I can't believe I'd never heard of Wisconsin's House on The Rock until I saw it on a friend's Facebook page today. Although Alex Jordan Jr. had no architectural training he began building the house in 1948. In 1959 it was opened to paying visitors to help defray costs and has evolved into a major tourist attraction, a museum-like collection of antiques, gardens. shops, oddities and replicas and an inn.
"It's been expanded a lot since then, into a sprawling complex of rooms that seem to have been both designed and placed at random. An indoor reproduction of a Victorian main street leads into a maritime museum. A room containing the world's largest carousel (with 269 animals and 20,000 lights) leads into a room based on Dante's Divine Comedy. A room dominated by a multi-story Mikado-themed music machine sits next to a room made to look like the bedroom of a steampunk brothel's madam." - Vice
This video from Atlas Obscura calls it the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American public:
If it weren't so far away I'd head over there right now.
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