wanted to see the house he was building on the 60 ft rock chimney that he began asking for a fifty-cent donation to see the house.

I first visited House on the Rock in the early 1970s when there was only the House, the Mill House and the Streets of Yesteryear. It was absolutely awesome. I wanted to move in. Curling up on a carpeted window seat overlooking a scenic valley while reading a book plucked from the three-story bookcase in the house sounded like heaven to me.

My next visit was about ten years later. By then there were the music rooms, the Organ room, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. We spent so much time inside this fantasy world we began to get giddy. Around every corner was something even more bizarre and fantastic than before.

Another ten years and another visit found more additions including the famous Carousel Room. As fabulous as it all is it was now becoming just TOO much. I understand more has been added since my last visit. It is reaching a point where it nearly needs to be broken into two tours. Few of us have the stamina to take the four hours of wandering up and down, in and out. Awe begins to give way to jaded responses. Collections begin to seem just overblown collections of stuff. The mind can no longer appreciate any of it.

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