Louis Lee's Rock Garden -- Weird Arizona
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Size: 
(micro)
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I have placed a cache across the street from this incredible house so that fellow cachers will have a reason to see this sight. I am giving all the hints so that the cache can be found quickly so as not to alarm the neighbors. The cache is on public property.
The cache is a camoed pill fob at the base of a bush just on the other side of the street from the house, close to the curb. Park just west of the house on this one-way street. Take a photo, then pretend like you are tying your shoe and retrieve the cache. Watch for passing cars. Please follow the advice of the owners of the house and do not trespass onto the property. Please enjoy from the sidewalk.
Taken from the book -- Weird Arizona, 2007, by Wesley Treat
{Your typical rock garden consists of a few scattered stones, maybe a bed or two of gravel, and a few well-placed plants, all fairly level and unassuming. But this isn’t your typical rock garden.
Louis Lee, the attraction’s gardener, spent literally half a lifetime cultivating the display. He began in 1958, following the completion of an ordinary retaining wall intended simply to level out the front yard. Once that was complete, he set about erecting a series of decorative partitions that grew taller and more complex as the years passed. There was no plan. He just improvised.
We can only guess the number, but let’s say gazillions of rocks, most no bigger than a golf ball, comprise the stupefying maze. For certain projects, Louis might pick up the occasional sack of rocks from the hardware store, but most of it he collected from the surrounding landscape.
What’s more you’d probably have to hire an archaeologist just to inventory all the knickknacks, gimcracks, and bric-a-brac embedded throughout the structure. Bottles, license plates, toys, trophies, and even the occasional toilet seat protrude in every direction; a lot of this came from visitors looking to recycle their unwanted odds and ends. It’s sort of like an everlasting yard sale.
And, oh, the Buddhas! Bald ceramic men everywhere. How many? “I don’t know,” Louis said. “So many. Little ones, big ones. Yeah, all over.” Esther, Louis’ ever-patient wife, said, “He’ll go buy them. We’ve got Buddhas all over, but when we go to San Francisco, he’ll still want to go buy some more.” Teasingly, she added, “I told him we’ve got Buddhas to SELL!”
He and his family purchased their home, near the corner of East McDonald and Fortieth Street, for a reported $40,000, in an area where houses today can go for several million dollars. Yet no residence can compare in value to the imaginative masonry achieved by Louis Lee, which has become a priceless work of folk art and a point of pride for Arizona.
Sadly, Louis Lee passed away July 18, 2006, at the age of ninety-two. He worked on his rock garden up to the last, sweeping leaves and watering plants. In an interview following his death, his oldest son, Errol, credited the unconventional labor of love for his father’s long life. “He had a reason to get up every day,” he said.”}
Additional Hints
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