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| Arcosanti / Building a rural city Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:01 -0700 |
| Architect and artist Paolo Soleri has been building a city called Arcosanti in the Arizona desert as an experiment in urban living. With only a tiny fraction built after more than 30 years, the experimental results in some ways speak for themselves.
While on a business trip in Scottsdale, Arizona in the early 1990s, I took a walk down the road from the hotel one afternoon and ran into a peculiar-looking place called Cosanti. This compound, an official Arizona Historical Site, is a collection of oddly shaped concrete structures, including large domes and apses made from earthen molds. The first thing a visitor notices is the multitude of handmade bronze and ceramic windbells all over the property. These are made in the foundry and workshops on the site and available for sale in the gift shop. But Cosanti is much more than a new-agey craft center. It’s the residence and studio of Italian architect and artist Paolo Soleri. As the brochures on the counter explained, Cosanti is, among other things, a prototype for a much larger and grander construction project called Arcosanti.
City in the Wilderness
Located about 70 miles (110 km) north of Phoenix, Arcosanti is called an “urban laboratory.” What Soleri has been testing in this laboratory for well over 30 years is a concept he calls arcology, a blending of architecture and ecology. His vision is to build a 25-acre city where 5,000 people can one day live, work, and play—comfortably, sustainably, and in harmony with nature.
Soleri believes that wastefulness and urban sprawl are among the great evils of the age, and he aims to eliminate these problems with careful design. According to arcology, well-planned urban areas can use space much more efficiently and benefit from dramatically reduced energy requirements and environmental impact. This means, for example, eliminating cars, roads, and garages by putting all buildings within walking distance of each other. It also means creating multi-use spaces for maximum flexibility, and relying on solar and wind energy for most heating, cooling, and lighting.
Beyond the issues of consumption and pollution that plague the world’s urban and suburban areas, Soleri feels that people have become too detached from each other, and that an effective community requires more human interaction. Accordingly, Arcosanti has been designed with a large amount of shared living space (such as kitchens, gardens, and recreation areas). This seemingly benign fact sets off warning bells for Soleri’s critics, some of whom see Arcosanti as an immense commune, or worse—a cult-like organization. While the project does attract its fair share of New-Age types, it also attracts many ordinary people for whom privacy does not necessarily mean a single-family house in a cul-de-sac. But if anything, Arcosanti’s biggest problem is that it hasn’t produced enough converts—or, to use a less loaded term, enthusiasts.
A Time to Build
When construction on Arcosanti began in 1970, Soleri expected it to be completed in 10 years, but less than five percent of the planned project has been completed to date. Construction is done by volunteers, who pay to live and work at Arcosanti during five-week workshops. Fewer than 100 people reside at Arcosanti at any given time, though the site receives more than 50,000 tourists per year. Much of the money used to fund the work comes from sales of the windbells and other pieces of art. But the money and volunteers are not plentiful enough to move the project along quickly. Time is running out for Soleri, who’s in his mid-80s, though he intends the experiment to continue indefinitely under the auspices of the nonprofit Cosanti Foundation.
Even if Soleri’s experiment in the Arizona desert proves one day to be fabulously successful, it will not necessarily signal a triumph of arcology over other forms of urban planning. What works for 5,000 people may not scale up to a city of millions; what works in a hot, dry climate may fail in colder, darker, and wetter areas. But the biggest roadblock of all is not technological, it’s psychological—convincing suburbanites that the cozy, interdependent community of a rural “city” is an improvement over the self-sufficient existence they’ve worked toward their entire lives. After all, arcology assumes that everyone will more or less like, respect, and work happily together with their neighbors. Sounds like a fantasy to me. —Joe Kissell
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This article was featured in Carnival of the Green #33.
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| Missile Silo Homes / Hole is where the heart is Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:01 -0700 |
| All over the United States, enterprising (or paranoid) individuals are turning abandoned missile silos into underground homes. Quiet, safe, and well-insulated, what's not to like?
As much as I enjoy urban life, there are times when it gets to me. The noise, traffic, crime, and cost of living occasionally make me long for a quiet, affordable home out in the middle of nowhere. At times like these, I like to browse the real estate listings on eBay. I don’t have the means to purchase a rural getaway, but just looking at the ads and daydreaming about them for an hour or two usually puts me in a better mood. I imagine how nice it would be to live on an island somewhere. Or perhaps on a small ranch in New Mexico. Or in a waterfront cottage in Oregon. Maybe even that little cabin in the mountains of central Costa Rica. Or wait—what’s this?—an abandoned underground missile base? Incredible but true. Looks a bit unusual, sure, but think of those high ceilings, the nicely insulated walls, the privacy. And for the highest bidder, it can become home.
I’m not even talking about just one particular abandoned missile base. That would be a curiosity, but little more. In fact, however, there are dozens of missile silos that have been—or soon will be—renovated for use as private homes, schools, businesses, and other non-military applications. At any given time, astute shoppers can find several such properties on the market in various parts of the United States.
Where Have All the Missiles Gone?
Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the conventional wisdom of the Cold War held that the United States could come under nuclear attack by the Soviets at any time. Although there was no way to stop incoming missiles, we could certainly return the favor by launching our own missiles to wipe out vast portions of our enemy’s country. And so, the argument went, the very fact that any attack (even if successful) would also mean certain destruction of the attacker should serve as a powerful deterrent—the more missiles we build, the less chance we’ll need to use them! Thus, in the time-honored tradition of spending vast sums of money on absurdly illogical military projects, the United States government built nuclear-capable Atlas and Titan intercontinental ballistic missiles and Nike surface-to-air missiles—and planted them in hundreds of hardened underground launch facilities scattered around the country.
A typical missile silo cost more than US$3 million to construct in 1960. However, almost as soon as many of these structures were built, they were obsolete, as newer, smaller, and equally unnecessary mobile missiles were put into service. So within a few years the military decommissioned and abandoned most of the missile silos—and then sold the properties for whatever they could get. Many of the sites simply lay unused and deteriorating for years. But in the last decade or so, there’s been a surge of interest in rehabilitating the sites, which are increasingly treated as collectors’ items of sorts. Recent prices have ranged from well under $100,000 for a fixer-upper bargain to tens of millions of dollars for a luxurious estate—complete with a private runway. Even at those prices, buyers get a great deal, considering how much it would cost to build something comparable today.
Your New Digs
Some people may find the thought of living in a missile silo a bit off-putting—for aesthetic reasons or due to the sheer creepiness of the idea. For others, however, recycling these structures as houses makes perfect ecological and financial sense. For one thing, like all underground homes, missile silos are extremely energy-efficient, maintaining a fairly consistent temperature year-round regardless of the weather outside. They’re impervious to tornadoes, and having been designed to withstand a nuclear blast, they’re also quite safe in the event of an earthquake. The reinforced concrete shell, of course, never rots and cannot be harmed by termites or other pests. And you don’t even have to think twice about safety from burglars or intruders—these structures can keep out nearly everything and everyone. In short, for people who can deal with the odd geometry and remote locations, missile silos are among the sturdiest and most secure residences anyone can have.
Security is of course the major attraction for one group of buyers: survivalists. Some owners equip their silo homes with years worth of rations, isolated water supplies, gas-powered generators, and high-tech air filters so that they could live through virtually any sort of disaster—even a catastrophic attack or plague that wiped out everything alive on the surface. Personally, I wouldn’t be terribly concerned that terrorists might unleash mass destruction on a rural community with no strategic or political significance. Then again, I live pretty dangerously—some days I don’t even floss.
Silos are not without their problems. The interior receives little or no natural light (unless, for example, you replace the gigantic hatches and doors with skylights). Your cell phone and radio probably won’t work inside. And you’ll have to spend an enormous amount of money to make the silo habitable if someone else hasn’t already done so. (One major complication: some of the silos filled with water over the years, becoming in effect giant wells.) Still, once you’ve cleaned the place up, added a coat of paint, and performed a ritual cleansing ceremony to banish violent spirits (it’s been done—no kidding), you’ve got yourself a huge, safe, quiet, and comfy living space. Now your only problem will be dealing with the most notorious intruders of them all: tourists. —Joe Kissell
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More Information about Missile Silo Homes...
This article was featured in Carnival of the Green #37.
For additional information on rehabilitated missile silos, see:
There’s also a Silo Home of a very different sort in Titonka, Iowa, owned by Arthur “Hap” Peterson.
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| The Hearst Estate at San Simeon / Xanadu in California Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:01 -0700 |
| William Hearst built a magnificent estate, sometimes called Hearst Castle, in San Simeon, California. Now a tourist attraction, it gives a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the rich and famous.
For reasons that have never been entirely clear to me, I went through much of my life completely oblivious of certain very important icons of American culture. For example, if you were to ask 100 Americans at random to name the best movie of all time, it’s a safe bet that a sizable percentage would say, “Citizen Kane,” Orson Welles’s 1941 masterpiece. Even those who don’t consider it a cinematic legend have most likely seen it, if for no other reason than curiosity at its fame. But I can’t recall even hearing of the film until about six or seven years ago. Morgen and I were watching some old “Kids in the Hall” videos, and one very funny sketch was based on the assumption that everyone knows about Citizen Kane. Feeling that my cultural education was incomplete, I finally saw the film. I enjoyed it but utterly missed the point, having also somehow failed to accumulate any knowledge of William Hearst, on whose life the story was not-so-subtly based.
Hearst, like the fictional Charles Foster Kane, was a newspaper magnate who aspired to, but never quite got, political power. Where Kane spent his fortune on a vast estate in Florida he called Xanadu, Hearst built his dream house in San Simeon, California—about 200 miles (322km) south of San Francisco. Hearst had inherited a 250,000-acre (101,172-hectare) ranch on a hill overlooking the ocean, and he used to take his family camping there. Eventually he tired of “roughing it” in a small city of tents and in 1919 hired architect Julia Morgan to design less austere vacation housing.
The Art of Building a Palace
These improved camping digs eventually turned into a project of palatial proportions. For decades, construction (and renovation) was almost continuous. Hearst was an avid art collector, and he and Morgan designed the estate to incorporate and display his considerable collection, which included not only paintings, sculptures, and tapestries, but entire walls, floors, and ceilings removed from castles and churches in Europe. As the art collection grew, the estate grew to accommodate it.
The estate was designed for entertaining, and Hearst nearly always had guests in his home. Among his most famous visitors were Calvin Coolidge, Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, George Bernard Shaw, and Amelia Earhart. Guests were given the run of the property but required to attend the evening meal with Hearst. Although every need was attended to—Hearst even had a complete selection of bathing suits for guests who forgot to bring their own—drunkenness was never tolerated, and rowdy guests were sent home. But an invitation to the Hearst residence was highly coveted: it meant either that you were rich and famous, or that you’d get to fraternize with those who were. San Simeon was a place where connections were made, power was wielded, and alliances forged.
One Word: Rosebud
When Orson Welles, at age 24, made Citizen Kane, he used Hearst as a model and—to put it generously—painted him in a less-than-flattering light. More upsetting for Hearst was the film’s depiction of the character Susan Alexander, a talentless singer Kane marries. Her resemblance to Hearst’s real-life mistress, movie star Marion Davies, was all too obvious. Hearst found out about the film even before it was finished and fought bitterly to prevent its release; Welles, who also had enormous power in the film industry, fought back. This much-chronicled battle damaged the reputations of both men, and prevented Citizen Kane from achieving any real acclaim until long after its original release. Welles, for his part, later claimed that the film was not intended as a reflection on Hearst’s life, even if some notable character and plot points were inspired by Hearst. But now, Citizen Kane is inextricably linked to San Simeon, and the estate’s current popularity as a tourist attraction is undoubtedly due, in large part, to the film.
Like most lavish residences-turned-tourist attractions, what this estate has more of than anything else is…statistics: a total of 165 rooms, including 56 bedrooms and 61 bathrooms, 41 fireplaces, a 5,200-volume library, and over 90,000 square feet (8361 sq m) of floor space. The primary structures on the grounds are a main house (“Casa Grande”) that resembles a Spanish cathedral and three smaller guest houses, plus a huge Greco-Roman outdoor pool as well as an indoor pool lined with gold and Venetian glass. But wait, there’s more! Hearst also had his own zoo, as well as a private airport, complete with two paved runways equipped for instrument landings. (Besides using the airport to shuttle in guests, Hearst insisted on having a daily copy of each newspaper he published—more than thirty from all parts of the country.) He also had a theater in his home that would put many multiplex cinemas to shame; legend has it that he insisted on showing a film for his guests every night. Construction on the property continued until 1947, when Hearst, in failing health and with severely depleted financial resources, moved away from San Simeon.
I don’t believe I’m in any imminent danger of becoming ludicrously wealthy, but I have certainly fantasized about my dream home from time to time—what kind of house I’d live in if money were truly no object. I think it would be very much on the scale of one of the guesthouses on Hearst’s estate—large but not too large; lavish but not gaudy; livable and maintainable by ordinary humans. Well, OK…throw in the home theater too. You never know when you might want to have a few friends over for dinner and a movie. —Joe Kissell
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More Information about The Hearst Estate at San Simeon...
The official Web site of the estate is at HearstCastle.org, though the California State Parks Department, which administers the land, also has its own home page for the Hearst San Simeon SHM.
If you’d like to read more about William Randolph Hearst, there are a couple very different printed biographies: The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst by David Nasaw (a sympathetic view of Hearst) or Citizen Hearst: A Biography of William Randolph Hearst by W. A. Swanberg (a disparaging view). Hearst’s influence over the film industry is chronicled in Hearst Over Hollywood by Louis Pizzitola.
The following additional tidbits were provided by reader Bob Laurence:
First, Welles later acknowledged that his film was quite unfair to Marion Davies, who was really a talented actress, and once bailed out Hearst’s empire when he was on the verge of bankruptcy. She [Davies] was also quite an accomplished businesswoman in her own right and did very well after he died. They really did love each other, for many many years.
Second, the story of the opera singer, and the building of the opera house, was taken from the life of Samuel Insull, the utility and streetcar tycoon of Chicago. Insull really did marry a much younger, sadly untalented opera singer, and built an opera house for her to sing in. The opera house is still there, home of, I believe, the Chicago Lyric Opera.
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| Herrenchiemsee Castle / King Ludwig II's island retreat Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:01 -0700 |
| Yet another of the ambitious (and never-finished) castles built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria is on and island in the Chiemsee lake in Germany. More lavish than Neuschwanstein, it features a dining room with a table that descends into the kitchen below.
King Ludwig II of Bavaria is one of the most colorful characters in German history. Widely regarded as insane, he was certainly a troubled individual and not well suited to the demands of a monarch’s life. Although as a ruler he was neither effective nor well-liked, he is remembered fondly today primarily because of his contributions to the future economy of Germany: his castles, which attract huge numbers of tourists each year. Of the three castles Ludwig had built, Neuschwanstein was the most famous, with its fairy-tale pseudo-medieval design. But even more ambitious was Herrenchiemsee Castle.
Sup-Versailles It
At the foot of the Bavarian Alps lies the Chiemsee, a large lake with a number of islands. To reach the largest island, Herreninsel, you take a ferry from the shore. Hidden from view by trees until you reach the island is what appears to be an exact replica of Versailles. And in fact, that was just what Ludwig was after. He didn’t like the thought of being outdone, and fancied himself as one of the great kings of Europe. So he studied Versailles carefully in order to make his version as close as possible to the original. Herrenchiemsee lacks the two side wings of Versailles, has a somewhat different interior layout, and is located in a much more secluded setting. But the overall design of the architecture—and even the choice of artwork, fabrics, and décor inside—reflects the sensibilities of French royalty.
It is not always apparent from photographs, but Herrenchiemsee was the largest and most lavish castle Ludwig had built. Construction began in 1878, financed by the king’s personal fortune. Like Neuschwanstein, this castle was never completed. Its structure was built in just a few years, but only a fraction of the interior rooms were ever finished. Visitors are uniformly impressed by the ornateness of the furnishings and attention to detail—gold and marble are everywhere you look. Unless, that is, you look very closely. A great many surfaces that appear to be marble are merely painted, and much of the gold is nothing more than a thin leaf over wood. Ludwig was not known for economy, and it is thought that the faux finishes were more a reflection of the design aesthetic of the time, just as wood-veneer plastic was considered very modern a couple of decades ago.
Leave Me Alone, I’m Eating
Ludwig was notoriously shy and reclusive. When possible, he avoided interacting with members of his own government, and though he was an avid fan of music and theater, he always demanded private performances. Such was Ludwig’s passion for privacy that he not only dined alone, but wanted to avoid even seeing kitchen staff before and after meals. (In all likelihood the staff didn’t want to see him either: he reportedly had terrible table manners.) This led to the most talked-about room at Herrenchiemsee: the dining room. Ludwig had an elaborate mechanism designed to lower the dining room table through the floor to the kitchen below so that it could be set and raised into the dining room without any need for the king to encounter human beings. One of the king’s other castles, Linderhof, has a similar arrangement, though at Herrenchiemsee the kitchen is open to tours so you can see the mechanism beneath the table.
According to our tour guide, Herrenchiemsee included one more bathroom than Versailles (for a grand total of one). And it is quite an extraordinary bathroom. The circular tub, if you can call it that, is the size of a small pool. Ludwig was known to be an excellent swimmer, but also, in his later years, quite rotund. So the tub (or pool) may have been designed more for the king’s bathing comfort than for exercise.
Herrenchiemsee shares another historical trait with Neuschwanstein: despite the huge sums of money spent on it and the years it remained under construction, Ludwig never got to enjoy it. He stayed there for a total of just 16 days in 1885. Shortly thereafter, construction was stopped due to a lack of funds. With three major castles simultaneously under construction and no sense of fiscal responsibility, Ludwig had exhausted his considerable resources and gone deeply into debt.
The Decline and Fall of Ludwig II
Even though the castles were not funded with state money, Ludwig’s cabinet was deeply concerned about his expensive obsession. They were concerned for other reasons too. He rarely communicated with his staff or attended to matters of state; he had frequent affairs with young army officers; he appeared to suffer from hallucinations and delusions. But more important than all these issues was the rumor that Ludwig was planning to replace his entire cabinet. In order to remain in power, the cabinet members hatched a secret plan to remove Ludwig from power. They had a detailed report of Ludwig’s troubling behavior compiled and signed by a psychiatrist named Dr. Berhardt von Gudden, even though the doctor had never even met Ludwig at the time. According to Bavarian law, the king could be removed from power only if shown to be incapable of performing his duties, and this report served that purpose. In June of 1886, Ludwig was deposed and arrested.
Just one day later, while still under custody at Berg Castle, Ludwig went for a walk on the castle grounds, escorted by Dr. Gudden. When the two did not return after several hours, a search began, and the bodies of both men were soon found floating in a nearby lake. Official reports called Ludwig’s death a suicide; Gudden, whose forehead was badly injured, was assumed to have been killed by the king before he drowned himself. However, there is considerable evidence to suggest that both men were murdered by the conspirators who removed the king from power—to be sure he never regained it. Yet another theory suggests Ludwig may have killed Gudden and then died while trying to escape by swimming across the lake. Ludwig’s death, like his life, will always be a mystery. —Joe Kissell
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The official Herrenchiemsee Web site (in German and English) is located at www.herren-chiemsee.de.
Other resources:
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| Winchester Mystery House / The building project of a lifetime Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:00:01 -0700 |
| Something drove Sarah Winchester to keep adding to and remodeling a large house in San Jose, California, keeping it continuously under construction for 38 years. The result is mysterious indeed.
San Jose, California—about an hour’s drive south of San Francisco—is the unofficial center of Silicon Valley. Lots of high-tech companies are based in or near San Jose, and of the dozens of times I’ve been there, all but one or two were for a technology-related conference of one sort or another. It’s an attractive small city with some excellent museums, parks, and restaurants. But San Jose’s biggest tourist attraction was built long before computers made their mark on the area. About five miles (8km) from downtown, the Winchester Mystery House draws huge crowds almost every day of the year for a simple walking tour of what may be the country’s strangest residential building.
Everyone in the Bay Area seems to know about the Winchester House, to the extent that billboards advertising the attraction don’t give any information other than its name. When I first moved to northern California several years ago, these signs puzzled me. Even after reading a brochure about the house, I didn’t quite grasp what it was all about until I visited for myself. The Winchester Mystery House is undeniably interesting, though whether it lives up to its hype is another question.
Our House Is a Very, Very, Very Strange House
From the outside, the building appears to be nothing more than a sprawling Victorian mansion surrounded by meticulously groomed gardens, soothing fountains, and lots of tour buses. It’s pretty, though not particularly shocking. But the interior of the building and the story of its construction are bizarre and fascinating. Tickets are surprisingly expensive, and there’s sometimes a long wait for your guided tour to begin. But once inside, you forget all about that. You’re walking through a mystery.
The Winchester House has 160 rooms, with a total of more than 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, 52 skylights, 47 fireplaces, 40 bedrooms, 40 staircases, 6 kitchens, 3 elevators, 2 basements, 1 shower, and 349.7 other impressive-sounding numerical statistics. What makes it most interesting, though, is what it doesn’t have—any rhyme or reason. The entire house seems to have been randomly assembled, disassembled, and reassembled numerous times, with no master plan or design. And in fact, that’s pretty much what happened. Stairs lead to nowhere; floors have doors and windows in them; doors open into solid walls. All of this and more was due to an inexplicable obsession that drove its erstwhile owner, Sarah Winchester, to keep the building continuously under construction for 38 years.
Repeating Success
The story begins a century and a half ago. Oliver Winchester was the co-owner of a successful shirt manufacturing business. In 1857, just before the U.S. Civil War broke out, Winchester took over the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company. The company, which would later be renamed Winchester Repeating Arms Company, was responsible for revolutionary advances in rifle design. With repeating rifles, a soldier could fire several times without reloading, and sales of the weapons soon made Winchester both wealthy and famous. His son and heir, William Wirt Winchester, married Sarah Pardee in 1862.
Sarah was a diminutive woman at 4 feet, 10 inches (147cm) tall, but was reputed to be charming, intelligent, and beautiful. She gave birth in 1866 to the couple’s first and only child, Annie, who died before she was two weeks old. Annie’s death affected Sarah deeply, and for years she withdrew from the public and her family alike. In 1880 Oliver Winchester died, leaving his fortune to his son William. But the following year, William died of tuberculosis. This left Sarah the only heir to the Winchester fortune, an inheritance of US$20 million, plus nearly 50 percent ownership in the company, which paid her $1,000 per day. Not too shabby even by today’s standards, these figures were astronomical in the late 1800s. But the fortune was no consolation to Sarah, who began to believe there was a curse on her family.
History and Mystery
Shortly thereafter, Sarah Winchester moved from New Haven, Connecticut to San Jose, purchased a modest farm house, and began building. This is where history ends and speculation begins. It’s also an appropriate time for a brief cautionary digression. Dozens of Web sites, booklets, and brochures (and even the tour guides at the Winchester House) tell variations on the story of why Mrs. Winchester behaved the way she did for the rest of her life. Sadly, most of these stories appear to have been copied from each other and there’s no persuasive evidence to support any of them. This mirrors the situation a century ago, when a fanciful tale about Mrs. Winchester would be told, embellished, and retold until it was impossible to separate truth from fiction. Thus, assume that most of what follows is apocryphal. And a word to the wise: history is slippery.
What we know is that Mrs. Winchester hired builders to work around the clock, every day, for 38 years. The house was in a constant state of change, with rooms being built and modified on a daily basis. According to legend, Mrs. Winchester had visited a psychic in Boston who convinced her that she was indeed under a curse of sorts. The spirits of those who had been killed by Winchester rifles had sought revenge from her family and were now haunting her. The only way to appease the spirits and prevent her own death, by some odd logic, was to ensure that construction on her house never stopped. One version of the tale has it that the labyrinthine interior of the house, including the stairs to nowhere and the dead ends, were meant to confuse or slow down the spirits. An alternative explanation was that Mrs. Winchester, in daily séances, received plans for the next day’s work directly from the dead, and simply did as she was told. Whether for one of these reasons, or simply being off her rocker, Sarah Winchester did indeed keep construction going for years on end, in what appears to be a completely random manner.
This One Goes to 13
Whatever the reasoning she employed, it is certain that Mrs. Winchester was superstitious. One indication is her repeated use of the number 13 in features of the house: there are 13 bathrooms; 13 palm trees line the driveway; most of the windows have 13 panes; a sink drain has 13 holes; a chandelier that originally had 12 lights was modified to have 13; and so on. It is also frequently said that she slept in a different bedroom every night.
In 1906 when the great earthquake struck San Francisco, part of the Winchester house was damaged, including the bedroom in which Mrs. Winchester was sleeping that night. Although she was unharmed, she believed the spirits were trying to tell her something. As a result she had the front portion of the house blocked off, and continued construction elsewhere.
Spirit of the Winchester House
Sarah Winchester died in her sleep in 1922 at the age of 82. Construction on the house stopped immediately—some stories say carpenters stopped with nails hammered in halfway. In Sarah’s will—which consisted of 13 sections and included 13 signatures—the house was not mentioned specifically at all, but all her possessions were left to her niece, Frances Marriot. Marriot had all the furnishings removed from the house, a task which took more than six weeks due to the house’s design, then sold it to be used as a tourist attraction. It was later declared a California Historical Landmark, and is still open daily for tours.
According to some estimates, Sarah Winchester spent a total of $5.5 million building and rebuilding her house. As a tourist attraction, the Winchester Mystery House undoubtedly brings in money at a much faster rate than it was spent during the years of its construction. Appropriately enough, the reason for the house’s current success is much the same as the reason it was built: many of the people who visit believe the Winchester Mystery House is haunted. (Special nighttime flashlight tours every Halloween and Friday the 13th reinforce this idea.) Tour guides will tell you stories of unexplained noises, of faucets mysteriously turning themselves on, of rooms suddenly turning cold. I’ve been to the Winchester House a couple of times and have never seen a ghost, but if you’re ever in San Jose, I recommend a visit for the sheer weirdness of the experience. —Joe Kissell
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More Information about Winchester Mystery House...
Special thanks to Neil Hopper for providing corrected statistics for this article!
The official Winchester Mystery House home page has information for tourists, but not a lot of detail about the history of the house (they want you to take the tour for that).
This history of New Haven’s Ronan-Edgehill Neighborhood, where Oliver Winchester made his fortune, has quite a bit of information on the Winchesters (including Sarah) and their philanthropic exploits. There’s a biography of Sarah Winchester on AboutFamousPeople.com and other stories at such sites as About.com, and International Real Estate Digest.
The company that Oliver Winchester made famous, by the way, still makes ammunition but no longer manufactures Winchester guns; those are produced by another company under license.
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| Neuschwanstein Castle / King Ludwig II's tribute to Wagner Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:00:01 -0700 |
| Of the several castles built by the eccentric king Ludwig II of Bavaria, none is more recognizable than Neuschwanstein, which inspired Cinderella's Castle at the Disney theme parks.
Before visiting Germany a few years ago, I didn’t know very much about German history or culture, and didn’t really care to. I had always had a warm place in my heart for France, and felt my Gallic tastes were fundamentally at odds with what little I had grasped of life in Germany. As I saw things, the French language was smoother and more mellifluous than German; the French favored wine (as I do) where Germans were more fond of beer; the French countryside was organic and endearingly unkempt while rural Germany was spotless and well-manicured, and so on. In other words, Germany was undoubtedly nice enough, but just not my style.
My wife, however, has more overt German roots (even her name, Morgen, is spelled like the German word for morning). She had spent some time in Germany while in high school, spoke German well, and had the same sort of idealized fondness for Germany that I had for France. So in the interest of fostering marital harmony, we humored each other on our first trip to Europe together. She agreed to spend some time in Provence, and I agreed to spend some time in Bavaria. Needless to say, this was not a hardship for either of us. We ate and drank well in both countries and collected plenty of interesting stories.
Where Fairy Tales Come From
A recurring theme in the sights we saw in Germany—and believe me, I mean this in the best and most complimentary way—was wackiness. I’m not just talking about lederhosen and sauerkraut either, though it has always puzzled me how such things came to exist. A particular slice of German history we became well acquainted with was the rule of Ludwig II, king of Bavaria from 1864 until his death in 1886. While the many stories about Ludwig are strange and colorful (and some are featured as Interesting Things of Other Days) his most famous follies are the castles he built—especially his grandest and best-known castle, Neuschwanstein.
Neuschwanstein is a beautiful castle set in one of the most scenic locations on Earth. If it looks a bit familiar, that may be because Walt Disney used it as inspiration for Cinderella’s Castle at the Disney theme parks. It really does evoke images of fairy tales, in more ways than one. But the story of its origin is one of tragedy, despair, and outright weirdness.
Swan Song
To understand the story, you’ll need to know a bit about Ludwig. As a child, he loved swans. This is not surprising, considering the castle he lived in was called Hohenschwangau (or “high region of the swan”) and contained artwork depicting the story of Lohengrin, a medieval knight of the Holy Grail who rescues a princess with the aid of a swan. Ludwig liked to feed swans and draw pictures of them, and when at age thirteen he heard of Richard Wagner’s opera “Lohengrin,” he was very excited. He memorized the entire libretto, and this led him to an interest in Wagner’s other music and writings. Within a few years, this interest turned into an obsession. In 1863, Ludwig got a copy of Wagner’s “The Ring Cycle.” In the preface, Wagner talks about “the miserable state of the German theater,” and that “a German Prince would need to be found to provide the required funds” to produce the opera. Ludwig took this as his personal mission. The very next year, at age eighteen, Ludwig became king when his father died. His first official duty was to send for Wagner and have him brought to Munich.
Wagner, who at that time was in his fifties, was a gifted musician but not, apparently, a very nice guy. History records Wagner as arrogant and self-centered, prone to excess, indiscretion, and intolerance. It so happened that at the very time Ludwig summoned him to Munich, Wagner was trying to evade his creditors and was very much in need of a patron. So Ludwig and Wagner struck up an almost symbiotic relationship. Ludwig funded Wagner’s work and put him up in a handsome villa, and Wagner played the part of mentor and idol. Not long thereafter, though, amid reports of yet another affair and worries that Wagner might be exerting too much influence over the young king, he was forced to leave Bavaria and move to Switzerland. Although Ludwig was upset, he continued to support Wagner, and the two kept up a steady correspondence.
Meanwhile, Ludwig was not having a very good time as king. He lost an important war against Prussia, was forced to submit his army to Austrian control, and then ended an unhappy engagement. Depressed and bitter, he withdrew from the public eye as much as possible and consoled himself by planning the construction of several great castles. In 1869, work began on his most ambitious castle, Neuschwanstein (which means “new swan stone”).
Reinventing the Castle
Ludwig had always wanted a medieval castle, so he had Neuschwanstein built in what you might call a neo-Romanesque style. That is to say, it was made to look a lot older than it really was, and unlike authentic medieval castles, it had such luxuries as forced-air heating and indoor plumbing. But the most distinctive feature of the castle was that it was designed to be a stage for Wagner’s operas, both literally and figuratively. Some rooms were designed explicitly as places where an opera might be performed, but in every room and corridor of the castle the architecture and artwork reflected the German mythology that formed the basis of Wagner’s operas. All but a very few of Wagner’s operas are depicted in one way or another in the castle. One of the most unusual rooms—if you can call it that—is called the Grotto. It’s actually an incredibly convincing artificial cave, complete with stalactites and a waterfall. The Grotto was intended to represent a cave from Wagner’s opera “Tannhäuser.”
Around the time construction began, estimates were that Ludwig would be able to move into the castle within about three years. But the work proceeded at a painfully slow pace and more than a decade later, the castle was still not complete. In 1883 Wagner died, causing Ludwig tremendous grief. So the composer never actually set foot inside the castle that had been built in his honor. A year later, Ludwig decided to move in, even though the structure was still unfinished and the throne room was not yet ready to hold a throne. But the king resided there for a grand total of only eleven nights. After Ludwig died under suspicious circumstances in 1886 at the age of 41, construction on Neuschwanstein continued for another eight years. When the builders finally stopped, only a third of the rooms had been finished and decorated.
Without Ludwig, Wagner may never have achieved the successes he did, and without Wagner, Neuschwanstein would never have been built. But there is much more to the story of the life and death of King Ludwig II than Neuschwanstein. The “swan king,” as he is sometimes called, built other equally interesting castles and led a fascinating, if deeply troubled life. His story, like his castles, reminds me that there’s more to Bavaria than meets the eye. —Joe Kissell
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This article was featured in Carnival of Bad History #7 and Travel Carnival 5.
A good biography of Ludwig II, along with information on each of his castles, can be found at Schwangau.de. Another very informative site is The German Way, which has a page on Ludwig II and another on Neuschwanstein.
Other resources:
The Arizona Opera Web site has a good biography of Richard Wagner.
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| One-Log House / Northern California's famous redwood attraction Wed, 06 Aug 2008 00:00:01 -0700 |
| Highway 101 in northern California features many wacky roadside attractions, including a house carved out of a single, huge redwood log. But it's famous mostly just for claiming to be famous.
I’ve always wondered about the expression “famous for being famous.” It seems to denote someone or something with no intrinsic appeal but with a high level of self-replicating buzz or hype. I can think of examples of famous people and things that seemingly don’t deserve to be famous, but what has always puzzled me is how that buzz about nothing gets started. In other words, how could I become famous for being famous? If it’s true that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, maybe it would be fun to be famous for being famous. Not “Joe Kissell the famous author” or even “Joe Kissell the famous curator of Interesting Things” but just “Joe Kissell the Famous.” Sure, all things being equal, I’d prefer to be known as smart and talented, but notoriety itself can be useful.
One time-tested technique for building up unearned fame is the self-fulfilling prophecy. If you declare something to be the case, loudly enough and persistently enough, you may set in motion a chain reaction that will eventually make it true. This phenomenon is of course well-known in California, even in the quiet rural areas far from the machinery of Hollywood fantasy. A case in point: the Famous One-Log House of Garberville, California. No one can say how famous it is, or for what reasons, or among what group of people, but undoubtedly that one word on the sign has convinced hundreds of visitors to pull off the road and have a look rather than just zipping by.
Big Red
If you’re driving through northern California to or from Oregon, the scenic route—US Highway 101—takes you through ancient redwood forests. The stuff of legend, song, and bitterly disputed logging practices, California redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) are known for both their size and longevity. Many of the trees are over 2,000 years old, with heights of over 300 feet (about 100m) and diameters of as much as 30 feet (about 10m). Decades ago, before environmentalists started lobbying to keep these old trees alive, the redwoods were exploited not only for their lumber but also for their value as tourist attractions. It’s not very exciting just to say, “I saw a big tree,” but it does sound cool to be able to say, “I drove my car through a big tree.” So a number of live trees had car-sized tunnels bored in their trunks; visitors were charged a few dollars to drive through the tree and take a picture. And yes, I drove through one of the trees too, for no other reason than to be able to say I’d done it, just like the rest of the tourists.
The stretch of highway with the drive-through trees also has a number of other cheesy tourist attractions—a giant, talking statue of Paul Bunyan (along with Babe the blue ox), a larger-than-life Bigfoot carved from a redwood, and other silly gimmicks, all of which exist mainly to drive business for gift shops and restaurants. The last time I drove through northern California, I decided to throw common sense to the wind and indulge in some kitsch. So when I saw the signs advertising the Famous One-Log House, I knew I’d have to stop and see what it was all about.
Home Is Where the Log Is
The One-Log House is, as the name suggests, a house carved out of a single, very large redwood log. It’s actually more of a mobile home than a house; the interior looks just like a travel trailer, and it’s even mounted on wheels. Nevertheless, it is habitable, with a kitchen, bedroom, living room, and dining room squeezed into its interior, and a comfortable 7-foot (2.1m) ceiling. The log itself is 13 feet (4m) in diameter and 32 feet (9.8m) long, and weighs a whopping 42 tons—even with its insides removed. There are doors at either end, one of which contains two small windows—the log’s only source of natural light.
The One-Log House is not, from an engineering standpoint, an entirely successful design. Large steel bands encircle the tree to keep it from splitting; this is necessary because with so much of its interior gone, it has lost most of its structural integrity. The tree does have electric lights inside (only some of which were working when we visited) and a sink; details of plumbing were unclear, and there was no bathroom (unless that’s what was hidden behind a locked door—it may also have been a closet). With almost no light, no ventilation, an unstable shell, and an absurdly high weight, it violates just about every sensible architectural principle and isn’t very livable.
Construction on the house began in approximately 100 B.C., but Art Schmock and a friend put the final touches on it during an eight-month period in 1946. As far as I can tell, it was never intended to be used as a residence; as a tourist attraction it traveled the country briefly then moved from one location in northern California to another before being sold to its current owners in 1999. Recently renovated, it’s open to all visitors willing to pay US$1 (on the honor system). You can see the whole thing in about 10 seconds, but it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality, right?
The One-Log House itself does not rate very high on the Interest-O-Meter, but the idea behind it does. In America’s great tradition of weird roadside attractions, it created fame out of (almost) nothing. Here at the Famous Interesting Thing of the Day Web site, we find that an inspiration.—JK the Famous
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The Famous One-Log House has its own home page. See also this page at DigThatFarOutCrazy.com and this one at Frankie’s Web Kingdom.
For more on the strange tourist attractions of Northern California, check out:
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| Fasting / There's more to not eating than you think Mon, 04 Aug 2008 00:00:01 -0700 |
| Voluntarily going without food, for a few days or a few weeks, can have surprising effects (beyond the sensation of hunger). Under the right circumstances, it can be good for your mental and physical health.
Because of my abiding interests in food, cooking, and unusual stories, I was excited to discover the books of Margaret Visser. Visser achieved literary fame for her books on the culture of eating: Much Depends on Dinner and The Rituals of Dinner. But the first book of hers I read was The Way We Are, a collection of short essays on all sorts of interesting things, from the unexpected origins of words to the stories behind everyday customs and cultural artifacts—each one backed by a solid bibliography. Hmmmm, a series of short essays on interesting things. What a concept! Although I did not deliberately try to emulate Visser’s M.O. on this site, it certainly was an implicit inspiration.
One of Visser’s topics in particular caught my attention: fasting. On a few rare occasions I had fasted for a day at a time, but Visser was talking about extended fasts—those lasting more than a few days. According to Visser and other sources I consulted, an extended fast has some fascinating characteristics I had never contemplated. For one thing, hunger is supposed to disappear after the first three or four days. The body adapts to the absence of intake and more or less goes about its business without complaining. Intriguingly, the mind purportedly becomes more alert, less sleep is needed, and thinking becomes clearer. On the downside (or perhaps not, depending on your point of view), sexual energy and desire diminish. Accumulated toxins are also released, which can be healthy for the body’s organs but has a side effect of significant body odor and bad breath. All this continues for anywhere from three to six weeks, depending on a variety of factors including the size of your body and overall health. At that point, hunger returns, signaling that you must eat soon in order to survive. Ignore this sensation, and your muscles, bones, and organs will rapidly deteriorate, leading to starvation.
It’s Not Food, It’s Me
Let me be very clear about this: I love food. Eating is more than nourishment for me—it’s a hobby, it’s entertainment, it’s educational. I enjoy cooking, trying unusual foods, and experiencing novel tastes, smells, and textures. And I like the rituals and trappings of a good meal, especially at a fine restaurant. I have been called many things but never anorexic. I’m reasonably fit but in no danger whatsoever of wasting away. In short, I have a good relationship with food and have every desire to maintain it.
But as I read Visser’s description of fasting I found the idea strangely compelling. The promised clarity of mind, without a doubt, was a strong selling point. There were also any number of personal reasons for considering a fast. For one thing, it seemed like a good spiritual discipline, a way of refocusing my attention on more important things than I usually think about. I also felt I could stand to break some bad habits, such as excessive (even for me) consumption of coffee and chocolate, and a sometimes inappropriate ratio of food intake to exercise. Besides, I figured I had enough body fat to keep me going for a few weeks, at least, and that there would be no particular harm in having a little less. But what motivated me even more was simple curiosity. I like to have experiences—even if I don’t anticipate they’ll be pleasant ones—in order to learn, add to my collection of stories, and expand my horizons.
Fast Times
So I tried it, and in the last few years I’ve undertaken three extended fasts so far, ranging in duration from ten days to three weeks. (I have not attempted to go the proverbial 40 days and 40 nights without food.) The experience was indeed quite interesting and not nearly as unpleasant as I thought it would be. Each time, the overall pattern was about the same. The first two days were quite difficult; the third was excruciating. I felt intensely hungry, weak, and light-headed, and had tremendous difficulty concentrating. But by the fourth day, all these symptoms began to subside rapidly. By the time a week had passed, my body and mind alike had become accustomed to not eating, and it no longer felt strange. I also found myself needing less sleep, and as expected, feeling more alert and clear-headed. I don’t want to overstate this mental clarity: it wasn’t overwhelming, but definitely noticeable. I am reliably informed that my body odor and breath were not more objectionable than usual during my fasts, but then, I also did not consider it necessary to abstain from bathing, using deodorant, and brushing my teeth.
When I started my first fast, I had the idea that I would consume nothing but water. After a while, however, I began to feel this was unhealthy and unnecessary. I did not have the luxury of taking time off from work and life for several weeks of contemplation, and I needed to have at least a modest amount of energy. So I took vitamins and fiber capsules and drank a small amount of fruit juice (or sometimes vitamin water). Some people would say that’s cheating or call what I was doing a “juice fast.” I would differ with that interpretation, but then, there are many views on what constitutes a “proper” fast and that is of no particular concern to me.
The Food Conspiracy
I did find a few things to be unexpectedly difficult. One was exercise. I don’t exercise heavily, but even a half hour of t’ai chi was exhausting. Specifically, I felt as though my muscles just didn’t have the strength or endurance they usually do. But the big surprise was social, not physical. Even though I normally eat at home, several times a week I found myself in some social situation in which eating was expected. For example, Fridays at work were Bagel Day, and there were often business lunches, birthday celebrations, and other events where food was served. Friends would invite us to have dinner with them, but felt awkward when I wasn’t eating like everyone else. I began to notice that so many of my social habits (“Let’s go out and…whatever”) assumed the shared consumption of food. To be unable to participate was frustrating.
Then, of course, when I declined food and someone asked why, I had to explain that I was fasting. This is not easy to do. Fasting is extremely uncommon these days and therefore it’s regarded with suspicion. Was I fasting because of some medical test? No. Was it some sort of religious ritual? No again. Are you sure this isn’t just a thinly veiled weight loss strategy? Yes, quite sure. How long was I going to be fasting for? No idea—I’ll decide when I get there. And so on. I was hard-pressed to give satisfying answers.
Returning to Food
More than anything, though, I simply missed food. It wasn’t that I felt hunger pangs or cravings, I just missed the sensation of eating, as well as the social and logistical conveniences it provided. When I began to feel that the desire to resume a normal life outweighed the benefits of continued fasting, I started eating again. To the extent that fasting helped me to break bad habits, the reform was fleeting, but I still value the brief dose of perspective it gave me. And I fully expect I will fast again—perhaps as an annual ritual, a sort of internal spring cleaning.
If you are thinking about fasting, it is prudent to talk to your doctor first, as some people are medically unable to fast. This is a matter of “do as I say, not as I do.” Under the type of health insurance most Americans have, casual visits to the doctor to chat about minor health questions are strongly discouraged—inconvenient and awkward at best. Don’t expect tremendous encouragement either—but it never hurts to double-check that you’re free of conditions that would make fasting dangerous.
There are many good reasons to fast. Besides exercising discipline over your own body, it gives you a chance to exercise some social discipline as well, questioning the assumptions of our food-based culture. And it is, without question, an interesting experience. When you resume your relationship with food, it will be more intentional and circumspect—and more meaningful. —Joe Kissell
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There are many books on fasting but I haven’t read any of them, so I’m unable to give a specific recommendation. However, a search on Amazon.com should give you plenty to chew on.
I’ve seen a great many Web sites that talk about fasting, but with rare exceptions they’re overloaded with religious assumptions and jargon. Let me instead suggest a Google search; you can draw your own conclusions.
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| The Kepler Mission / Searching for other habitable planets Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:00:01 -0700 |
| The galaxy may contain other planets similar enough to Earth to sustain human life, but finding them is tricky. The Kepler Mission will use a special satellite to watch for subtle signs of Earth-like planets.
Author’s Update: The Kepler Mission’s launch has been delayed until February 2009. For current updates on its status, check this news page.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a fan of Star Trek in its various incarnations. I have no trouble suspending my disbelief in the seemingly incredible technology of the future, and I can even accept that somehow, mysteriously, humanoid beings all over the galaxy speak English. But there are some recurring Trek themes that boggle the mind because they seemingly defy the laws of statistics. For example, we viewers are expected to believe that upon encountering any alien race, there is a 35% probability that some hot alien chick will fall in love with the captain of the Enterprise within an hour. Well…I don’t know that the probability is 35%, but it’s certainly a few orders of magnitude higher than what common sense tells me. Likewise, when our heroes encounter a new planet, almost without exception they observe with feigned surprise that it’s a “Class M” planet—Trek shorthand for “able to sustain human life.”
Of course, any planet on which human actors are going to be filming a TV show would pretty much have to support human life, wouldn’t it? But in the real universe, it’s hard to imagine that there would be very many worlds so similar to Earth that humans (or human-like beings) could live there comfortably. After all, a lot of very specific criteria would need to be met. The atmosphere must have just the right mixture of gases—and must provide protection from stellar radiation. The temperature must be within the range humans can tolerate. The gravity must be strong enough that we s | |
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