I remember going there a few times as a kid, but it’s been probably 10 years since I’ve been back. I’d really like to make the trek again, perhaps this summer.
Any dopers care to share experiences or impressions?
A bit of info: here
Take a camera and make sure you have at least four to six hours available. Have some extra cash to buy token to play the musical instruments.
Go on a good weather day. The Infinity Room is awesome. Are you afraid of heights?
Allow the child in you to come forth. It will enhance the experience. At the same time, don’t take the kids. It really isn’t a site for them.
Go during the week. It’s less crowded. That way you can take your time and not feel rushed.
Pay attention to the details. There are quite a few hidden gems all along the walk.
The description of the place sounds a lot like the landscape of Zork I.
Hmmm.
I visited there in 2003, and loved it. The House is absolutely amazing, and much more interesting than your average corporate theme park. Just be sure to wear comfortable shoes and bring lots of film. Kids will probably get tired and bored, so better to leave them at home. But be sure to set several hours aside for the entire experience–the tour is self-directed, and there’s so much to see that’s worth lingering on.
it’s a long day. i was thera about 10 years ago and it must be bigger by now. there’s a little cafe halfway thru, stop there–you’ll need it. It’s nice in the summer, nice area. Not much else around out there except for FrankLloydWrights house.
Probably visited it half a dozen times in the 70s and early 80s.
These, of course, were all when I was a very young child. The parents kept dragging us there, year after year.
To this day, I have only the most vague memories of it. Most of which involve being incredibly bored.
I suspect I would enjoy it more today.
Pretty cool experience. I second the suggestion to take an entire afternoon–when I did it we only had two hours and we were incredibly rushed.
Qadgop, I, and the rest of the family went a few years ago. We hated it. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that we’d just toured the local Frank Lloyd Wright stuff and were spoiled by all the understated, tasteful architecture.
My husband and I went through there not that long ago, and we had fun rushing through it. It’s basically a gigantic collection of kitsch, and some of it is pretty neat, while some is dull. After I remarked that it’d be a great setting for a horror movie, we had fun making jokes about it.
And definitely, don’t go to Taliesin (Wright’s school/studio) before going here. It cannot be overemphasized how kitschy this place is.
I was there a few years ago, when visiting a friend in the Chicago area. The House itself was pretty cool (if a bit musty smelling). I wondered what it would’ve been like to be a weekend guest there when the house was newly built.
Some of the displays felt deliberately contrived for their wackiness (I remember one with lots of mannikens on a merry-go-round, for example), but others, particularly the Victorian collections, were genuinely odd and fascinating.
Yes, get plenty of tokens for the musical machines.
I went back in March for the first time. It was quite the mindscramble. I didn’t feel “right” for about a week afterwards. There was sooooooo much to look at and trying to make sense of it only made it worse. You’ll come along things like 100s of naked mannequins hanging from the ceiling with wings attached to their backs. Why? I don’t know.
It’s a self guided tour and while there are exits along the route, you can’t help but feel a little panicked that you’ll never get out. The organ room is particularly special in this aspect as it’s a windowless room with catwalks all over the place and this room precedes a world of miniature circuses, and then dolls (IIRC).
There’s also the knock-off Santa Bear collection, the 200’ whale sculpture, the Infinity room, the haunting music players, the dark Victorian street (which would be a great place for Lemony Snicket and the orphans), and the ginormous carousel.
Bring walking shoes.
Here’s the official website too.
That’s a really accurate description, now that you mention it. It’s a surreal place, that’s for sure, and certain people might find the entire tour unsettling or creepy.
Neil Gaiman wrote about the House on the Rock in his novel American Gods, which is where I first heard of it. The entire thing sounded so bizarre that I thought for sure he made it up for the book, one more dreamlike setting from the writer of Sandman. When a friend up there told me it WAS real and she HAD been and we SHOULD go, I jumped at the opportunity.
I grew up about 30 miles from the House on the Rock but I’ve never been there. The people I know that have seen it are split between “It’s amazing, you need to see it!” and “Good God, don’t ever go there!” I suppose sometime I’ll go and make up my own mind but so far I’ve been too scared to go myself. The closest I have been to it was standing on the ledge on the pedestrian bridge near the entrance to the HOTR and photographing antique cars coming up the hill on Highway 23.
I’ve been as far as the ticket booth.
But the lobby had enough junk in it for years. And it was expensive. And we’d just come from Taliesin. So we decided that if I really wanted to spend a day looking at a collection of junk, I should visit my grandmother…
The last time I was there (about 3 years ago) we got there just as they opened at 8:00. We were among a very few people there at that time. It was amazing, we could spend as much time as we wanted at any part, and not get swept along with a crowd.
OTOH, watching other peoples reactions as they tour through is a lot of fun, too.
Second the notion about planning enough time to properly see everything. I’d say 4 hours is a bare minimum.
I think that This link summarizes the place fairly well.
As elfbabe said, it didn’t appeal to the Mercotan family. I would contemplate going back in order to show the place to a few select friends, just to see if their heads would explode. Otherwise, we’ll give the place a wide berth.
I’ve been twice and I enjoyed the experience both times. Living in Madison, one of the focal points of FLW mania and home of AFAIK the last building he designed (the Monona Terrace which I used to think was about the ugliest thing in town, then they built the Overture Center), I’m happy to know there’s an anti-FLW house that’s probably more popular than any of FLW’s haunts (and HoTR doesn’t burst into flames every couple of years the way Taleisin seems to).
Didn’t Frank Lloyd Wright tell Alex Jordan (the House on the Rock architect and founder) that he had no future as an architect, or no talent, or something comparable?
From the link in my post, above.
FLW may have gotten a few things wrong in the hundreds of places he designed, but HOTR revels in such a degree of concentrated kitsch in one small geographic space that for me at least, it defies assimilation or appreciation.
I though the House itself (as opposed to the miles of collection rooms that follow) was actually quite cool and very stylish, at least in a '60s/'70s sort of way. Not timeless like FLW’s works, but not to be dismissed as kitschy ephemera. Is my taste radar really off-base here?