House on the Rock - An Inspiration for Nightmares

 

The phrase "roadside attraction" somehow has over the years become associated with things like the "World's Largest Ball of Twine," and perhaps the jaded traveler would be inclined to pass on by such remnants of an era where Americans first took to the roads in large numbers. Who stops today to see the Weeki Wachee Mermaids, the Jolly Green Giant, or the World's Largest Fish Statue? Let me be clear: Driving on past Wisconsin's House on the Rock would be a grievous mistake.

Located just over an hour outside of Madison, the House on the Rock sits, well, atop a rock. According to legend, founder Alex Jordan, Jr., fell in love with Deer Shelter Rock and began picnicking atop the 60-foot-tall stone pillar, eventually asking permission from the local farmer--after he'd already begun construction of what would become the original house. Jordan comes across as a combination P. T. Barnum with the reclusive eccentricism of Howard Hughes; he claimed to have built most of the original structure himself with only the assistance of a couple of friends, when more likely his family paid locals, sometimes offering wages in whisky to homeless and out-of-work bums. Legend claims that Jordan built the home after having been spurned by master architect Frank Lloyd Wright (whose home Taliesin is less than 15 minutes away in Spring Green)--a legend almost certainly impossible and spread by Jordan's associate Sid Boyum, as Alex would have been 9 years old at the time and Wright working in Japan. Even House on the Rock staff itself refutes that story, and it's likely a product of Sid Boyum's fabled fibbing (he once won the "World Champion Liar" award).

Regardless of legend and tall tales, the House on the Rock is an amazing testament to eccentricity and kitsch with no small degree of nightmare tossed in. Whether you look at it as a journey through one man's troubled mind, a canvas for his storytelling, or just a collection of moldy, weird junk, it's got to be one of the top roadside attractions in the US and should be on everyone's list to visit.

One of the many lizard-covered urns that make up a recurring theme on the grounds outside House on the Rock

Driving onto the grounds reveals landscaped gardens with a recurring Asian motif, including dragons and lizards capering across large urns that line the roadside and parking lots. Entry tickets run about $30, and the facility opens at 9:00am most of the year. I suggest arriving at opening, as you'll likely have many of the early exhibits to yourself as the crowds don't begin showing up until closer to lunchtime. As the exhibits take a minimum of 2 hours to walk (I spent 5 hours), the last entry is at 3:00pm and the facility closes at 5:00pm (though you can also purchase an evening ticket to visit after 6:30, advertised as a creepier alternative). Your tickets include 4 tokens, and you can purchase more at either the ticket desk or at a few locations throughout the grounds. Tokens, you ask? You'll need them to operate the many automaton dioramas and animated musical displays--you'll probably want to pick up a few more (they're only 25 cents apiece).

Supposedly the House on the Rock sells several levels of ticket, but the Ultimate Experience is the only one to consider. It includes entry to all sections of the grounds. I don't know why anyone would take the original-house-only tour or the version that excludes Section 3 simply to save a couple of bucks.

Section 1: The Asian Garden, Alex Jordan Center, Gate House, Original House, and Infinity Room

Entryway and gardens of the House on the Rock

The grounds are gorgeous, and the gardens themselves worth a few minutes of your visit, particularly if visiting spring through fall. There's both an "Asian Garden" out front, between the welcome center and the Alex Jordan museum, as well as a somewhat-traditional Japanese garden toward the end of the tour. The architecture is reminiscent at times of that of Frank Lloyd Wright, but quickly diverges into a mishmash of styles that would have left the fabled architect aghast. 

I'd describe the property's layout best as a rabbit warren, worst as the minotaur's labyrinth, as passages twist and turn both throughout the individual buildings. Even the original house atop the rock is a collection of rooms flowing one into another, stairs and ramps and halls seemingly wrapping with little rhyme or reason around each other. That's true of the exterior as well, with a series of covered open-air walkways that cross over and beneath each other in places zig-zagging between buildings.

Covered passages that crisscross the property: I'm standing near the original house atop the rock, looking down at the exit from the Carousel Room and parts of the walkway which then wind back up, beneath the bridge to the original house, past the Japanese Garden, and back to the gift shop and ultimately the welcome center again.

The Alex Jordan Center is the first building beyond the welcome center and serves as something of a museum and introduction to the rest of the property, with a bit of history (which one must look at through a huckster's eyes, with a generous grain of salt--though the most hyperbolic claims have been downplayed and corrected since the 80s after legal action!) and samples of many of the sorts of items that can be found throughout the exhibits: Asian sculpture (often personally crafted by Jordan and his workers), carousel animals and busts collected from around the world, automatons (including self-playing musical instruments), imitation Tiffany lamps, and more. Jordan's passport is on display with the claim he only traveled internationally once and only for a 2 day trip--hard to imagine given the breadth of styles and artifacts featured within the home, but apparently true, as he borrowed international styles as he saw them, not necessarily as they actually are. 

The one big difference with the small, curated exhibits in the Alex Jordan Center is the bright light: Most of the remainder of the day will be spent in near-darkness lit only by the exhibits themselves, with the exception of short ventures outdoors.

Exiting the museum leads to the "hub," where the normal first course is the "Gate House," a structure with incredibly low ceilings to have been built by a man who claimed 6'2" in height. It's a tight fit for me at 2 inches taller than that (I had to hunch over passing through the Gate House), but a fitting introduction to the original house to come. From the Gate House, there's a long covered ramp and bridge that leads onward.

Probably the largest single room in the original house features cozy couches arranged around a series of fireplaces

The inside of the original house includes several seating areas furnished in a style somewhere between Austin Powers and a 1960s Sears catalog. I can easily imagine parties of swingers and flowing booze (and possibly not a few acid trips) shared before the structure became the roadside attraction and tourist magnet that it is today.

Again, there are aspects of Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie style architecture on display, including the impressive cantilevered windows and the stone-stacked walls and structures, built to flow around and mirror the natural rock and its environment, though in places those touches approach farce, with fake birch trees "planted" growing through the structure and streams appearing to flow through the roof into some of the rooms.

The "Tiffany" lamps are typically Bauer & Coble imitations--but still look quite nice. Not sure about the mulch and "trees" growing up through the home, though.

Cantilevered windows looking out over the forest below. In most of the original house, the windows are blue stained glass and more atmospheric than functional, but this sitting area offers a real view.

Even this early in the tour through the house, it's clear that Jordan had a love of autonomous musical instruments; there are player pianos and a few other animated instruments in the original house, including one which plays a loop of Ravel's "Bolero" and two other classical pieces, several non-playing baby grand pianos, as well another baby grand which plays around three dozen different tunes.

As you wind through the original house, you'll eventually reach the Infinity Room, a 218-foot-long extension with no exterior supports that extends out over the forest below. It's a neat optical and structural trick even for such an impressively-long structure.

The Infinity Room, albeit apparently experiencing some moisture issues during my visit

After the trip down the Infinity Room and back, it's time to finish up the visit to the original house and return to the hub. The meat of the visit is about to begin with Section 2, which is a series of connected buildings starting at the Mill House. The collections of kitsch and knick-knacks come fast and furious from there on out. 

Section 2: The Mill House, Streets of Yesterday, Heritage of the Sea, Tribute to Nostalgia, Music of Yesterday, and Carousel Room

The Mill House's large, functional waterwheel

Section 2 is easily the largest portion of the tour and will take at least a solid hour or two to explore from start to finish; it also contains several of the biggest draws to the entire House on the Rock property, including scores of musical automatons.

Early in the Mill House is a genuine antique, the 1893 "Regina Sublima" musical automaton--a contrast to the many reproductions and fabrications elsewhere throughout the place. The Mill House feeds into what I call the "Descent into Hell Street" (a callout to author Michael Richan, in whose books I discovered House on the Rock); that is, a descent that eventually leads to the "Streets of Yesterday," which as you'll soon see is a nightmarish midnight version of Disney's Main Street USA. 

The Descent into Hell Street

As a side note, the House on the Rock features in Neil Gaiman's American Gods, which I read back in the early 2000s but apparently never realized represented a real place until I came across it again years later in Richan's paranormal "The River" series. In Richan's books, House on the Rock appears starting in The Haunting of Pitmon House, which went on to be a three-volume standalone trilogy providing backstory for the gifted character Eliza, who prior to moving to the Pacific northwest spent years working at the attraction and discovered the many paranormal surprises and dangers lurking in the collections.

A preview of what is to come: The first "Toy" Shop, loaded with psychotic, possessed dolls waiting for you to turn your back on them and watching with those dead eyes.

Anyway, the "Streets of Yesterday" is a long boulevard lined with idealized turn-of-the-century shops and the residence of local "J. P. Richman." First of all, it's always midnight there--and I don't just mean dark like so much of the rest of the interior of House on the Rock's exhibits. Nope, check out the clocks in the clock shop near the beginning of the street: Almost all show the witching hour, as if they'd struck twelve and frozen there as everyone was sucked through a portal into Hell. 

The Streets of Yesterday look inviting enough... or do they? Where are the citizens and proprietors? Perhaps their souls were stolen away to Hell by the real residents: Legions of cursed dolls!

Take a look inside that first shop. Nope. 

Many people find dolls creepy to the point of terrifying, and horror writers and filmmakers have capitalized on this pediophobia (yes, there's a word for fear of dolls) for thrills and scares alike over the years. The Twilight Zone and its classic episode "Talking Tina" may be one of the earlier manifestations familiar to all of us, but I doubt it was the first and know it certainly was not the last of the genre--though no, I don't count the Chucky franchise, as it's just silly, not scary. 

House on the Rock is absolutely brimming with dolls: Dolls in faux toy shops (two!), dolls in doll houses of all sizes, dolls interspersed with other kitsch, and, most horrifyingly of all, not one but two carousels populated by tier after tier of dolls like Satan's wedding cake. There are so many that there's an entire "Doll Carousel Building" labeled on the map which turns up later in the tour as a sort of treatise to either Jordan's disturbed mind or an honest attempt at portraying something from Dante.

Even the House on the Rock's rather spartan website treatment acknowledges the dolls' sinister nature: When describing their after-hours tours, the site states: "If you have ever wondered if the dolls come alive at night or if you find the displays troubling during the day, wait until you see them in the dark." No, thank you. I'd rather not!

Did I say creepy dolls? How about a crap-ton of creepy, soulless dolls.

Then you've got dolls like the little girl in the green dress riding that deer. It's hard to get a good look at her, almost as if she's hiding and biding her time to strike. She's not the only such doll you'll encounter; the worst of them often seem to lurk...

And if that weren't creepy enough, dolls in a diorama on the wall in a doll shop

You can't enter any of the shops, but looking through the windows reveals an abundant level of detail. The remainder of the shops along the Streets of Yesterday run the gamut of Jordan's vision of turn-of-the-century Americana. During my tour, I noted:

• The aforementioned clock shop and its midnight-struck timepieces
• A barber shop (I kept expecting to see a bloody straight razor hidden somewhere amidst the genie bottles, hair rollers, and wall full of mugs)
• An apothecary chock wall-to-wall with patent nostrums and questionable medical devices, including a chromotherapy projector and a "hair regrowth" device that looks like something kids would redeem cereal box tops for via an ad in a comic book
• A horseless carriage shop
• The Sheriff's office, complete with a cell, some nooses for quick "justice," and eerily, a head in a jar--evidence of a crime, or the victim of a hanging?
• The fire station, complete with an obligatory Dalmatian
• An importer of "fine china" and "statuary" (and of course more creepy dolls)
• A theater (which you'll enter on a different route, later, as the "Music of Yesterday" exhibit--don't worry that it appears roped-off, and if you arrive early, deserted)
• The residence of one J. P. Richman, investor and landed gentry
• A lamp shop, with more of the faux-Tiffany lighting (which can also be seen along the street)
• A wood carver's shop offering toys and nautical figureheads
• The local taxidermist's shop, with a jug band made up of several deceased frogs on display
• A gigantic calliope at the end of the street

There are also several automata scattered throughout the Streets of Yesterday that take a token to operate. They range from a typical carnival fortune telling machine to macabre dioramas which feature things like a dead man in bed which when animated, shows a skeleton emerge from his grandfather clock, a devil enter through the bedroom door, and another skeleton peek up from behind the bed. The calliope at the end of the street of course plays typical carnival-style music and is but a preview of what is to come.

Apothecary and Barber Shop

Potent potables and questionable devices. And googly eyes in a box; what pharmacopeia would be complete without googly eyes?

Not every Sheriff's Office features a head in a jar on the desk...

Keeping time to the witching hour

Fortunes told: "I foresee that you will be murdered by cursed dolls."

Exit the Streets of Yesterday just to the side of the calliope, and you'll soon be on the way to the "Heritage of the Sea," which is a multi-level structure lined with model ships including one of the Titanic, relics of seafaring from the age of sail through World War II (and even a model Soviet nuclear missile sub). The entire exhibit is built around a Brobdingnagian whale devouring a rowboat while itself under attack from a Lovecraftian tentacled sea monster. The whale is larger than the Statue of Liberty at 200 feet in length, and it fills the space in a way that defies getting a single photo encompassing it in whole. The finishing touches weren't completed until after Alex Jordan's death (he passed in 1989; the exhibit opened in 1990); there's a photo of Jordan in the beast's mouth on display in the museum at the start of the tour, which according to the placard is one of the rare occasions he allowed himself to be photographed.

Looking at the sea battle from the middle level

There's another animatronic musical display here, the Octopus' Garden that plays a familiar tune (and is actually mostly in-tune, in contrast to some of the older automatons). But overall, though the whale and sea monster are impressive, the real draw is yet to come. 

It's difficult to capture the scale of the whale and battle with the giant squid/octopus/Cthulu; much like photographing the Reclining Buddha in Thailand, the structure is simply so large compared to the space housing it that even my widest-angle lens can't render the entire scene in one take.

Exit the Heritage of the Sea into a somewhat-forgettable exhibit titled "Tribute to Nostalgia" which looks to be a throwback to 1950s diners era, complete with a neon donut shop sign and displays cabinets filled with toy banks shaped like all manner of trucks and vehicles. There's also the obligatory display of what thankfully are the only collection of marionettes within the facility--these cousins to dolls are perhaps the only thing more frightening than those soulless toys. We've all seen archetypal possession tales, where the marionette exchanges places with a human who becomes trapped with strings making them dance to a demonic master.

There are marionettes, and then there are demon spawn on strings

There's also a tremendous Rube Goldberg machine, but it didn't appear to be functional during my visit. It looked like it could work, but I didn't see anywhere to insert tokens. It includes the expected tropes like an "egg counter" beneath a chicken with two air-actuated boxing gloves positioned to goose the fowl, along with some creepy Santa-esque musicians. There are also a series of classic cars, carriages, and even a hearse on the ground level, and planes and hot air balloons flying overhead, and a camera "store" kiosk featuring hundreds of antiques (and as usual, it's tough to tell how many are authentic).

The highlight of the section for me was the wall of Burma Shave placards. If you don't know Burma Shave, the company advertised via a series of roadside signs with short messages like, "He Saw the Train / And Tried to Duck It / Kicked First / The Gas / And Then the Bucket" planted along American highways and byways. You'd almost think these were some sort of Mad Magazine slogans, but they were a real thing, with most warning drivers to pay attention (ironically via a series of small signs) and be careful lest they become human hamburger splattered across the highway.

Burma Shave placards

There's an ice cream shop in the center of the big hall, but it wasn't open when I visited (maybe it's only open on weekends?) though what appeared to be real ice cream was visible behind the counter. There's also a pizza shop pretty much at the halfway point through the House on the Rock, just beyond the ice cream parlor. It makes for a nice, quick lunch break, and given it's best to start the day right at opening at 9am, you'll be ready for lunch by the time you reach it around 11:00 or 11:30am. Prices are what you'd expect for a tourist trap ($5 for an admittedly generously-sized slice, sodas and waters running around $3), but the overall House on the Rock experience is a bargain honestly. Paying inflated snack bar prices isn't too painful unless you're feeding a family of a dozen ravenous munchkins with no inclination to share. As it's halfway through, the restaurant closes at 3:00pm, since the remainder of the exhibits will take a solid two hours to walk through.

The ticket booth was empty, but I expect a creepy mannequin is usually on duty: "One ticket to enter... no one said anything about a ticket to leave."

On the other side of the atrium restaurant begins the "Music of Yesterday," which is one of the absolute highlights of the visit. Alex Jordan collected and built life-sized automaton musical displays, populated with all manner of strings, pianos, drums, and other instruments that appear "play" themselves. Some do indeed, like the drums and cymbals, whereas the strings are either played through speakers or simulated by organ pipes. Drop in a token and enjoy!

I had walked past the entrance to the Music of Yesterday about halfway through the Streets of Yesterday, where it was cordoned-off with a red velvet rope as if the show wasn't yet open. Like any good visitor to a Barnum-esque attraction, I worried I'd missed out due to maintenance or something, and I kept peering around the rope to try to get a glimpse of something beyond. Never worry; it's all part of the show, and the door from the restaurant leads right into the entrance to the "theatre."

The ticket booth was empty when I visited, as well as in the photos and videos I've scanned through from others' visits, but I recall that Michael Richan's Haunting of Pitmon House mentions a mannequin on duty...  which seems appropriate. The musicians in the cabinets are fairly menacing on their own, but just wait until you progress into the heart of the exhibit!

The Mikado automaton

The next few rooms are dominated by a giallo color palette of deep reds, golds, and a bit of blue, though I'm not sure even the Italian horror film masters would have come up with such a macabre assortment of ghostly musical instruments, mannequins, and eventually, yes, more dolls. There are multiple exhibits which run the gamut from corny ("Yakety Sax" blaring from a red velvet-lined cave titled "Miss Kitty's Boudoir") to formal (the "Blue Room" ready for a spectral waltz) to... well, I don't quite know how to describe either the Mikado Room or the Red Room exhibits.

Miss Kitty's Boudouir, appropriately covered in red velvet cushions

Time for a ghostly waltz in the Blue Room

As you might expect with decades-old musical automata, they're not always exactly in tune or on key (and some may even be out of order on any given day), and the combinations of live percussion and organ pipes mixed with soundtrack string instruments can be a bit disconcerting to outright jarring. But honestly, that's part of the charm. The instruments don't have a huge range of motion, but it's still eerie to see these "unattended" instruments moving and playing, and it's easy to imagine a ghost with fingers on the strings or wielding a drumstick.

There's even a musical hearse which plays "When the Saints Go Marching In," which I didn't notice until reviewing photos later. Somehow, I missed the token slot, and no one else passing through tried it out, either.

Because when you go, you should go in style! This musical hearse must be powered by the souls of those it has transported to hell...

Without further ado, here's a video I took sampling of just a few of the musical automatons along the tour route (not in the order you encounter them, mind you): 

My video doesn't do them justice, honestly, particularly the sound or some of the details, which when I go back one day I'll work hard to better capture. Nor did I include any of the smaller, non-musical (but often far creepier) diorama-style automatons; I wasn't sure how much I needed to pace my token spending. I had 12 on hand, which won't be nearly enough if you're there on a slow day and want to see every display functional--when busier, you can piggy-back and watch when someone else drops a token in a slot--or if you want to catch particular tunes played by some of the larger displays. Many cycle through, like the Mikado Room's 3x tracks ("Danse Macabre," "Harem Bells," and "Ritual Fire Dance") or the Gladiator Calliope's 10 (!) separate tracks. I found a handy reference list of all the tracks and all the automata online, though it's likely somewhat dated--for example, when I visited, most of the machines require only a single token unlike the 2 listed for most of the bigger musical displays.

Just in this section alone, there's the Absinthe House piano (which works through a tremendous length of looping punch-card musical score), the Pontalba Hearse, Miss Kitty's Boudoir, The Peacock 92-key organ and collection of animated accordions, the Blue Room, the Franz Josef (with creepy animatronic figures!), the Mikado Room, the Blue Danube, more player pianos and automatons, and the piece de resistance: The Red Room with its incredibly weird display of spike-mantled angels flying overhead and leaping lions and tigers amidst the animatronic instruments.

The Red Room is ... something else for sure

The Red Room is the last entry in the Music of Yesterday section of the tour and certainly the capstone to the insanity and fever dream that is the series of musical automatons; the next portion is the "Sprit of Aviation," which is essentially a corner with newspapers from the history of aviation and large-scale model aircraft on display. The exhibit went in after Alex Jordan's passing, and honestly, it lacks his special, eccentric touch. Hopefully the curators will expand and enhance it over time, as right now, it's essentially just a waypoint to catch your breath before proceeding onward to the Carousel Room.

The House on the Rock bills its carousel as the largest indoor one in the world, and I don't have any reason not to take their word for it. The display includes 269 carousel animals and busts (none of them horses--there's a zebra, centaurs of both genders, and all manner of mythical creatures, but technically no horses on the carousel itself--dozens to hundreds line the back wall), lit with 182 chandeliers and over 20,000 lights. Word is the platform rides on rollers rather than a central axle, which technically makes it something less than a "real" carousel, but who's counting? Everything at House on the Rock is about appearance, after all.

The World's Largest Indoor Carousel

Sadly, you can't catch a ride on the carousel--it goes around and around indefinitely, fenced off and with a bored-looking attendant watching to ensure no kids or rule-breaking adults attempt to ride. Unless you're Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs, I suppose; the band filmed a video on location and did take a ride. Or the cast of American Gods. 

While I understand not wanting the wear and tear on the animals (many of which are undoubtedly antiques acquired from around the world), I feel like the House on the Rock is missing out on an extra revenue stream: They could sell $25 tickets, limited to a small number per day, and offer the ride during the downtime between closing at 5:00pm and the night shift reopening at 6:30pm. But I suppose a ride wouldn't come with Jason Robards fighting the devil's proxy Mr. Dark on a time-traveling hell carousel; it's not that kind of ride, and something wicked already came calling here.

Operating the carousel must be the lowest job on the totem pole at House on the Rock, handed out like latrine duty, because the room is not only seizure-inducing in its level of lights and motion but the fact that here again, there's a humongous automaton musical instrument playing non-stop, with booming drums and clanging bells. You'd need earplugs or natural deafness to survive a shift watching to snag any kids who try to leap up on and fight centrifugal force long enough to catch a ride on one of the hell beasts endlessly circling 'round and 'round again.

Angels soar in the "sky" above the carousel

There are also dozens (if not hundreds) of mannequins with angel wings and vaguely Greco-Roman dresses (often displaying a wardrobe malfunction or two) and 1970s hairdos filling the "sky" above the carousel. For some reason, I'm reminded of the Led Zeppelin song "The Battle of Evermore" with its "Angels of Avalon" and the fact that the "sky is filled with Good and Bad / that mortals never know." Perhaps they're there to protect the carousel from the demonic forces found everywhere else in the House on the Rock; perhaps they're the forces of evil that fill the sky, though.

Looking up at those angelic figures, you may notice a crosswalk that looks like it would be a better vantage point. No, you don't climb the stairs next to the attendant to reach them. Instead, like so much else of the labyrinthine tour at the House on the Rock, you've got a long way to go before you loop back to cross above the carousel room.

Appropriately enough, exiting the Carousel Room requires passage down a hellmouth

When ready to proceed, the exit is through a hellmouth described as the "Devil's Throat," through a horned beast's mouth and down a long, red hallway to the room beyond. I'm again reminded of Richan's writing, this time his "Dark River" books and a similarly-named throat to reach the most infernal creatures and architects of evil residing in the Dark River... though that's likely just coincidence, I suppose.

Section 3: The Organ Room, Doll Carousel Building, Doll Houses, Circus Room, and Japanese Garden

Proceeding through the Devil's Throat crosses into yet another multi-story, cavernous room filled floor-to-ceiling with walkways and passages: the "Organ Room," which begins Section 3 of the tour. During the more lighthearted Christmas season, the Organ Room and other portions of Section 3 are apparently closed off; perhaps there's simply no way to transform that part of the House on the Rock to a holiday wonderland (unless that holiday is Halloween).

One of the chandeliers in the cavernous Organ Room

Section 3, much like the previous section, requires a good investment of time: plan to spend at least an hour walking through it (and hopefully not an eternity--a distinct possibility if you fall victim to some of the dolls looking for souls to cart off to Hell).

A "modern" organ, vintage 1970

Another organ on display, jugs of distilled harvested souls on the wall behind it

The Organ Room is ostensibly a collection of several organs--none of which function to my knowledge--laid out around more tremendous hardware including five-foot-tall electric motor windings, a series of copper stills and distillery trappings, several large clocks and plenty of exposed clockwork mechanisms, chandeliers, the main drive screw from a large ship, and more statuary, not to mention a dark little town street guarded with cannons. Unlike some of the prior portions of the House on the Rock, there are more opportunities to backtrack or take alternate paths, though there are nonetheless signs pointing the general way forward--just be sure to investigate any side catwalks and passages throughout.

Overall, I got a sense of immense infernal machine, with all the parts connected to the whole. I imagine the massive electrodes and motors generating a rift that punches through to Hell, connecting the room to the Devil's Throat on one end and... well, we'll save the Doll Carousel Building for a bit, but it's fair to label it something right out of Dante. Souls stolen by the doll armies are distilled and bottled for consumption by demonic hordes. The towering red and actinic white chandelier lighting throughout the room only strengthens the feeling of some kind of tremendous evil afoot. I led this entire post with a shot of some of that diabolical machinery; the visuals are some of my favorite in the entire House on the Rock.

"Hollow Dreams" = Nightmares

Distilling the souls of the damned

Infernal clockwork mechanisms and devices

What is that "woman" doing suspended over this clock?

After winding around, up, down, and through the Organ Room once, the path exits at ground level to "Inspiration Point," which appears to be a restaurant either in the process of being built, or else mothballed during the pandemic. There's a commercial kitchen off on one end, along with soda fountains and four beer taps, but none of it in use. It's currently described as a "resting point" and has both indoor and outdoor table seating, along with what appears to be either a fire pit or fountain (non-functional at the moment either way).

The "resting area" of Inspiration Point

Even the restrooms are unique

If you visit any of the restrooms throughout the House on the Rock (and there are plenty at various points--don't worry about having to backtrack or spend hours between them), even those are filled and tricked out with Jordan's eccentric taste. Several of the men's rooms I dropped into had model ships, or as the case at Inspiration Point, a variety of taxidermied woodland creatures situated amidst a décor that can only be described as "sylvan." Other online accounts show the ladies' facilities are similarly eclectic.

Beyond the rest stop, there's a short walk out in the open air that dead-ends at a viewpoint of the Infinity Room where it juts out from the original house far above. I didn't get any great photos, as the trees blocked most of the view, and the skies were white with the rain we'd been getting off and on all morning. My gut is that a stop during the nighttime experience would be worthwhile, assuming that the viewpoint is accessible on the post-6:30pm tour.

Once you've had a dose of fresh air, head back inside to resume the Organ Room experience, which is only a bit over halfway complete at this point in the tour.

Welcome to the Chalet of the Raven, also known as the Main Street of Hell

Back inside, several replica cannons and firearms violate rule number one of gun safety in that they point right at visitors. Of course, chances are none are remotely functional and most are outright fabrications, but it's still disconcerting to stare down the barrel of a cannon and a Gatling gun aimed your way!

Like the prior Streets of Yesterday and Tribute to Nostalgia exhibits, there are several shop windows to peruse, including a bric-a-brac emporium with all the finest millinery and accessories a young witch could want, and another toy store populated with legions of tin soldiers and miniatures (thankfully sans dolls, by and large). 

Cursed antiques and hats, anyone?

The Organ Room continues on and on, and soon winds visitors back up above the ground floor. Along the way, there are different perspectives on the three main organs and much of the strange, diabolical machinery that fills the space.

That carriage will take you straight to Hell when those electrodes light up!

Looks like Luke became a Sith Lord instead of a Jedi

A giant's tankard filled with human blood, no doubt

If you thought the Organ Room was it for the day's creepy factor, then you were terribly wrong. Exiting the Organ Room for a second time delivers you straight into the Doll Carousel Building, where hundreds of dolls caper and ride the infinite circles of Hell in celebration of the souls they've consumed. 

There are two towering carousels piled floor to ceiling with dolls of all shapes and sizes. Amidst the largest tier on the larger of the two, there's even a skeleton in the background, possibly that of a small child who thought she'd have a tea party with all her new doll friends until they revealed themselves for what they truly are.

The top 3-4 tiers of the smaller of the two doll carousels

Soul-thieving hell beasts posing as cuddly children's toys

You'll likely want to escape the doll carousel building as quickly as possible (assuming they let you leave)--or perhaps you're into that kind of thing, in which case, feel free to make yourself at home. You'll also get another pass through the doll carousel building after the next several exhibits, as the path winds back into it after visiting the Circus Room and several display galleries, so it's not like they are going to leave you alone for long.

Unfortunately for the pediophobic, exiting the doll carousel takes you straight into the next circle of Hell: a parade of dollhouses.

The dollhouse interiors are incredibly detailed

There are dozens and dozens of dollhouses, including tall townhomes and sprawling mansions. The level of detail featured in several of the houses is fascinating, and I saw several kids doing their best Veruca Salts and demanding their parents provide them each and every one of the houses. The miniature structures are not laid out in any sort of town plan that I could discern, and by and large, are absent appropriately-scaled dolls inhabiting them, with only a handful of lonely residents evident. Perhaps their larger cousins had to resort to cannibalism during a slow season? What small dolls there are often reside under glass domes, even inside their homes, apparently trapped and conserved for later consumption.

And oh, no, you're not free of the larger dolls even though there are no diminutive residents of the dollhouses. Instead, toddler-sized dolls randomly inhabit the landscape, poised next to dollhouses like the Jolly Green Giant or Godzilla ready to rampage through the town.

"I want to kill you, forever, and ever, and ever!"

The dollhouses continue on with several side exhibits and small galleries before eventually reaching the Circus Room, the last multi-leveled large space in the House on the Rock. It's described as "all things circus," and indeed, there are several sprawling circus displays laid out in miniature within the glassed-in enclosures. Big tops, stands of fans, a lion tamer's cage, trapeze artists, a circus train, and even a circus paddlewheel steamboat, all led off with a life-sized freak show display advertising the "Frog Girl" (fortunately depicted only on a billboard and not via any of the figures displayed).

The main space features a towering automaton marching band and orchestra display, along with an elephant pyramid. The band is arranged on a different levels of a large circus wagon, while the orchestra faces them on the upper level.

Back view of the multi-level wagon hosting the marching band

Accompanied by an orchestra

Much like the sea monster hall back in Section 2, wall galleries line all levels of the Circus Room. Most are filled with a "complete" collection of Baranger Motion displays, which are small animated jewelry store window displays, most of them pushing diamonds. Several of the Baranger displays function, and you merely depress the red button on the cabinets to animate several at once (no tokens required).

The owl officiating this wedding looks a lot like the officiant from Beetlejuice

Nothing says matrimony like subjecting your fiancé to the old circular saw routine

There's also... this guy. There aren't that many clowns featured in the House on the Rock; I suppose that Alex Jordan either didn't find them creepy enough, or else he was absolutely terrified of them and couldn't bear to load up his home with their evil. Which is probably for the best; who knows what an army of killer clowns would do paired up with all those soul-stealing dolls?

"You'll float, too!"

Yes, that's a disembodied arm floating over the clown machine. Seeing it there stuck in my mental gears for a while before I realized, "Oh, the elbow! It's supposed to be a funny bone!" What a laugh for sure. I While I was there, a family took their small child up and dropped in a token, and tested their kid's funny bone, subjecting him to the clown's screeching laughter. Har har har.

Progressing from the Circus Room onward leads through a series of galleries. There's a large display of antique firearms (no comment on how many are real), followed by what can only be described as an Orientalism gallery, featuring many carved ivory items (purported to be authentic, by permission of the feds given ivory's sensitivity, though at least one is a well-known fake) and creepy, demonic puppets and totems. One thing in the firearms gallery that really struck me as odd: a prosthetic leg with a holdout derringer. I know Grindhouse: Planet Terror featured replacing an amputated leg with a machine gun, but this is the first "real" instance of arming (pun intended) a prosthetic that I've seen.

Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?

They're on better than speaking terms with the dolls, I'm sure...

Beyond the quasi-Asian exhibits are some of the most fake items on display: Replicas of the British crown jewels alongside several armor displays, both simply standing in cases as well as arranged in life-sized tableaus. House on the Rock states in their materials that they fabricated all the armor on-site; none of the pieces are antiques--but they definitely look nice.

One of several tableaus depicting knights at war. This one appears to show an ambush of a Japanese samurai; another features a battle with an armored elephant. This was definitely the highlight of the day for one of the families touring, as the kid kept shouting and cackling, "El caballo! El caballo!" ("The horse!")

Way back in the Alex Jordan Center, there was a placard explaining something about Jordan having special-ordered replica crown jewels.

The galleries extend the length of the Circus Room and dollhouse rooms, paralleling them on the way back toward Hell (that is, the Doll Carousel Building). There's a lot to see for sure, but I'd have loved to have a few more automata included through the route to break things up.

Too many anachronisms to count; I don't think Hannibal's forces clashed with knights in full plate, although I admit my European medieval history is a bit rusty (har har)

Speaking of the return to the Doll Carousel Building, not only will you get better (if one can describe revisiting that hellscape with such a superlative) view of the giant spinning Satan's wedding cakes stacked full of dolls, but you'll uncover more disturbing details, like the dark fairies poised atop the carousels.

Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here

Did I say disturbing figures atop the doll carousels? Yeah, I said that, but I don't think the statement alone is sufficient to prepare you for what unfolds.

I'm pretty sure the next step in this story involves sealing someone up inside a wicker man and setting it aflame

After the second pass of the Doll Carousel Building, it's time at last to finally discover how to access that upper catwalk back in the main carousel room, where you'll get not only a better vantage over the carousel but of the flocks of angels soaring overhead. We're almost done!

Viewing the "world's largest indoor carousel" from above, just before the exit door

Signs direct you to the "Final Exit," which after some of the Dante-esque experiences throughout this journey could be seen as a chilling double entendre. The door opens back into the daylight, emerging on the upper level of the Carousel Building onto one of the ubiquitous covered open-air walkways--see the photo early in this post. From there, the next stop is a tour of the Japanese Gardens, which feature a waterfall and several streams and koi ponds.

Looking down over the Japanese Gardens from inside the Alex Jordan center

There's a somewhat minimalist gift shop before the last stretch back to the welcome center; I didn't come across anything that struck me as must-have, though a few lightweight backpacks they sold with the House on the Rock logo would have come in handy carrying my extra camera battery and lenses (I'd forgotten my normal belt packs and shoulder bag at home--necessitating the improvisation of tossing them in my travel pillowcase slung around my wrist for the entire walk). Apparently someone took Michael Richan's characters' advice; Eliza had mused in The Haunting of Pitmon House, "Why do we even sell fudge in the gift shop?" as indeed, no fudge was in any evidence.

Windows out onto the forest from the periphery of the Japanese Garden

On a nice weather day, the Japanese Gardens are quite nice, if more compact that you'd expect given the scale of the House on the Rock exhibits themselves

And that's it! We've survived the visit to the House on the Rock without having our souls stolen by legions of diabolical dolls, passed through the midnight-frozen streets of yesterday and into a macabre series of demonic Chuck E. Cheese musical automatons, escaped the hellmouth of the Devil's Throat and the infernal machinery beyond.

Wrapping Up - Travel Details

The House on the Rock is located between the towns of Spring Green and Dodgeville, Wisconsin, along state highway 23. It's about an hour's drive from downtown Madison depending on traffic.

The facility is open year-round, though days of operation vary: During the summer (May 16 - September 25 in 2022), it's open 7 days a week, while during off-peak season the House on the Rock is usually closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Operating hours vary by season but are typically 9:00am - 5:00pm, with the last admission at 3:00pm. For the most up to date information on hours and polices, check the House on the Rock website.

No outside food is permitted, but there's currently a restaurant halfway through, just past the Streets of Yesterday, which sells pizza and drinks. There are a variety of restaurants serving breakfast and dinner in the towns of Spring Green and Dodgeville, including fast food.

Both nearby towns offer a variety of motels, including some national chains (Best Western, Quality Inn). The House on the Rock Resort is located close to Spring Green a few miles north of the attraction and offers packages that include the cost of admission (my king suite was around $170, which when you factor in the $32 admission price put it pretty much on the same price point as the Dodgeville Best Western for what was definitely a bigger room).

Most major airlines serve Madison's Dane County Airport; I'm a United 1K and Million Miler, so I chose to connect in Chicago from Dulles (Delta offers nonstop service from National Airport, for what it's worth).

So what are you waiting for? Make your travel plans today to visit this unique, fascinating, creepy, kitschy nightmare of a roadside attraction today!