For those who love to read, and especially for the Neil Gaiman fans, you should visit this place as part of the book American Gods takes place here, and it is said to be coming soon on TV and it's said to be the next Game of Thrones.
Where can I start about this place? The only thing I can assure you is that it's not easy to describe and that I stopped counting how many times my jaw dropped. Definitely one of the most visually striking man-made places I've ever been to! It's one of those places where you should go once your life if you need a visual overload.
First, House on the Rock is indeed a house and it's located in Spring Green, WI, but it's also a roadside attraction showcasing a wide range of collections, almost the unimaginable kind. It's important to mention that these collections are custom made for the this place and are make-believe, yet the setting of them as a whole is immense and amazing. Designed by Alex Jordan Jr., we can say that this is fantasy-project house meets collections-of-collections cave (AKA as a cool "Hoarders" episode), and I can almost assure you that by the end of the tour you'll be speechless.
Don't expect to have top-notch customer service at the entrance, at least that was our experience. It will be a self-guided tour through three sections and you will require a minimum of 3 hours to tour around and I recommend to buy the package of all 3 sections ($30) as the sensory load grows exponentially in each section.
Tip: it might get a little scary for little kids, so I'd recommend ages 12 and up.
Section 1
The Gate House explains the life of Alex Jordan, Jr. The Original House has 13 interconnected rooms with beautiful elements of Japanese architecture blended the feeling á la Frank-Lloyd-Wright, and while tit's very beautiful and interesting I'd recommend you to spend not more than 20 minutes here, and check out the Infinity Room, the engineering wonder is 218 feet hanging out in the air and just like the name says it seems to never end and gives you a magnificent view of the Green Spring landscape (seeing the fall colors from here is breathtaking!).
Section 2
Now, here is where things start getting super interesting and your mind will start getting blown away! An immense collection of porcelain dolls and automatic music machines will be in the Mill House and Streets of Yesterday, charming and creepy all at the same time.
The Heritage of the Sea has a sculpture as long as the Statue of Liberty's height. It is a 200-foot whale fighting a squid
Mind blowing!
Music of Yesterday is full of rooms with mechanically operated orchestras, seeming as if they had life of their own. The music goes from classical to oriental.
The Carousel is the world's largest and contains over 200 of handcrafted animal sculptures, which none of them is a horse and it has 20,000 lights and over 100 chandeliers. This part of the tour was something beyond my wildest dreams.
You'll need a little break.
It begins with The Carousel and transitions to the Organ Room which you walk almost in a spiral, up and down through the whole room. By this point, your mind needs a little break at Inspiration's Point where you may take some fresh air outside and enjoy the view of the Infinity Room from below. Going back inside, you'll see multiple galleries with more dolls and circus themed collections, make-believe arsenal from Medieval times and at the end other two carousels, not as big as the main one, yet quite tall and each piece is different from each other.
It's a place hard to describe, yet it gives you a perfect insight of the various worlds humans can create. You may want to add it to your bucket-list on the section of weird and/or fantastical. A place to go at least once in your life!