Life at the Leingangs': Madison, Wisconsin Day Two

The night before we left we went out to ice cream with a group from our summer study on The Chosen. When they heard we were going to Madison, Connie and Ginger said we had to go to a place called The House on the Rock. I hadn't heard of it in my research but a quick Google search told me it was going to be on our itinerary.

We had no idea what to expect and to be honest, I'm not sure anything can really prepare you for this place. It is the most unique place we've ever been. Every room you walked into evoked a "Wow", like a "Wow, I didn't think it could get any crazier and then it did" kind of Wow! It's even more crazy to think that renowned architect, Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin estate is just a few minutes down the road.

Taliesin and the school Wright designed just down the road

I can't help but wonder what Wright thought when Alex Jordan started building his "estate" in 1945...

I took pictures of postcards because you can not view the house or Infinity Room from the estate because of the trees

Alex Jordan, a man from "old money" purchased the property and began to build his house on a huge rock in 1945. The experience begins right away in the Welcome Center where even the bathrooms have themes. It then moves to the Alex Jordan Center where you learn all about the mastermind behind it all...

I wouldn't even guess how many of these dragon urns are on the grounds!

The Asian Garden

The original 14 room house is built atop the 60-foot Deer Shelter Rock and is about 5,000 square feet. It also includes the 218-foot Infinity Room, a horizontal spire that extends unsupported over the forest floor. The original house is amazing and literally the house I dream about with hidey-hole rooms with fireplaces and staircases everywhere!

There are screen in some of the windows so you can feel the breeze as you walk above the treetops

But it really just snowballed from there and now sprawls over 3 square miles!

It is a eclectic and sometimes bizarre mix of gigantic collections and rooms, and as you can see from the pictures, is very dark.

The Mill House...

This beautiful wall of glass is in the men's restroom

Streets of Yesterday (A recreation of an early 20th century American town) I felt it was like Main Street in Disneyland if it were underground and haunted...

There's nothing to make you say "Wow!" like a 3 story 200-foot long fanged blue whale devouring a row boat while being attacked by a giant octopus! Heritage of the Sea...

When you make it to the third story of displays, you can look directly into the whale's mouth!

Tribute to Nostalgia...

Music of Yesterday is mostly videos of the various rooms full of automated musical instruments, operated by inserting tokens. Some instruments play, while others are synthesized... (I only have one actual picture)

The Carousel Room. You can't ride it but I'm not sure I'd want to. The carousel itself has 269 animals (none are horses), 20,000 lights and 182 chandeliers. But what makes the room truly strange is the fact that all of the walls and ceiling are also covered in carousel animals. The animals in the room are valued at over $4.8 million!

It's really hard to get a picture with all those lights!

And just when you think it can't get weirder, you get to Section 3...

The Organ Room. It was reported by one of the employees that this was Jordan's favorite room and he intended to build his office inside the giant chandelier and watch visitors from the center of the room...

The Doll Carousel Room. I didn't get a picture of the giant cannon in this room but apparently Alex believed people would be disturbed by this and included not one, but two, giant carousels filled with dolls. And somehow he didn't think that would be even more disturbing???