The House on the Rock — Attraction in Town of Wyoming

House On The Rock is something of a midwestern tourism rite of passage. If you live or grew up in Wi, IL, IA, or MN, it's kind of inevitable that curiosity will get the better of you and you'll end up here one day. When I was a kid, back in the late 80's / early 90's we saw that signs for it but my parents never took us there.

Last weekend I made up for lost time.

20 - 30 years ago it was just the house, which is something in itself, but today it's the house and several attached buildings displaying the various things that Alex Jordan Jr collected as he amassed his fortune selling tickets to view the house and it is A LOT. HOTR is less of a tourist attraction than a physical manifestation of the off kilter dreams of a very eccentric man.

Let me say up front, if you have trouble walking, this place isn't for you. Claustrophobic? Not for you. Do you find dolls, puppets, clowns, or underground lairs terrifying? Not for you. Is your worst nightmare a maze of endless turns but seemling no end, no way out? Taliesin is beautiful and right down the road.

The entrance is a museum dedicated to the life of Jordan. It's very non judgemental but also lacks any critical view of the man. The same can be said of every employee we talked to. Everyone was VERY nice and, despite the obvious oddness of the surroundings, very positive when answering questions about Jordan. At times I felt like I was talking to someone with a VERY practiced poker face. At other time, like I was talking to cult members. The whole HOTR experience was deeply weird but none of them betrayed any acknowledgement of that.

As we toured the house and exhibits, the gf and I struggled to come up with a phrase that encompassed the experience. We settled on "dank and unsettling". The whole facility, even the very very large open rooms, have a claustrophobic atmosphere. The air is heavy and still and the rooms have a bit of a fun house mirror quality to them which can be a little disorienting.

The house is the first part of the tour. Imagine if Frank Loyd Wright (who was literally a neighbor to this property) and Elvis collaborated on a house, but neither of them ever said no to an idea the other had, and you'll get the vibe. Low, carpeted ceilings, asian artwork, cubic accents, LOTS of books, low lighting, uncomfortably built stairs, very personal, odd bric a brac, culminating in The Infinity Room, an observation deck / optical illusion that juts out over the forest but somehow never gives you a sense of where you are.

Sections 2 ups the ante. Depictions of narrow, gothic carnival alleys, dioramas of Victorian haunts and graveyards, dead eyed antique dolls, and cases full of carved puppets with twisted faces opens into a MASSIVE, vertigo inducing room containing a near life size model of a blue whale battling a kraken to the death. For a token, a mechanical band of sea creatures plays Octopus's Garden. All of this is surrounded by scale models of various ships: military, ocean going, lake cruising, submarines, cargo, etc.

I need to warn you: NOTHING is labeled. Not one doll, puppet, whale, ship, or anything else is given ANY context. No history, no explanation why Jordan collected any particular piece, no nothing. You're just walking through a whole lot of weird stuff, praying none of it follows you home to haunt your dreams.

This opens into what might be the most disturbing part of the whole experience: the food court. If you like the smell of pizza, industrial cleaning products, and a faint whiff of backed up toilet, you'll be in heaven.

Next: The carousel room, which was the highlight of the day for us. Very bright, beautiful, and stocked with nightmare fairy tale animals in place of the usual horses.

The rest of the place is pipe organs, dolls, and circuses. I'll leave it at that.

The gift shop is as anemic as the rest of the place is weird, which makes it weird too.

All in, it's worth a once in your life visit. Sleep well...

To say The House on the Rock is an eclectic collection of kitschy nostalgia housed in a mega warehouse is an understatement. To believe that this place once started out as a shelter on a 60-foot chimney rock that people picnicked on in the early 1900s is an unbelievable testament to the mind of its creator, Alex Jordan. The man once hauled the stone to create the first structure located atop the chimney, now called The Gatehouse, and it was an incredible story of a man devoted to one place throughout his entire life. This place is not merely a home, although according to stories no one ever officially lived there, it hosted many a thrilling party in the 1950s. There are 3 sections to this tourist attraction, and I would plan on spending most of the day there. If you walk at an even moderately pace and whisk your way through, it would still take at least three hours. It is that huge! Section one includes the main "area" of the house, the infinity room, which is built on the rock and juts out over the edge. This house is built on whims and dreams and is tight, narrow, and not for tall-ish people, but very worth seeing. I was warned that the infinity room sways when you get beyond a certain point and was not disappointed. It definitely moves when you get out there! The second and third sections are where things can get crazy. Jordan had an imagination, and he poured the money he made from tours to fuel that creativity. But be warned, this is not a museum of facts, but a trip through Jordan's inspirations. It is collections of things... some real, some fake that are made to look real, and a lot of dust. For example, Jordan was fascinated by musical calliopes and instruments that played themselves, which are paid for throughout the tour using tokens (bring dollar bills). 2 tokens cost a dollar, and if you bring kids, bring lots of change. It is worthwhile to hear the music played in each room, especially the larger ones, but be aware that most of the music is obviously piped in while the instruments go through the motions. You can very clearly see a lack of strings or mechanics broken on them. It is still cool to see, but I think even Alex would have preferred they work on the scale they were intended to. Some things to focus on in a very unfocused collection: the carousel of non-horses... cool, but a bit weird and beautiful with the lights. The streets of yesterday. Reminded me of Streets of Old Milwaukee in the Public Museum if you have ever been there. The orchestra/calliope band in the circus area. The Squid vs. The Whale... surreal tableau fight on a ginormous scale. The organ room is a sight to see with the chandelier and multiple organs, as well as the non-functioning perpetual motion clock, faux tesla coil and several fantasy organs that look like they would have to be played by several people at once. On a side note, I am curious to know more about the carpeting that seems to have come straight from an Austin Powers movie... wall to wall and everywhere, even in the organ room. Kudos to whoever decided to add the Cafe halway through the tour, which is a stroke of genius in capturing your thirst and hunger. Overall, this is a once in a generation visit worthwhile in that you will never unsee what you see, but you may certainly walk away wondering why you saw what you just saw. And no one can answer that except maybe Alex Jordan, but then again,...

We visited during a heat advisory at the end of June and regret the timing deeply. This sprawling, eccentric attraction (bizarrely marketed as a museum) feels like four disjointed experiences rolled into one confusing and exhausting labyrinth. If you do not have full use of your legs, do not come here. It is the least accessible place I have ever been in my life. Even with full mobility, this place is punishing in hot weather. Although the Welcome Center, Alex Jordan Center (closes at 2 PM), Gift Shop, Mill House, and a few scattered areas offer air conditioning, most of the attraction is poorly ventilated with exposed insulation, low light, slippery and uneven floors, and an overwhelming, musty smell. Some fans and mobile AC units were running, but they offered no relief. We felt rushed immediately upon arrival. Each of the three main sections took us about 40 minutes, and we skipped Inspiration Point entirely due to the heat and fatigue. Water stations exist (notably in The Hub and Heritage of the Sea), but they're not clearly marked. This should absolutely be on the map. Many musical automatons were broken or in visible disrepair. You’ll need tokens (1 token = 50¢) to operate the ones that do work. We bought $5 worth (10 tokens) and only used 3. Thankfully, unused tokens can be used in the gift shop. I kept one as a souvenir and bought a magnet as a memento. Token ATMs can be found in the Welcome Center, Heritage of the Sea, the Spirit of Aviation, and the Mill House—but not in the Original House, where they bizarrely force you to walk onto the roof before continuing your visit. Our favorite areas were the Organ Room, the Heritage of the Sea (a multi-level maze of ramps and narrow passages with a massive ship centerpiece), and the Galleries, but even these were hard to enjoy given how uncomfortable the entire experience was. This place felt more like a descent into Dante’s Inferno than a whimsical attraction. There are plenty of trash cans, but shockingly, recycling is mixed with garbage, and the staff in the Gift Shop wouldn’t let guests throw trash away in the large bin behind the counter. Bathrooms were being cleaned at 4:30 PM while many patrons were still using them. AEDs were few and far between, though fire extinguishers were visible. The food situation is also lacking. The Atrium Restaurant closes at 3 PM, and the snack bar at Inspiration Point shuts at 3:30. The Atrium Restaurant serves ice cream and pizza and includes a fortune-telling machine we used for fun, but don’t count on it for real sustenance after mid-afternoon. The Doll Carousel and Carousel Room contain nudity, which was not noted in any signage. There are also numerous religious effigies throughout, particularly in the Organ Room. While there are benches throughout and some novelty in the automatons and collectibles, the overall experience was more physically punishing and logistically frustrating than enjoyable. You’ll get very little historical information, and it’s certainly not a museum in any traditional sense. Also worth noting: the Alex Jordan Center had particularly rude staff, and the Gift Shop doesn’t accept American Express. We spent 30 minutes in the gift shop cooling off and trying to decompress from the experience. In hindsight, we should’ve visited during cooler...