The House On the Rock

This place was honestly amazing. I didn’t quite know what to expect but this place is like if Tim Burton built a house in the middle of nowhere and stuffed it with old memories. I really don’t know how to describe it.
This place was the most random museum/​reliquary for items forgotten and mysterious. It was as if a full on History geek decided to craft a nerd palace of old memorabilia, especially stuff from the Orient.
It is probably the weirdest place I have ever visited. Basically the whole experience is a long tour of a museum of strange. But it is unlike any museum you have ever seen. Prepare to stand in awe. But to be fair some may find large portions of it boring. I didn’t though. The whole place is an artwork unto itself.
I certainly recommend setting aside 2 – 3 hours if you want to see and enjoy everything.
In this place you will dance upon infinity, swoon to the music of ghostly instruments, and reacquaint with memories that are not your own.

All I could think during our tour was this man on drugs, a hoarder or just very eccenctric? Most likely the first two …
After reading American Gods, I really wanted to visit the place since I enjoyed the book so much. A good portion of the book takes place at the House on the Rock, that I just had to visit while we on our way back from the Dells. They offer a guided tour for 18 bucks a person which run every hour. A little steep the gardens, the whale and carousel rooms were closed during our visit.
The house its self is very interesting with multiple houses that seem never ending. If you visit during the winter make sure to bundle up since heat is non-​existent in the place. We couldn’t make heads or tails of exactly the creator was thinking while building this place. Rooms are filled with glass bottles, old medival weapons, porcelain dolls, weird statues, guns, dollhouses, paperweights, well the list of odd stuff could go on. If this was built now, most people would’ve been like sorry brah you’re a hoarder with too much money. However, if you’re into collectibles trinkets then it might be a different story.
Not sure if I would recommend this place to friends and family as a place they must visit. It is cool to visit, but nothing I would make the trek for again.

Place looks awesome. Had assholes cut us off and drive recklessly as we headed up, however we soon learned why. They sell the last ticket at 4pm sharp. Didn’t see that print on road trippers not the website, but hope to be back.

House on the Rock has been a Wisconsin attraction I have been wanting to check out for some time. A group of friends and I finally made the trek out to spring green to visit.
This was definitely sensory overload and the group could not get out of there fast enough. The house itself was pretty cool and a flashback to the 70’s. The rest though I could have done without. The displays, models, etc… are really dusty and old. The Crown Jewels looked like the stuff I had for dress up as a kid. Then towards the end the half naked angels near the ceiling were «interesting» especially since this this supposed to be a family friendly place. They may want to take some of the money they are charging and out it back into rehabbing the place. Overall pretty disappointed.

I don’t understand some of these nasty reviews. Yes, the woman selling the tickets is a nasty bitch, that gives robotic responses. And yes, the architecture wasn’t designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
This is a testament to a simpler time. When a simple man, with no qualifications could build something amazing. You have to be pretty jaded not to be impressed by the infinity room. A bizarre structure, that any «qualified» engineer would have thought was impossible. It was similar to how the Wright brothers invented flight. They didn’t have enough formal education to know it was impossible.
I think it was a great visit for the price of seeing a movie.

Difficult to describe, the House on The Rock is the BEST of places and the WORST of places. If you would like an inconceivably huge conglomeration of remarkable items from the past, this place is for you. Apparently gathered with neither rhyme nor reason, the collection is at least organized well enough to get a feel for what the items are supposed to be. Antique dueling pistols, dollhouses, pipe organs, crown jewels, dioramas, old cars, trains, carousels, hundreds of carousel horses mounted on walls, statues, statues, statues and so on and so on and so on. Did I mention carved ships? A 50 foot tall whale fighting a giant octopus? A complete underground village? Some of the display work is outstanding. Some of the older items are not aging well, so they offset this with dimming the lights down to a point where it’s very dark. This I found disturbing.
I would not recommend this for children under 12 because 1) Some of the darkly lit exhibits are of disturbing scenes. 2) Much of this is inanimate, boring stuff that we old people sometimes enjoy, but not kids. And 3) Most children can’t handle five hours of walking around in a museum.
I do think everyone should go here at least once because it is COMPLETELY UNIQUE and nothing you will see anywhere else on earth. Allow a bare minimum of three hours even if you are not sure you will enjoy it. Most people take five hours or more. For the geeks, two days is not unreasonable, and even then they might not see every item on display. I’m not exaggerating.
I give this five stars for the sheer enormity and uniqueness of the collection and one star because much of it is poorly lit. On average three stars,

I’m so glad I drove 5 hours to see this… When they say it ‘started’ as a road side attraction they imply that it has become something other than a road side attraction. Let me assure you, it is still a road side attraction. If you ARE looking for such, then you’re in luck because they’ve got it all. Weird money-​grabbing employees (a side show in itself), and all the ripping off you could ask for, to boot. Welcome to the site of the original highway robbers.
If you walk in and find a woman wearing a side ponytail. Run, because you’re in for a horrible customer service experience. I have had more personable customer service from an automated teller. When we asked Side Ponytail questions regarding the tour, we received snide responses that only sort of answered your question. Press ‘zero’ to speak to an operator because Clarissa does not explain it all…
The website said they were open until 6pm. They weren’t. So we lost our ability to see more than section one. And trust me, that is not the section you want to pay to see. This section alone cost us $ 15 a person. We were told to expect to spend an hour+ in that room. We were in and out in less than 15 minutes… A dollar a minute. And mind you, this is not something you can just run through. The doors are troll sized.
Did I mention that there’s nothing in section one? There are lamps and a variety of shag carpets barely worthy of scraping mud off of your shoes. Oh and a bunch of Asian art. Which I may have enjoyed if I wasn’t so distracted by Side Ponytail’s swindling skills. But it’s nothing that you couldn’t see in a museum for FREE. While SPT would love for you to believe this is a museum worthy of artistic reverence, at the end of the day it’s just a collection of weird crap curated by a rich old white dude with horrible taste.
So sections two and three are the ones with the cool things in them, most notably, the carousel. Which we obviously didn’t get to see. But thank god there was a video of it we could watch in section one! The infinity room is the only thing on our brief endeavor that was kind of cool. But it’s really not a unique experience. Well, perhaps it was uniquely nauseating. The wind caused the hall to sway so much that we weren’t sure if we were experiencing vertigo or questionable architecture.
All in all, lesson learned. This is definitely a road side attraction and absolutely NOT a destination. If you’ve got $ 15 and a burning desire to experience what it truly feels like to be unfulfilled, then I highly recommend stopping by The House On The Rock an hour and a half before it closes.

This place is insane. Everyone should go at least once. I know it’s a little steep $ 30. But I think after I went through the whole house I realized how much up keep there must be and how many employees are needed.
The insanity increases exponentially not linearly. You literally get more and more shocked as you proceed the tour. How did the guy have time to do all this? And collect all this? I can’t imagine having people over and being like «Would you like to go for a house tour?» and emerging 3 – 4 hours later cause you literally have that much stuff. Like the room with all the crowns and swords, etc. ARE THOSE REAL? How do you get the crown from Charles # whatever from the 1600s.
The giant whale is bigger than any whale on the planet I can only imagine. The carousel room… if I had to work in that room for a 8 hour shift I would hate myself. The noise and the lights, and the spinning, and that crazy drum that keeps banging. But it is an amazing sight for all your senses! Yes!
For the steep entry price the food is priced well. Nothing fancy, some pizza, sandwiches, and ice cream.
You could make a day of it and go and watch something at the American Players Theater as well since it is in the area.

Employee at the entrance really wasn’t the nicest or the most helpful!
Museum itself is interesting to say the least!

Holy mackerel. This place is amazing. No, actually there are no words that really quite do this fantastical imaginarium justice. It might be located in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin, but this should be a must visit destination on everyone’s places to visit once in their lifetime list. House On the Rock is the tangible product of one man’s borderline mad fantasy and imagination. Here at House on the Rock you’ll find the worldest largest (and creepiest) indoor carousel, the Inifinity Room, which juts out 218 ft in the air without any supports, a giant 200 ft whale doing battle with an octopus, fantastical rooms of self playing bands and symphonies, and that’s not including the rooms and rooms of trinkets, places out of time, or a japanese garden courtyard. Section 3 is a must see and includes the best stuff including the Carousel, the Mikado, and the Organ Room.
Truly no words or pictures can describe this place. Go visit — you won’t be disappointed. For bonus points, you’ll want to visit before American Gods starts airing next year and everyone starts flocking here (spoiler: there’s a scene from the book that takes place here).

100% worth the entrance price & highly recommend that all 3 sections are toured. There’s something for everyone in this house! Parts were a little/​a lot creepy, but that made it all the more exciting.
The Infinity Room was definitely unsettling as it swayed in the wind… probably my least favorite part of the tour. The Yesteryear exhibit was our absolute favorite!
A few tips:
–Leave the young kiddos behind & make this a date trip. We walked for 4 hours & were absolutely exhausted towards the end… kids around us were bored/​tired/​hungry & had no interest in the things that were displayed, & understandably so.
–Arrive early & be prepared to spend a good portion of your day here.
–Be prepared to duck. There are low ceilings all around & my 5’8 frame proved to be too much for some rooms. My 6’5 boyfriend was even less amused.
–Bring a high quality camera. Lighting is dim in most rooms & the no cell signal drained my phone battery quickly, leaving me with less-​than-​exciting pictures.

I had been to the House on the Rock as a child, and came back on a bus tour about 21 years later. I remember thinking it was so cool, and was really looking forward to it. Sadly, it did not live up to my expectations.
With the exception of a new visitor’s center as you walk in, and a nice gift shop that sells tasty fudge, nothing had changed, unless you count me hitting my head on the ceiling in the house numerous times (I’m 5’8″, so tall folks beware). The Infinity Room is amazing in the fact that it has not yet collapsed, it sways in the wind and has very little, if any, support.
Now, considering the tour I was on was a senior tour, and most of the people were at least twice my age, I don’t know how they made it through the exhibits. I’m on my feet and walking all day at my job, and I was exhausted! It’s roughly 2.5−3 miles of walking through all three exhibits, up and down ramps, twists and turns, with various surfaces. Most are poorly lit and dingy, and there are very little explanations of what things are or why Mr. Jordan had them. At some point near the big carousel, we began wondering if the place ever ended. I believe my mother made the comment, «This must be what Hell is like! We’ll never get out!» Mr. Jordan must have been quite the hoarder!
I did enjoy the circus exhibit, but seeing as it was at the end, we were too tired to really check it out. Same with the Japanese Garden. They do, however, have a decent pizza and sandwich restaurant in exhibit 2, and an ice cream shop near it.
Long review short, while I love the Dells, and will be back in the area soon, I’ll skip the House on the Rock.

Reading these reviews of House on the Rock has me scratching my head. Is there something these people saw that I didn’t? Because while I can understand why there might be reason to talk about this experience — it’s not because it was a good one.
For starters, the cost of entrance is expensive. For my daughter (4) and me (adult) it was over $ 30, which was the shortest of the three options — positioned to be a 1 ½ hour self tour. You start in the Japanese gardens and then make your way to a large room that looked more like a museum with information on the madman behind all of this.
What many don’t realize is that while Frank Lloyd Wright has ties to the place, he didn’t design it. Instead, Alex Jordan, Jr., showed Wright his plans for the place, to which Wright responded, «I wouldn’t hire you to design a chicken coop.» Crushed, Jordan returned to show Wright his genius architectural skills. Another reason why Wright is amazing.
Walking through the strange corridors and never-​ending rooms, you have to wonder if Jordan, the owner, had an opium addiction. I mean, there are couches everywhere. And not just normal couches — rocks with cushions on them. I found myself wondering if this was to protect guests from falling and hurting themselves whilst stumbling around on opiates. Given his fascination for Asian cultures, it isn’t a stretch.
The rooms were dark and small — as a person who is 5’7″, I had to duck a few times to get through, and they wind around so you can’t escape without going through the maze. Strange kitchens and waterfalls are everywhere, as are bizarre collections. The guy was a hoarder. But somehow they are making money on this guy’s crap.
About 45 minutes into it, I got nauseous. Maybe it was the claustrophobia. Maybe it was the over-​abundance of stagnant air (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I NEED FRESH AIR!), but my experience then changed from enjoying the creation of a eccentric (read: mad man) to wanting to find the way out.
The Infinity Room is interesting — but it shakes and blows in the wind, further adding to my already queasy state.
I didn’t make it to the 2 or 3^rd section. I didn’t want to. I just wanted out. People were in front of us everywhere we went looking at EVERY LITTLE THING. Which can take all day. There’s stuff everywhere. Some interesting, some creepy. But mostly it made me think of how much money this person spent and how much better things could have been done with it.
On the drive home, we stopped and got some water — and the locals were saying how they didn’t understand how people liked it.
My recommendation: Skip it. Unless you want to be inspired to declutter your space. Go to the Frank Lloyd Wright center instead.

I discovered a terror, unforeseen until the crucial moment, that the tip of the infinity room would break off the House on the Rock crashing to the forest floor.
Hour 1 in the House on the Rock was spent inside the original structure, admiring the architecture of visionary Alex Jordan.
Hours 2 and 3 passed with only a greasy slice of pizza for sustenance.
We bought a gazillion tokens and played all the music machines.
Ancient air driven instruments wheezed out orchestral waltzes.
Inspired by Dante’s Inferno, Section 3 houses seemingly endless arrangements of humans, animals, dolls, animals, pipe organs, humans with animal heads /​bodies, dolls and miniature circuses.
Almost five hours later, we emerged finally to the parking lot, to the car, and back to the road, wordlessly gliding away, back through the rolling hills of Spring Green towards Mineral Point, having just escaped the depths of Alex Jordan’s titanic imagination.

It’s expensive, yes, but it’s worth it. It takes 3 – 4 hours to walk through the 3 areas. They give you 8 coins to use to «play» different scenes; don’t waste them on the small stuff in the beginning because they get cooler and more elaborate and then you can only get more tokens if you happen to have $ 1 bills on you.
Okay, so HOTR can only be described as a dark, dank museum of utterly insane collections of odd, expensive and rare items. How one person managed to acquire so much in one lifetime is beyond me. There is the largest carousel ever built (it works, but you can’t ride it), elaborate displays of self-​playing instruments, the madman’s own living quarters (quite cool, actually, if you are a vampire), the craziest collection of dollhouses, circus panoramas, vintage guns, royal crowns, carriages, a HUGE statue of an octopus battling a killer whale that fills up a whole room and SO much more. There is no real way to describe it; you just have to see it for yourself. The outside stuff isn’t very impressive, a small Japanese garden, but there is a structure you can walk out onto and literally the Wisconsin wilderness is right below your feet. That was neat. This monstrosity came to be as the result of an incredibly imaginative, rich, insane hoarder and God bless him.

I have been here three times in my life. Once around 4^th grade when the fortune teller machine told me I was to fall in love with a person with the initials MW. There was a Michelle W… In my 4^th grade class and I immediately fell in love with her.
When I was 25 I took my fiancé to Wisconsin to meet my family and of all the things I could have done. I took her here. I don’t remember much because I was in love! The fortune teller machine was still there. This time the card that popped out did not give me initials of the person I was to fall in love with. Crap. I really wanted it to say JP. I guess like most things, It cheaper to create mass produced fortune cards that are generic.
Ok so the last time was in July 2010. I took my wife of 16 years (at the time) my kids, my sisters and there kids. We had a blast. I still love the place and can’t wait to take my grandkids.
The adults loved this place — but 5 years later my kids and nieces still talk about how freaked out they were. They were scared of the doll room (which is way cool), they were scared of many of the items. They said it smelled like a old persons house — but hey — it is a old persons house.
I don’t think I was scared in 4^th grade. But I have tons of memories. I know my kids and nieces will come back with there kids. I hope I will be invited
We live in Colorado and think this one of the best places to visit in Wisconsin
Lastly my wife and I have been married almost 21 years. Maybe it was the magic of the house on the rock

We’ve been here before on a date day, but we got to see all three areas today. Sooooo many things to see that we didn’t remember being there before. Was quite the experience and wouldn’t mind going again to better explore some of the areas.

This place is a must see! We went in winter. They have guided tours, of fewer buildings at this time. We felt like we got our money’s worth. During warmer months you are on your own to explore all of the buildings. They say plan on about 5 hours in the warmer times. I believe it! Our shorter tour was about an hour and a half. GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO SEE THIS!

House on the Rock is a shining example of what you can do with a ton of money and a touch of genius, then go slightly mad and really put your mind to it.
Alex Jordan was eccentric, to say the least. You can learn all about his life in a mini museum on campus with the house he built and dedicated his life to filling up. This is a guy who liked to collect things… he boasts the largest collections of several things: circus miniatures, carousel animals, china dolls, and those little animated boxes that sat in the windows of jewelry stores.
When you arrive, you can choose to tour one of three «wings», or do the full house. For some context, I chose to do just one wing on our visit and we were there for three and a half hours. I would call this attraction a day trip, though I was traveling with a very slow museum-​er. If you like to look at everything and soak it all in… well there is a LOT to look at and soak in, so time your visit accordingly.
The things we saw in only ¹⁄₃^rd of the house were amazing, creepy, silly, disturbing, beautiful and surreal. My memories of the house are much like my memories of my dreams; disjointed, a little out of this world, complex stories behind each detail, and doll faces staring at me around each turn.
This is the world’s largest curiosity cabinet. If you love oddities, The House On the Rock is definitely worth the stop. And I can say with certainty it was created by a very odd man.

Please answer the following questions to determine if the House On the Rock is right for you:
— Do you like to be blindsided by sheer absurdity, massive spectacle, or staggeringly huge hoarding collections?
— Do you love the smell of «grandparents house» multiplied by all the grandparents that ever existed and ever will exist?
— Are you a serial killer?
— Have you ever fantasized about watching a carousel full of dead children go round and round as they stare out at you with hollow eyes and pale, expressionless faces?
— Would you like to to contract emphysema by journeying through a dank, moldy cavern for hours?
— Have you ever wanted to literally walk 2.5 miles through the mind of a deranged man?
— Do you love carpet just SO DAMN MUCH that you’d love to put millions of square feet of it on NOT JUST your floors but your ceilings and walls too?
— Have you ever wondered what Walt Disney’s evil twin would have created instead of Disney world?
— Would you like your mind to be violently raped as you slowly descend deeper and deeper into what you guess must surely be the bowels of hell itself whose winding caverns are stuffed with so much absurd, strange, or creepy stuff that the majority of the next several hours is massive sensory overload and by the time you are spat, lungs heaving, mind reeling, back into the sunlight and you realize that there is still light and beauty and normalcy and — oh god the fresh air filling your lungs — and you get in your car and drive away and don’t really know what to say and then you get home and live life and it all fades away into a vaguely remembered nightmare but it still sticks and you never quite get over it or forget it?
— Do you like fudge? (not a joke, the stuff in the gift shop is pretty tasty)
If you answered yes to any of these questions, The House On the Rock will be sure to thrill and delight you.