The House on the Rock
The House on the Rock is a tourist attraction located between the cities of Dodgeville and Spring Green, Wisconsin. Opened in 1959, it is a complex of architecturally distinct rooms, streets, gardens, and shops designed by Alex Jordan Jr.
Giant sea monsters. Demons. At least one severed head. Dozens of full-color statues of bare-breasted young women. Countless models of full, tiny, 3-ring circus set-ups. Numerous collections of ..... anything you could imagine, and many things you would never even think of imagining.
House on the Rock is unlike any other house in the world -- unless you consider a "funhouse" a house. House on the Rock was the mad vision of Alex Jordan Jr., a recluse who turned his home into America's largest, strangest, indoor sideshow.
Some believe it was originally built as a spite house to taunt famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who lived only ten minutes away in his Taliesin home, but no one really knows what motivated Jordan. We're willing to accept his vague explanation that "one thing just sort of led to another."
The House lures unwary Taliesin fans with its bucolic setting and nature-friendly exterior. The first few hundred feet of its self-guided tour seem almost normal.... a shamble past dim rooms and big fireplaces lit by stained glass lamps. There's oriental art, low ceilings, and carpeting on everything.
Then you reach the Infinity Room, a unique room hundreds of feet long, which eventually tapers to a knife's point 15 stories over a forest floor. and you think to yourself "That's weird!!!" -- but then, it only gets weirder from there.
The interior of the House is dark; completely cut off from the outside world. And it's huge: a series of vast rooms filled with eerie collections and strange machines. The "Ultimate Experience" tour -- which I HIGHLY recommend -- takes at least three hours of continuous walking: up, down, back, forth, following a serpentine path with no apparent end. But to REALLY enjoy this experience, I'd recommend at least a two-day visit to allow yourself time to take in all the extraordinary exhibits and views that are sure to leave you in awe with your jaw hanging open.
There's really too much information to go into here so, if you're even remotely intrigued by what you've read so far, I'd HIGHLY recommend visiting their website for more information at: https://www.thehouseontherock.com/about/. You can also view the photo gallery of this cache to see just a tiny sampling of photos that I took when I visited the House in 2014.
Information for this cache description has been partially gathered from the following sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_on_the_Rock
https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2254
The Cache/Hide
This geocache has been hidden as part of a group of geocaches hidden for the "MiGO Winter Social 2020" event (GC8D63G). The cache itself is pretty straightforward, a regular-sized container hidden in a typical fashion. I've added 2 parking waypoints, so choose your parking area and enjoy hiking the trails of the Asylum Lake Preserve. As always, please be mindful of muggles that might be nearby.