House on the Rock

For the parable of Jesus, see Parable of the Wise and the Foolish Builders.
House on the Rock
Location of the House on the Rock within Wisconsin
General information
Architectural style Modernism
Town or city Iowa County, Wisconsin
Country United States
Coordinates 43°06′00″N 90°08′10″W / 43.10000°N 90.13611°W / 43.10000; -90.13611
Construction started 1945[1]
Completed 1959[2]
Design and construction
Architect Alex Jordan, Jr.
Website
www.thehouseontherock.com

The House on the Rock is a tourist attraction located between the cities of Dodgeville and Spring Green, Wisconsin. Opened in 1959,[2] it is a complex of architecturally unique rooms, streets, gardens, and shops designed by Alex Jordan, Jr..

Background

Both of Jordan's biographers[2][3] relate a story told by Sid Boyum,[4] which places the inspiration for the house in a meeting between Alex Jordan, Jr. and Frank Lloyd Wright, at some unspecified time between 1914 and 1923. Jordan Sr. drove with Boyum to Taliesin to show Wright the plans for a building, the Villa Maria in Madison.[5] 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."[6] 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."[7]

The House's "Infinity Room" is visible from an overlook off of Highway 23, almost a mile (1.6 km) away

The House on the Rock's website has posted information questioning the legitimacy of Boyum's story for the following reasons:[8]

The legitimacy of this story is also questioned in the biography of Alex Jordan written by Tom Kupsh[11] Tom Kupsh's book lists many of the same reasons as The House on the Rock website and also states that "The first agreement (an extended lease) with the Christianson family, who owned Deershelter Rock, was made some 30 years later in 1953 and no sign appeared at the road entrance until The House on the Rock opened to the public in 1960."

Layout and attractions

The "house" itself is atop Deer Shelter Rock, a column of rock approximately 60 feet (18 m), 70 feet (21 m) by 200 feet (61 m) on the top, which stands in a forest nearby.[12] 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-foot model (61 m) 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",[13] 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. According to a likely apocryphal story, 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:

Though most people outside of the Midwest have never heard of it, the House on the Rock is said to draw more visitors every year than any other spot in Wisconsin. Also in the Wyoming Valley, but on top of a huge monolith, the House on the Rock reveals the spirit of its builder, Alex Jordan Jr., to be as single-minded and eccentric as Wright's, but in substance almost absurdly opposed.

... And it is hard not to be overwhelmed by the House on the Rock. The sheer abundance of objects is impressive, and the warmth most of the objects exude, the way that the toys ask to be played with, for example, makes the displays inherently inviting. But almost from the beginning, it is too much. The house itself is dusty. Windowpanes are cracked. Books are water damaged. The collections seem disordered, not curated. In fact, there is no effort to explore the objects as cultural artifacts, or to use them to educate the passing hordes. If there were informative cards, it would be impossible to read them in the dark. Everything is simply massed together, and Alex Jordan comes to seem like the manifestation of pure American acquisitiveness, and acquisitiveness of a strangely boyish kind, as if he had finalized all his desires in childhood and never grown into any others.[12]

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:

While the Regina Sublima [music box] is a real antique, as are many other pieces and exhibits at the House, everyone knows that other pieces are re-creations designed and built on the House property. It's part of the fun—guessing what's real at the House and what is the magic of imagination and re-creation.[14]

Much of the House's contents were built by Jordan and his associates. Balousek quotes Jordan associate Bob Searles as saying

We were creating entertainment. We were not making a historically accurate representation. There was never any need to worry about historical accuracy. We were creating a fun place.[15]

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."[16]

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.[17]

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.[18]

Today, the nature of the exhibits is disclosed, though perhaps not emphasized, by the management; for example, the current website notes, "All the armor featured in this elaborate collection was made for The House on the Rock".[19] 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."[20]

Timeline

In other media

References

Notes
  1. 1 2 Balousek 1989, p. 60–62; Moe 1991, p. 25
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Balousek, Marv (1990). House of Alex: A true story of architecture and art; greed, deception and blackmail. Oregon, Wisconsin: Waubesa Press. ISBN 1-878569-06-6. (Waubesa Press is a subsidy imprint). Balousek describes himself as "a reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison since 1981", and the book is said to be based on three months of research which led to a four-part series published in the Wisconsin State Journal. According to Balousek: "[My book is] an unauthorized biography, [which has] not been sanctioned by the new owner of The House on the Rock, nor by those closest to Alex Jordan. Jennie Olson, his companion of 50 years, declined to be interviewed; so did Don Martin, who helped build every exhibit." (p. 182)
  3. ↑ Moe 1991; The spine gives "The House on the Rock" as the publisher's imprint. The back cover bears the House on the Rock corporate logo and the legend "The Authorized Biography". The author is described as a "magazine journalist" and "associate editor of Madison Magazine". Moe had access to and quotes Jennie Olson, Don Martin, and others not accessible to Balousek.
  4. ↑ Boyum was "Jordan's closest friend. .. [for] 60 years" Balousek 1990, p. 34. Balousek notes that Boyum "enjoys telling a good tale, whether it's true or not" and says the Burlington Liars' Club declared him World Champion Liar in 1976. According to Moe, Boyum said that he "decided to make a legend out of [Alex]" and wrote the copy for early brochures, which stretched the truth on many matters.
  5. 1 2 The building exists today, at 615 Howard Place, Madison, Wisconsin, and is being renovated: Lisa Schuetzin (2006-01-16). "Villa Maria Regains Some Of Its Classic Shine: New Owner Tries To Recapture The Building's Original Beauty In The Single-tenant Units.". Wisconsin State Journal. Retrieved 2006-10-17., which says: "Architect Frank Riley designed the Spanish Colonial revival building for Jordan. ... Its walls are stucco, broken up by irregularly spaced and sized windows. Dormer windows line the top of the structure. A large front terrace is surrounded by iron grillwork and the roof, which was originally covered with red tile as shown in a postcard from about 1950, is now shingled." The stucco was originally pink.
  6. ↑ Balousek 1990, p. 58; Moe 1991, p. 21 gives a virtually identical account, with Wright quoted as saying: "I wouldn't hire you to design a cheese case for me, or a chicken coop," and Jordan Sr. as saying: "I'm going to get even with him. I'm going to build a Japanese house out there."
  7. ↑ Balousek 1990, p. 58
  8. ↑ "Did Alex Jordan Build The House on the Rock to Spite Frank Lloyd Wright?" (PDF) (Press release). The House on the Rock. Retrieved 2014-06-12.
  9. ↑ Rajer, Anton; Host-Jablonski, Lou (Fall 1999). "Sid Boyum's Sculpture". The Journal of the Folk Art Society of America. 12 (4). Retrieved 2014-06-12.
  10. ↑ Karen Severns, a founding trustee of WAAJ and the writer-director of Magnificent Obsession: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Buildings and Legacy in Japan. "Frank Lloyd Wright – Wright in Japan". Retrieved 2011-06-08. "Finally, after years of project delays and several trans-Pacific crossings, Wright took up temporary residence in Tokyo in January 1917. Over the six tumultuous years he lived off and on in Tokyo, Wright poured his prodigious creativity into the Imperial Hotel project. It would remain, as the many decades of his career passed, his largest and most complex design."
  11. ↑ page 29-30 Never Enough The Creative Life of Alex Jordan written by Tom Kupsh
  12. 1 2 Jane Smiley (1993-03-19). "Wisconsin: Three Visions Attained". The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-09-13.
  13. ↑ "The Attraction". The House on the Rock. Retrieved 2008-04-25.
  14. ↑ Moe 1991, p. 106
  15. ↑ Balousek 1990, p. 91
  16. ↑ Balousek 1990: "Phelps car," "fabricate any antiques," p. 92; "laugh about the way he fooled everyone," p. 93
  17. ↑ Balousek 1990, pp. 103–4: antiques disclosed as fake
  18. 1 2 Moe 1991, p. 103
  19. ↑ "House on the Rock: Attraction". The House on the Rock. Archived from the original on 2006-09-01. Retrieved 2006-10-18.
  20. ↑ The House on the Rock, 1993, "Photography and factual data supplied by The House on the Rock executive staff.
  21. ↑ Balousek 1990, p. 58; Moe 1991, p. 21
  22. ↑ Moe 1991, p. 36
  23. ↑ Balousek 1989 p. 76
  24. ↑ Moe 1991, pp. 78–81
  25. ↑ Moe 1991, p. 86
  26. ↑ Moe 1991, p. 112
  27. ↑ Moe 1991, p. 30
Bibliography
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Coordinates: 43°06′00″N 90°08′10″W / 43.1°N 90.136°W / 43.1; -90.136

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