Architectural Landmark
A partially constructed pyramid, which has now been long abandoned. Bedford, the "Limestone Capital of the World," received over $700,000 in government grants to build an eight-story replica of the Great Pyramid out of native limestone. Work proceeded until funds ran out.
Alcatraz Island, the notorious prison that once housed 260 federal offenders, is now visited by over one million people a year. Tourists are permitted to see the main prison areas, however, much of the rambling old facility is off-limits.
Located in a remote stretch of desert, near the Nevada/California state line, the Amargosa Opera House, once an abandoned community center, offers weekly performances of classical ballet, theater, and pantomine. All the performances are written and executed by Marta Becket, a classically trained...
The Ames Pyramid is a sixty-foot-tall stone-block monolith in the otherwise empty plains of Wyoming. It was constructed in 1882 to commemorate Union Pacific railroad businessmen/politicians Oakes and Oliver Ames, who, soon after this monument had been constructed in their honor, were found to have...
Arcosanti is an entire city under construction near the town of Mayer, north of Phoenix. It is a city designed by the architect Paolo Soleri, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. While there is evidence of the influence of Wright's Arizona style in the idealistic architecture of Soleri, the Italian...
Located in an old quarry, now the grounds of St. Bernard Abbey, this is a garden of miniature replicas of churches all over the world, executed in great detail, and landscaped into the rock. Largely the work of Brother Joseph Zoetl, who labored at the site almost without interruption from 1932 to...
A large experimental complex built in the late 1980s to explore the possibility of living outside of the earth--Biosphere 1--should the earth become uninhabitable. It is part research facility, part tourist attraction. The primary structure consists of a large, mostly glass faced building,...
A three-story, hand made, medieval-style castle under construction since 1969. The castle is being built entirely by one man, Jim Bishop, who calls his structure "a poor man's Disneyland." It is built primarily of native stone gathered from the surrounding San Isabel National Forest, and features...
Extensive assortment of structures and ornaments made with bottles and other cast-away materials, surrounding a home in suburban Simi Valley. Started in 1955 by Tressa Prisbey, who continued to build it until she was forced out of the property by developers in 1982. She died in a nursing home in...
A castle-like house and sculpture garden assembled by its owner, Edward Leedskalnin, over roughly a thirty year period. Mr. Leedskalnin quarried the limestone from his property for the construction of his house, which was partially a shrine to the woman he longed for but never had.
A building covered in corn: each year, the building's exterior is stripped off and a new one is applied, using thousands of bushels of corn, grain, and grasses. A tourist attraction and agricultural showpiece, the Corn Palace is used to host community events, shows, and sports events.
A rock tower that overlooks southern Anza Borrego Desert and Interstate 8 near the California / Mexico border. Built in the 1920's by a man named Burt Vaughn, to commemorate pioneers crossing the desert to get to San Diego, it is now owned by an individual owner. Nearby are some unusual rock...
Protruding from the trees on a hillside above the eastern shore of the Hudson River, visible from public roads, is a nearly 100 year old 45,000 square foot moorish castle that has never been finished, nor really been lived in (except by a caretaker). Evans Dick, a wealthy financier, started...
Drop City was a community that formed in the hills of southern Colorado in the late 1960s, which become a sort of icon of the rural 1960s communal living that seemed to be blooming at that time. Singled out by the media as exemplary, Drop City was known for its dome-style of architecture, which...
Inside the pyramid in the town of Felicity is a time capsule and a plaque indicating the exact center of the world. Though it could be said that the surface of a spherical planet could have an infinite number of "centers" this is the only Center of the World officially recognized as such by the...
An underground complex excavated by a Sicilian immigrant named Baldesare Forestiere. He learned tunneling techniques at his first American job, working on New York City's aqueduct system. He bought land in Fresno, hoping to open a citrus plantation, however his land turned out to be solid rock...
What is said to be the tallest fountain in the world is, suitably, in one of the most arid cities: Phoenix, Arizona. The fountain shoots eight tons of water as much as 625 feet in the air (70 feet higher than the Washington Monument), at the rate of 7,000 gallons per minute. Though it does not...
A multi-story geodesic sphere house on a pole, next to the Interstate south of Kingman, Arizona. It was built originally as a restaurant called the Dinesphere, part of a sprawling desert development that never materialized called Lake Havasu Estates (Lake Havasu, much developed, is over 30 miles...
A dirigible hangar constructed in 1929, and said to be the largest airdock in the country, and the largest unsupported enclosed space in the country (it used to be "in the World," until a German company built a huge airdock a few years ago). It is1,175 feet long, 325 feet wide and 211 feet tall....
A religious shrine built by a Catholic priest, the site consists of a network of paths, grottos, and caves covered in stones and shells. The original builder, Father Dobberstein, worked on the site for over 40 years, before his death in 1954. Another priest, Father Louis H. Greving, has since taken...
A 14-room house carved from a sandstone monolith by Albert Christensen, who spent 12 years on the project, and his wife Gladys, who continued the work for another eight years after he died in 1957. The cavity is 5,000 square feet of fully furnished, manmade cave, with a fireplace and a deep fryer....
The Institute of Mentalphysics, also known as the Joshua Tree Retreat Center, is a spiritual teaching and retreat site in the Southern California desert founded by Edwin John Dingle. His Science of Mentalphysics, based on Tibetan and other Asian teachings, was begun in 1927 in Los Angeles, CA....
The Integratron is an unusual structure that was built as a "rejuvenation machine", an electromegnetic wave oscillator contained in a 50-foot diameter dome in the desert near Landers. Constructed in the 1950's and 1960's by George Van Tassel, a former test pilot for Hughes and Douglas Aircraft, who...
The actual London Bridge was purchased by the president of the McCullough Corporation and rebuilt at this location, in artificial Lake Havasu, in the middle of the desert, on the Colorado River. The relocated bridge was originally built spanning dry land, then a channel was dug so that the bridge...
The Maryhill Museum, dramatically located on a bluff above the Columbia River in eastern Washington, started out as a farm house for a utopian agrarian community planned by Sam Hill. Hill was a Quaker-raised railroad lawyer who became an influential and unusual force in the development of...
One of the great icons of modernist decay around the Salton Sea, this building was designed by the Swiss-born Palm Springs modernist Albert Frey. It has recently been restored, after decades of abandonment.
A museum and shrine, consisting of an assemblage of artifacts in a maze of display areas, built by one man to celebrate his notions of good health and happiness, loosely centered around oranges. The creator, Jeff McKissack, a retired postman, died in 1979, but the Orange Show Foundation, funded by...
The New Vrindaban community was founded in 1968 as part of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) founded by Srila Prabhupada. It is a spiritual center and pilgrimage site for Hare Krishnas and other Hindus and, along with the nearby Palace of Gold, a tourist attraction for...
George Lucas' 3,000 acre film production center in the hills of Marin County has underground parking for the 200 employees, a redwood paneled new Victorian main building, gift shop, baseball field, vineyard, technical building, three restaurants, and fire station.
A self-built, three-story, 8,000 square foot structure, that started out in 1972 as a private building project for the owner of the property, Howard Solomon, but which has turned into a tourist attraction. Numerous sculptures, a bell tower, and a 60 foot galleon replica. Has a restaurant and a bed...