This weekend was a delightful adventure the likes of which I haven’t had in a while. I often forget how much there is to do around Madison and the Wisconsin Dells, and after this weekend, I’m not sure I ever had a full understanding of it in the first place. Somehow, we explored a few new places yet left with even more unexplored landmarks we want to return to.
The weekend was built around House on the Rock, which is an unusual home featuring myriad collections and oddities. The website barely gives an idea of what to expect, and honestly, after going there, I’m not sure I could properly prepare an aspiring visitor, either. The experience is truly tough to describe.
It started innocently enough. Visitors start in an entry area that feels like it could be the entrance in a rustic Rocky Mountain lodge. A running water pool is the only unusual feature, and the room contains views of a Japan-inspired garden below. From there, visitors move through the garden and into a central building of the complex.
The “Gate House” building was the first sign of serious oddity. Instruments play themselves in a low-ceilinged, dimly lit, stone-walled kitchen / living room combo. The room feels like something out of a movie – maybe Star Wars, maybe Big Trouble in Little China… It’s tough to place, but it’s the first hint of the otherworldly.
The tour takes us into the eponymous House on the Rock next. Of the exhibits on site, the original house was my favorite attraction. Once again, dim light sets the stage, and the tour takes visitors through a remarkable number of small ups and downs, exploring the nooks and crannies that make up the bizarre home. Running water fills landscaped pools, and tiny staircases lead to impossibly small, cozy or claustrophobic depending on your preference, side rooms that are hard to imagine in practical use. 70s equipment clashes wish Asian decor, and trees seem to grow through the floor and out through the ceiling.
The original house is home of the Infinity Room, a long, unsupported room suspended over a huge dropoff. Windows line every inch of the walls, and the room narrows near the end to give the impression that it extends an infinite distance. I could feel the room sway and shake with my footsteps, and I moved on pretty quickly after getting a photo on the bridge.
So far, so weird. I had no idea how strange things were about to get. The next stop was the Mill House, which started the transition into the deeply surreal. The Mill House serves as an introduction to the facility’s collections, and though immediately interesting, the collections are still recognizable. Strange weapons, interesting vases… still things normal people might acquire.
The next stop was a reproduction of a late 1800s village – allegedly inspired by the Streets of Old Milwaukee exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum. At the end of the street sits a large automaton band that looks something like a musical troupe from the mid 1800s. Another visitor inserted a coin and we watched as the mechanical drummers, trumpeters, etc. played out a tune. The aesthetic reminded me of the Mechanical Turk, or perhaps the video game Bioshock Infinite.
Next up was Heritage of the Sea. I had seen photos online of the whale, but the scale in person was totally shocking. Visitors start on the lowest level, and at this stage it’s hard to understand the scale. A giant kraken, with a six foot diameter eye, wrestles with a whale above. Visitors follow a spiral ramp around the exhibit and the scene comes into view. Model ships and sailing paraphernalia deck the walls. I read that the whale is actually larger than the Statue of Liberty turned on its side.
We had an unusual encounter when approaching the top level- a man in a blue 1900s train conductor uniform told us we couldn’t go any further. It was weirdly ominous in a difficult to explain way- he didn’t offer any explanation, and we turned back and found another way forward.
The next section took us down a ramp into another retro cityscape. Not everything was retro- some items like strangely decorated cars or “humor testers” were just eclectic, and fake shops displayed collections with no labels or descriptions, like cameras and postcards.
The route unexpectedly took us through a pizza shop in route to the Music of Yesteryear- perhaps the first truly disorienting area of the experience. Narrow, low passages led us through dimly lit scenes of automata playing music, with many of them conducting eerie symphonies. It was hard to get a grasp of space or time in this place. Some of the mechanical musicians and decorations were slightly worn and gave “creepy doll” vibes, which I suspect is intentional.
As we approached the next area, the Spirit of Aviation, we were excited- with how big Heritage of the Sea was, we expected an airplane version at the same scale. Spirit of Aviation was just a collection of about 20 newspaper articles with a few dozen model planes above.
After Spirit of Aviation comes the world’s largest carousel. Famously, the carousel features 269 creatures- none of them a horse. Many of the creatures are strange- confusing to look at, and just as you start to understand what you’re looking at, a new wave approaches and begins the process again. The walls are covered with strange oddities, and it’s harder to recognize themes or trends.
Next up was the Organ Room. Frankly, I’m still not sure what the Organ Room was. The Impossible Dream played distantly on what sounded like an organ, but the room itself was red, velvety, almost like a luxury theater. The lighting was dim, feeling a bit like candlelight, and giant machinery and gears defied explanation. I speculated that some of the equipment looked like it might be from a brewery, but I couldn’t say for sure.
At the far end of the Organ Room, we visited a cafeteria with an outdoor path to view the original House on the Rock from the outside. The view was partially obstructed, but sunlight was a welcome departure from our trek into the surreal.
The exhibits greeted us with even more strangeness. After passing the reverse direction through the mysterious Organ Room, we passed a series of unusual exhibits like doll collections, miniature circuses, and miniature wind-up scenes. A few automatic music players showed out of order, robotic players frozen in time.
The second to last exhibit was a collection of ivory art – perhaps a little “normal” for House on the Rock, since this type of exhibit wouldn’t have been out of place at the Field Museum. After that was a collection of medieval weaponry and replica British royalty heirlooms – a strange choice for a Midwest US exhibit.
The path finally wound us back to an outdoor Japanese garden leading to the gift shop.
While leaving, we were shocked to find we had only been at the house for just over two hours. Time passed strangely there, and with all the ups and downs, twists and turns, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that it was triple that. Overall, what an uncanny experience. We weren’t sure we enjoyed ourselves, but we’re glad we went.
I liked the house a lot, but we would have liked to have a little more context in what we were seeing in some of the other spaces. The area was almost like an experiment in immersion- to be in a completely unnatural setting and to lose all connection to the real world. I feel I can better understand some of HP Lovecraft’s reflections on madness, of unsettling places that don’t add up, right angles that don’t form perfect corners…
A lot of the content was objectively cool. The original house was worth the visit, and the scale of Heritage of the Sea blew my mind. I would love to have had a guide or a companion app that could tell me more about what I was seeing, though. Are the collections rare, or just odd? When and how were the musical robots created? What was the Organ Room? I left with more questions than I started with, but perhaps that’s the intended design.
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