House on the Rock
Encyclopedia
The House on the Rock, originally opened in 1959, is a complex of architecturally unique rooms, streets, gardens and shops designed by Alex Jordan, Jr.
It is located north of Dodgeville
, a city in Iowa County, south of Spring Green
, Wisconsin
and is a regional tourist attraction.
relate a story told by Sid Boyum, which places the inspiration for the house in a meeting between Alex Jordan, Jr.
and Frank Lloyd Wright
, at some unspecified time apparently between 1914 and 1923. Jordan Sr. drove with Boyum to Taliesin
to show Wright the plans for a building, the Villa Maria in Madison. Jordan worshipped the famous architect and hoped for his approval. Wright looked at the plans and told Jordan: "I wouldn't hire you to design a cheese crate or a chicken coop. You're not capable." Fuming, on the drive back on Highway 23, Jordan pointed to a spire of rock and told Boyum: "I'm going to put up a Japanese house on one of those pinnacle rocks and advertise it."
Balousek says Wright "apparently didn't forget the incident", noting that Wright "complained publicly to Iowa County officials about the house the Jordans were building" and bought a nearby piece of property, "perhaps as a way to get back at Jordan."
, among other attractions. During the winter, the attraction features a Christmas
theme, with decorations and a large collection of Santa Claus
figures. Many of the bathrooms are decorated with strange objects, including mannequins, flowers, and preserved animals.
The earlier structures, namely the House on the Rock itself, the Gate House, and the Mill House, are reminiscent of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright
, though much less coherently designed than is characteristic of Wright, given its patchwork of external structures and interior spaces. The building actually began partly to spite the master architect, who ran his Taliesin
communal school near Spring Green. These early structures feature exposed stone, low ceilings, dark woodwork, and antiques on display.
Jordan sold the house in 1988 to a friend who continued building on the site, adding to the collections of knick-knacks and exhibits featuring authentic pieces, reproductions, and specially-made examples of everything. The most recent addition is the "Spirit of Aviation", a collection of large model airplanes in a themed room. Another exhibit, the "Transportation Building", is under construction, but visitors can walk through and view the work in progress.
Jane Smiley
wrote this about the complex in 1993:
Much of the House's contents were built by Jordan and his associates. Balousek quotes Jordan associate Bob Searles as saying
The "Phelps Car" in the Streets of Yesterday, for example, was made by Jordan associate Bob Searles from an old carriage and some motorcycle parts. Balousek quotes Searles as saying "We could fabricate any antiques we wanted to—that was the fun of it. It was just one guy's great big sandbox, where he kept building stuff." Balousek says that Jordan sometimes bought bonafide antiques, but "usually preferred a good copy that cost less," and quotes a supplier as saying "I suspect that Jordan would pay more for a good copy than he would for an original, because he could sit in a corner and laugh about the way he fooled everyone."
In 1978 a disgruntled employee complained to the state Justice Department of consumer fraud, saying that these claims were tall tales. The "Tiffany" lamps, for example, were made by the Illinois firm of Bauer and Coble. The name of the Tusk of Ranchipoor was actually a pun on the name of Richard Rahn, a Mazomanie
antiques dealer, who had built many of the fakes: "Rahn is poor." Jordan was enjoined from making false claims, the brochure was rewritten, and misleading signs were removed from the exhibit. However, the exhibits retained their colorful names, allowing visitors to surmise what they wished.
The room-sized assemblages of what appear to be mechanical musical instruments are partly illusion. Some of the instruments actually play, but the strings and woodwinds in particular do not; their sound is actually produced by organ pipes, while the moving instruments fool visitors.
Today, the nature of the exhibits is disclosed, though perhaps not emphasized, by the management; for example, the current website notes that "All the armor featured in this elaborate collection was made for The House on the Rock". This was not always the case. According to Balousek, before 1978 brochures advertised authentic Tiffany lamps, said the Gladiator Calliope dated from 1895, that the Franz Josef
music machine had actually belonged to the Austrian emperor, that the Tusk of Ranchipoor was genuine ivory carved by an "unknown Punjab artisan," and so forth.
The official 1993 brochure says that the house "boasts the largest collection of Bauer and Coble lamps in the world. The management considers them finer and expects them to be more valuable than Tiffany's," and boasts that "The 'Four Seasons' panels are thought to be the only exact replica of the original and very popular Tiffany effort."
Alex Jordan, Jr.
Alexander John Jordan, Jr. was best known as the creator of the House on the Rock, an eccentric architectural and entertainment attraction in Spring Green, Wisconsin....
It is located north of Dodgeville
Dodgeville, Wisconsin
Dodgeville is the most populous city and county seat of Iowa County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 4,698 at the 2010 census, making it the 9th largest city within the Madison metropolitan area. The Greater Dodgeville Area however had a population of 6,529...
, a city in Iowa County, south of Spring Green
Spring Green, Wisconsin
Spring Green is a village in Sauk County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 1,444 at the 2000 census. The village is located within the Town of Spring Green.-Geography:Spring Green is located at ....
, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
and is a regional tourist attraction.
Background
Both of Jordan's biographersrelate a story told by Sid Boyum, which places the inspiration for the house in a meeting between Alex Jordan, Jr.
Alex Jordan, Jr.
Alexander John Jordan, Jr. was best known as the creator of the House on the Rock, an eccentric architectural and entertainment attraction in Spring Green, Wisconsin....
and Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
, at some unspecified time apparently between 1914 and 1923. Jordan Sr. drove with Boyum to Taliesin
Taliesin (studio)
Taliesin , near Spring Green, Wisconsin, was the summer home of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright began the building in 1911 after leaving his first wife, Catherine Tobin, and his Oak Park, Illinois, home and studio in 1909. The impetus behind Wright's departure was his affair with...
to show Wright the plans for a building, the Villa Maria in Madison. Jordan worshipped the famous architect and hoped for his approval. Wright looked at the plans and told Jordan: "I wouldn't hire you to design a cheese crate or a chicken coop. You're not capable." Fuming, on the drive back on Highway 23, Jordan pointed to a spire of rock and told Boyum: "I'm going to put up a Japanese house on one of those pinnacle rocks and advertise it."
Balousek says Wright "apparently didn't forget the incident", noting that Wright "complained publicly to Iowa County officials about the house the Jordans were building" and bought a nearby piece of property, "perhaps as a way to get back at Jordan."
The House on the Rock official website has posted information questioning the legitimacy of Boyum's story for the following reasons:
- The Villa Maria was built in 1923 and designed by well-known architect Frank Riley , not Alex Jordan, Sr.
- Both Sid Boyum and Alex Jordan Jr.Alex Jordan, Jr.Alexander John Jordan, Jr. was best known as the creator of the House on the Rock, an eccentric architectural and entertainment attraction in Spring Green, Wisconsin....
were born in 1914 and would have been less than 9 years old when this story was to have happened. Frank Lloyd WrightFrank Lloyd WrightFrank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
(1867-1959) would have been over 50 years old and unlikely to have known the 9 year old Sid Boyum. - Frank Lloyd Wright was in Japan working on the Imperial HotelImperial Hotel, TokyoThe Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan, was created in the late 1880s at the request of the Japanese aristocracy to cater to the increasing number of western visitors to Japan. The hotel site is located just south of the Imperial Palace grounds, next to the previous location of the Palace moat...
project from 1916-1922 and would not have likely been in Spring Green when this story was to have happened.
Layout and attractions
The "house" itself is atop Deer Shelter Rock, a column of rock approximately 60 feet tall, 70 feet by 200 feet on the top, which stands in a forest nearby. Additions were made to the original structure and other buildings added over the course of several decades. The complex now features "The Streets of Yesterday", a re-creation of an early twentieth century American town; "The Heritage of the Sea", featuring nautical exhibits and a 200-ft model of a fanciful whale-like sea creature; "The Music of Yesterday", a huge collection of automatic music machines; and what the management bills as "the world's largest indoor carousel"House on the Rock Carousel
The carousel at the House on the Rock, located in Spring Green, Wisconsin, is claimed to be "the world's largest indoor carousel". It features 269 carousel animals, none of which are horses. Hundreds of mannequin angels hang from the ceiling. The carousel itself features over 20,000 lights and 182...
, among other attractions. During the winter, the attraction features a Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
theme, with decorations and a large collection of Santa Claus
Santa Claus
Santa Claus is a folklore figure in various cultures who distributes gifts to children, normally on Christmas Eve. Each name is a variation of Saint Nicholas, but refers to Santa Claus...
figures. Many of the bathrooms are decorated with strange objects, including mannequins, flowers, and preserved animals.
The earlier structures, namely the House on the Rock itself, the Gate House, and the Mill House, are reminiscent of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
, though much less coherently designed than is characteristic of Wright, given its patchwork of external structures and interior spaces. The building actually began partly to spite the master architect, who ran his Taliesin
Taliesin (studio)
Taliesin , near Spring Green, Wisconsin, was the summer home of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright began the building in 1911 after leaving his first wife, Catherine Tobin, and his Oak Park, Illinois, home and studio in 1909. The impetus behind Wright's departure was his affair with...
communal school near Spring Green. These early structures feature exposed stone, low ceilings, dark woodwork, and antiques on display.
Jordan sold the house in 1988 to a friend who continued building on the site, adding to the collections of knick-knacks and exhibits featuring authentic pieces, reproductions, and specially-made examples of everything. The most recent addition is the "Spirit of Aviation", a collection of large model airplanes in a themed room. Another exhibit, the "Transportation Building", is under construction, but visitors can walk through and view the work in progress.
Jane Smiley
Jane Smiley
Jane Smiley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist.-Biography:Born in Los Angeles, California, Smiley grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and graduated from John Burroughs School. She obtained an A.B. at Vassar College, then earned an M.F.A. and Ph.D. from the...
wrote this about the complex in 1993:
Authenticity of the collections
Some of the apparent antiques in the House on the Rock are real, but many are not what they seem: depending on one's point of view one could call them fakes, or replicas, or original and imaginative creations in the style of antiques. Moe's authorized biography suggests that the question of authenticity is not a problem, presenting it this way:Much of the House's contents were built by Jordan and his associates. Balousek quotes Jordan associate Bob Searles as saying
The "Phelps Car" in the Streets of Yesterday, for example, was made by Jordan associate Bob Searles from an old carriage and some motorcycle parts. Balousek quotes Searles as saying "We could fabricate any antiques we wanted to—that was the fun of it. It was just one guy's great big sandbox, where he kept building stuff." Balousek says that Jordan sometimes bought bonafide antiques, but "usually preferred a good copy that cost less," and quotes a supplier as saying "I suspect that Jordan would pay more for a good copy than he would for an original, because he could sit in a corner and laugh about the way he fooled everyone."
In 1978 a disgruntled employee complained to the state Justice Department of consumer fraud, saying that these claims were tall tales. The "Tiffany" lamps, for example, were made by the Illinois firm of Bauer and Coble. The name of the Tusk of Ranchipoor was actually a pun on the name of Richard Rahn, a Mazomanie
Mazomanie, Wisconsin
Mazomanie is a village in Dane County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 1,485 at the 2000 census. The village is located within the Town of Mazomanie. It is part of the Madison Metropolitan Statistical Area...
antiques dealer, who had built many of the fakes: "Rahn is poor." Jordan was enjoined from making false claims, the brochure was rewritten, and misleading signs were removed from the exhibit. However, the exhibits retained their colorful names, allowing visitors to surmise what they wished.
The room-sized assemblages of what appear to be mechanical musical instruments are partly illusion. Some of the instruments actually play, but the strings and woodwinds in particular do not; their sound is actually produced by organ pipes, while the moving instruments fool visitors.
Today, the nature of the exhibits is disclosed, though perhaps not emphasized, by the management; for example, the current website notes that "All the armor featured in this elaborate collection was made for The House on the Rock". This was not always the case. According to Balousek, before 1978 brochures advertised authentic Tiffany lamps, said the Gladiator Calliope dated from 1895, that the Franz Josef
Franz Joseph I of Austria
Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...
music machine had actually belonged to the Austrian emperor, that the Tusk of Ranchipoor was genuine ivory carved by an "unknown Punjab artisan," and so forth.
The official 1993 brochure says that the house "boasts the largest collection of Bauer and Coble lamps in the world. The management considers them finer and expects them to be more valuable than Tiffany's," and boasts that "The 'Four Seasons' panels are thought to be the only exact replica of the original and very popular Tiffany effort."
Timeline
- c. 1920 – Alex Jordan Sr. vowed to "put up a Japanese house on one of those pinnacle rocks" to spite Frank Lloyd Wright
- c. 1945 – Alex Jordan Jr. began blasting to form a level foundation at the top of the pinnacle. He talked to the farmer who owned the rock but did not bother to secure formal rights at the time. The first structure on the rock was a simple "tent" (Moe) or a "picnic place with a tarpaper roof" (Balousek)
- 1952 – An electric hoist was installed to aid construction.
- 1959 – Labor Day: Jordan placed a stone marker on Highway 23 and officially opened the house to paying visitors.
- 1962 – Wisconsin Trails magazine published a long article about the house by Howard Mead. The article marked the status of the house as a serious tourist attraction, and drew regional attention to it. State Industrial Commission gave the house its first formal inspection.
- 1968 – the "Mill House" opened, containing "one of the world's largest" fireplaces. It is the first room in the house to emphasize collections of curiosities and antiques, including dolls, guns, and mechanical musical instruments.
- 1971 – "Streets of Yesterday" opened, influenced by techniques devised by Paul Yank for a 1968 "Streets of Old Milwaukee" exhibit at the Milwaukee Public MuseumMilwaukee Public MuseumThe Milwaukee Public Museum is a natural and human history museum located in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. The museum was chartered in 1882 and opened to the public in 1884; it is a not-for-profit organization operated by the Milwaukee Public Museum, Inc. MPM has three floors of exhibits...
. - 1974 – "Music of Yesterday" opened.
- 1981 – Carousel Building and "World's Largest Carousel" opened, on Easter weekend.
- 1985 – The "Infinity Room" was constructed.
In other media
- In 1988, the Wisconsin State JournalWisconsin State JournalThe Wisconsin State Journal is a daily newspaper published in Madison, Wisconsin by Lee Enterprises. The newspaper, the second largest in Wisconsin, is primarily distributed in a 19 county region in south-central Wisconsin...
published a four-part series on "The House on the Rock," which reporter Marv Balousek later expanded into a self-published book entitled House of Alex. According to Balousek, Jordan Sr. hired "drunks and bums" from the Madison street to help blast the rock. Balousek says that according to Sid Boyum these workers were sometimes paid with whiskey and sometimes by check, but that Alex Jordan Jr. destroyed the cancelled checks later to further a myth that he had personally built the house himself. - The House on the Rock also appears in the novel American GodsAmerican GodsAmerican Gods is a Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel by Neil Gaiman. The novel is a blend of Americana, fantasy, and various strands of ancient and modern mythology, all centering on a mysterious and taciturn protagonist, Shadow. It is Gaiman's fourth prose novel, being preceded by Good Omens ,...
by Neil GaimanNeil GaimanNeil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
. In the novel, the house is a portal into the mind of the Gods. In one of the rooms is the world's largest carouselHouse on the Rock CarouselThe carousel at the House on the Rock, located in Spring Green, Wisconsin, is claimed to be "the world's largest indoor carousel". It features 269 carousel animals, none of which are horses. Hundreds of mannequin angels hang from the ceiling. The carousel itself features over 20,000 lights and 182...
, and the main characters ride the carousel's creatures and get transported into the mind of the "All-Father" a.k.a. OdinOdinOdin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
. - The 10,000 Maniacs10,000 Maniacs10,000 Maniacs is a United States-based alternative rock band, which formed in 1981 and continues to be active with various line-ups.-1981–1993:...
music video for "More Than ThisMore Than This (song)-Track listing:CD single#"More Than This " – 3:17#"Clear" - 3:59#"More Than This " - 7:18-Charts:...
" was shot at The House on the Rock in 1997.
External links
- The House on the Rock, official website
- Photos, from a 2005 visitor
- Photos, many photos from the House
- 2004 CBS article (with video)
- House on the Rock Music Machines
- The House That Alex Jordan Built, article in Madison Magazine
- 150+ High resolution pictures from a 2008 visitor