The House on the Rock: Unusual & Interesting Tourist Destinations #3
by www.SixWise.com
In the 1940s, visionary Alex Jordan built a house on top
of a 60-foot chimney of rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Though
he intended to use it as a weekend vacation home, people began
showing up to see the unique structure, and Jordan eventually
started asking for 50-cent donations.
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The House on the Rock sits atop a 60-foot sandstone
formation in Spring Green, Wisconsin.
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Today, visitors can tour the 14-room house that sits atop
the sandstone formation, named Deer Shelter Rock, along with
a 200-acre complex of newly added exhibits and displays.
The House on the Rock
A tour of the house (all tours are self-guided) will take
you up a 375-foot ramp, through a bell gallery, and past waterfalls,
huge fireplaces and walls of rock. The inside of the house
is furnished with oriental art, bronze statues, stained-glass
lamps and rare books.
A highlight of the tour is the Infinity Room, which was added
in 1985 and is made of glass. The room has 3,264 windows and
extends 218 feet out and over the Wyoming Valley. In the Infinity
Room, visitors truly have a bird's-eye view of the land, some
156 feet below.
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The Infinity Room -- made of 3,264 windows -- gives
visitors a bird's-eye view of Wyoming Valley in Wisconsin.
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From the World's Largest Carousel to the Streets of Yesterday
The House on the Rock has grown into much more than the house
itself. The complex has a number of buildings displaying eclectic
collections of:
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Antiques (guns, dolls, mechanical banks, suits of armor)
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Automated music machines and pipe organs
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Paperweights
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Scrimshaw
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Model airplane replicas
Visitors can also tour the Streets of Yesterday, a recreation
of a 19th-century town, the Heritage of the Sea Building,
which has a 200-foot sea creature statue, and the Transportation
Building, which displays various types of transportation,
including a tile car. There's also:
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The world's largest carousel, with 269 carousel animals
(none of which is a horse) and over 20,000 lights.
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The Dollhouse Building, which has more than 250 dollhouses.
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The Circus Building, which has a collection of miniature
circuses that contain over 1 million pieces.
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The Oriental Room, which features carved ivories and
hand-carved cork.
Touring the House on the Rock
If you want to see all that The House on the Rock complex
has to offer -- an excursion that will set you back about
$26.50 per adult (kids 3 and under are free) -- allow from
three to five hours, and be prepared for a lot of walking.
For more information, visit:
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House on the Rock