d Painted Places d Shrine of the Pines d Watts Towers AMERICAN ROAD
VOLUME XVII NUMBER 4
WINTER
US $4.95 CAN $4.95
2019 Display in Travel Through March 2020
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Features
Departments
30 Painted Places
58 US 10: Driving the Dime
A LOOK AT TEN MASTERPIECES AND THE LOCATIONS THAT INSPIRED THEM
Christina’s World. American Gothic. Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas…. You’ve seen the paintings, and you know the artists who painted them. We go into the galleries to review masterworks by Andrew Wyeth, Grant Wood, Norman Rockwell, and others—and then head out on the highway to revisit the actual locations portrayed on each canvas. • ENSEMBLE
64 Art Cars A WEIRD AND WONDERFUL WORLD ON WHEELS
Is a car just something that gets you from point A to point B? Or can it be considered a mobile art exhibit on four wheels? We look for an answer in the wonderfully weird and wacky world of art cars, where people carpet vans with cameras, cover trucks with cork, and paint convertibles in homage to the late Timothy Leary. • ENSEMBLE
98 American Road’s “Art and Soul” Photography Contest MAKING A MASTERPIECE WITH A CAMERA
For our magazine’s eighth annual photography contest, we invited our readers to look at the country’s highways and byways as if they were regarding a masterpiece on canvas. We asked them to send us the pictures they’ve taken that they consider high art, and they showed us just how elevated their eyes can be. • CONTEST WINNERS
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“Shrine of the Pines”
Decades ago, Michigan’s pine forests were decimated by logging crews. Enter Raymond “Bud” Overholzer, a wilderness tour guide who looked at the stumps the lumberjacks had left behind and began whittling from them the Baldwin Shrine of the Pines. • THOMAS ARTHUR REPP
88 US 50: Drive Me Lonely
“Seat of Eternity”
Expecting the Rapture? The biblical End of the World? Washington, D.C., janitor James Hampton was. And so he fashioned a front-row seat for God and his celestial crew—a little apocalyptic something he called the Throne of the Third Heaven…. • MARK VERNARELLI
92 Landmark Status
“Watts Happening”
Watts Towers has survived everything from the 1966 Watts riots to the 1994 Northridge earthquake and a 1974 effort by Fred Sanford to supercede them with his own artistic sculptures. What gives these enduring landmarks their staying power? • JESS WINFIELD
104 The Extra Mile
“Flying Circus”
Welded from pieces of farm machinery, shaped like Ferris wheels and airplanes and featuring sheet-metal men and animals, some of the contraptions at Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park stand fifty feet high and weigh ten tons. That’s a lot of whimsy to go round. • TONY CRAIG
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VOLUME XVII • NUMBER 4 • WINTER 2019
AMERICAN ROAD MAGAZINE • PO Box 46519 • Mt. Clemens, Michigan 48046 • Phone (877) 285-5434 • Fax (877) 285-5434 • americanroadmagazine.com
Stop-Overs
Roadside
14 Memory Motel
5 Editor’s Rambler
They say a man’s home is his castle. But in Ona, Florida, one man’s castle can be yours for a night—if you check into the Blue Moon Room at Solomon’s Castle, a quirky landmark-cum-art-museum that lets guests sleep medieval in the Sunshine State. • KARRAS STRASBURG
“You Gotta Have (More) Art”
10 Write-of-Way
Letters from Our Readers
11 Who’s Driving? Contest
54 Think Big!
Batter up! In 1977, Michael Carmichael of Alexandria, Indiana, applied a coat of paint to an old baseball he’d stuck on a stick. Today, said baseball has been painted more than 26,000 times—a fourteen-foot, 2.5-ton globe that scores heavily in the record books. • ERIKA NELSON
86 Diner Days
To Martin Sanchez, owner of Tio’s Tacos in Riverside, California, art is largely any discarded object: “The soda cans, the beer bottles, the oyster shells and beef bones,” he says—all that comes through his kitchen may find its way into the sculptures he creates outside. • JESS WINFIELD
12 Friends in the Fast Lane: Road Event Retrospect
Archeology’s Wacky Wisconsin Conference • Flying High: Craig’s Bird Painting Takes Top Honor • The Teenage Gas Baron of Miami, Oklahoma
18 Tunnel Vision: News Around the Road
Boulder and Bolder Moves • Blessed Are the Innkeepers • That Turtle Needs Your Bra • New Spark in Flint, Michigan • Smoky Valley Scenic Byway • Black Hawk Patched Up • Slumberland Goes Dunkin’ • Avocados Close I-10 • Invasion of the Big Heads • And the Museum Goes to… • The 2.12-Carat Arkansas Trip • Cops Help Cats • Route 66 Loves Miner Frecs
24 American Road Sweepstakes
96 Another Roadside Attraction
If a stitch in time saves nine, what can be saved by 504 quilt squares attached to the broad side of a barn? Feed and grain store owner Elsie Bennett of Mount Ulla, North Carolina, decided to find out—with a little help from a number of sew-and-sews. • TONY CRAIG
90 Inspection Station
On-the-Go Pain Relief Balm • Don’t Make Me Pull Over: An Informal History of the Family Road Trip • Mixcder HD901 Headphones
108 Advertiser Index 88
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109 Park Place
Your Curbside Calendar
110 John Claar’s Hitching Post Road Gifts & Souvenirs
112 American Crossroad Puzzle “’Art and Soul”
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EDITOR’S RAMBLER “You Gotta Have (More) Art”
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ere’s a smart riddle for the surrealists in our audience: Why did the giraffe cross the road? Answer: Because his freaking spots were on fire. The silliness of that non sequitur has appealed to me since I was aged nine, when my parents took me on my inaugural trip to the Art Institute of Chicago. There, hanging on a wall in Gallery 396, I beheld Inventions of the Monsters (1937), an apocalyptic masterpiece brought into being by the giddy, garish brush of Spanish Dadaist-turned-world-confounder Salvador Dalí. The painting was stomachchurning—a vision Saint John the Divine might have writ into his Book of Revelation had he swallowed a box of rotten communion wafers. Dalí populated his oily canvas with creatures too freakish to forget: a horsewoman with a head of disheveled hay; a cat angel with cornflower wings, and, in the background, all patches and smoke plumes, a burning giraffe—a flambé on stilts—that seared itself into my eyeballs. “That’s cool,” I said. As I grew up, the sight of that combusting camel leopard stayed with me. I returned to Dalí’s opus on many occasions—on school field trips and on college dates, when I endeavored to impress more than one beloved coed with my knowledge of its bitter shadows. Eventually, I found myself visiting that painting on my honeymoon, standing in its fever with my newlywed wife on a young February morning. “I like the giraffe,” I ventured. “It’s hot,” she said. “Yeah, it’s cool,” I agreed. “Why is it on fire?” “It’s hot,” I said. “Oh, that’s cool,” she said. “Wait a minute…. Are those boobs or butts clumped up in the corner?” That’s a line of inquiry, I can attest, that easily leads to an afternoon spent rolling around an apartment in a rapturous puddle of body paints. Hot, indeed. Art stays with us. It informs our opinions. It colors our views—even as it reveals that we all read the landscape a little differently. And therein lies the hue of this issue of American Road, which looks at the national palette through the eyes of our artists. “Painted Places,” our lead feature, revisits scenes that inspired the masters to canvas—from the all-American roadway Norman Rockwell portrayed in Stockbridge Main Street at Christmas (1930) to the salty seaside beacon Edward Hopper preserved in A Lighthouse at Two Lights (1929). Have you ever wished to perceive the country’s soul? Dig the rural lines of Grant Wood’s American Gothic (1930) or the power that makes Frederic Edwin Church’s Niagara (1857) the best depiction of the Honeymoon Capital of the World—with or without body paints. Some classic car enthusiasts insist there’s nothing more beautiful than a well-tricked-out ride, but the artists we showcase in “Art Cars” find their engines in extremes. They cover trucks with cork, carpet vans with cameras, or bury their sedans under every manner of toothbrush and denture. Surreal enough? If not, follow us to Watts Towers in Los Angeles; Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park in Wilson, North Carolina; or Shrine of the Pines in Baldwin, Michigan, to see the way time and place can be twisted with a tree root. Salvador Dalí, of course, gained fame for his paintings of melting timepieces—although I suspect his inspiration for those dripping clocks drew more from nature than his conceit might admit. Plenty of times, during blistering summer outings in the Mojave Desert or its like, I’ve expected my own wristwatch to ooze off my arm. Why, I recall a day in Death Valley when I was baked to near delirium at Badwater Basin: The sun scorched the salt flats to 128 degrees, and I swear I saw my Timex bubbling to a boil. Admittedly, it wasn’t long afterward when I beheld a giraffe galumphing across the road, back ablaze, a flambé on stilts—and an indeterminate interval following when I awoke with a washcloth wetting my forehead—a restorative applied by a cat angel with cornflower wings. “It’s hot,” she said. “I was chasing the flaming giraffe,” I said. “That’s cool,” she said. Editorial Director d ON OUR WINDSHIELD: Rex Rosenberg’s art car BugWing blends a pared-down 1965 Volkswagen Beetle with
a 1981 Honda Gold Wing motorcycle. Photo by Rex Rosenberg. [Opposite] Salvador Dalí’s surreal masterpiece Inventions of the Monsters (1937) can be viewed inside the Art Institute of Chicago. Institute photo by EQRoy. Inventions of the Monsters appears courtesy Peter Barritt/Alamy.
THOMAS ARTHUR REPP Editorial Director REBECCA REPP General Manager JILLIAN GURNEY ROBERT KLARA JESS WINFIELD Editors MELISSA BRANDZEL Copy Editor GARY MANTZ Radio Show and Podcast Host SUE HRONIK Communications Director STACY SMITH BOSCO WALTER FENWICK MORRIS J. LILLIAN EDWARD McCLELLAND Roadside Contributors POP AMHEARST ERIKA NELSON KARRAS STRASBURG MARK A. VERNARELLI Department Editors SONNET TAMSIN AVALON SAWYER THOMAS ’ALDEN Creative Interns TONY CRAIG Staff Photographer ED WEXLER Caricature Artist LINDSAY PULLIN Circulation LYNN MILLER Calendar ROBERT C. CLAAR Roadside Consultant LYNETTE NIELSEN Hitching Post Sales RICHARD ETCHELLS Online Index JENNIFER & PAT BREMER Online Forum Moderators Advertising Representatives
Phone (877) 285-5434 for the representative in your region
REBECCA REPP becky@americanroadmagazine.com (206) 369-5782 RICK GOWER rgower@americanroadmagazine.com (877) 285-5434 / Ext. 3 JOHN VITOLO jvitolo@americanroadmagazine.com (877) 285-5434 / Ext. 5 SHEILA MARTIN smartin@americanroadmagazine.com Administrative Assistant
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AMERICAN ROAD (ISSN 1542-4316) is published quarterly by Mock Turtle Press, LLC. Included in EBSCO Publishing’s products. Copyright © 2019 by Mock Turtle Press. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA. Printed on recycled paper.
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WRITE-OF-WAY
Letters from Our Readers
Post correspondence to AMERICAN ROAD • PO Box 46519 • Mt. Clemens, Michigan 48046 • letters@americanroadmagazine.com • Letters may be edited for clarity and space. Not all letters are published.
DRIVE-IN DELIGHT wesome article on drive-ins in the Summer 2019 magazine! I was specifically interested because I (Detroit Diecast) manufacture drive-in speakers. This past spring, our Detroit Diecast Eprad drive-in speakers were used as awards for the annual EarthxFilm Festival 2019 event. The drive-in speaker trophies were given out for the best Creative Storytelling awards. Our speakers looked awesome displayed on the acrylic stands! Thanks again for showcasing these existing drive-ins located across the country. The story has inspired us to check out some of the featured theatres. In fact, we are heading to the Cherry Bowl Drive-In on US Highway 31 in Honor, Michigan, first!
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Rich Bzovi Detroit, Michigan Hi Rich. We are thrilled that you found “A Night at the Drive-In 3…32 Classic Picture Parks Across North America” inspirational! We like the idea of turning drive-in speakers into trophies, and we hope you will keep us posted on your quest to visit Michigan’s outdoor screens. Our Executive Editor can often be found frequenting the Ford Drive-In Theatre of Dearborn. He’s partial to the Ford because it regularly screens the classic Filmack intermission trailer.
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enjoyed the article about our drive-in [Winner Drive-In] in the Summer 2019 issue. My mom showed me her copy. Thank you! My mom, Betty Fast, still runs the drive-in at age 87. Currently she does all of the mowing on the grounds, sells the advertising, orders and stocks supplies, and is in the concession stand every night it is open. Mom usually mans the popcorn machine. People enjoy coming and visiting with Mom before the movies. She has enjoyed several generations of families over the years. My folks always tried to keep the business as family-oriented as possible, and believes you should treat others the way you want to be treated. Is there any way we can get a copy of this article? Thanks! Have a beautiful day! Kim Nordsiden Winner, South Dakota Hello Kim! Thank you—we’re so happy you enjoyed the piece about the Winner DriveIn. We will be happy to send you a copy of the magazine. Your family story about the drive-in is wonderful. Readers will recall that your childhood house adjoined the drive-in, and your father rigged up a speaker so you could watch the film from your window. Now, that’s what we call a good parent!
MOVIE AWARD: Detroit Diecast drive-in speakers were turned into trophies at the EarthxFilm Festival of 2019.
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hat a pleasure reading your Summer 2019 piece on existing drive-ins. It made me reminisce about experiencing them as a child, as a teenager, and later with my children. Those drive-ins were on North Adams in Massachusetts on Route 8; on Route 35 in Hazlet, New Jersey; and another on the Sunrise Highway in Long Island, New York. Sadly, they are gone and now exist as commercial retail space. But one you missed that is still going strong is the Eden Drive-In theatre in Eden, North Carolina, just north of Greensboro in Rockingham County. I can still happily enjoy that experience as a retiree! Douglas Sanecki Greensboro, North Carolina Hello Douglas! We are very glad to hear you enjoyed the Summer issue and our feature “A Night at the Drive-In 3.” Thank you for letting us know. Don’t be dismayed—we did run an article about the Eden Drive-In Theatre in our Summer 2011 issue in the “A Night at the Drive-In” feature. To date, we’ve actually done three installments of “A Night at the DriveIn”—and covered the story and history behind some one hundred of the classic outdoor screens. It’s great to know the Eden Drive-In is still a thriving showplace and you are an avid supporter in carrying on the tradition. May you enjoy many more nights at the Eden. Those are the stories our readers love to hear.
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WHO’S DRIVING? THE STATE OF RIDGE ROUTE s of August 2019 the concrete on the Ridge Route is at or over its onehundred-year anniversary. For its age and all it has gone through, it’s still in pretty good shape in many places [it’s currently closed]. On Monday, June 10, representatives from the Ridge Route Preservation Organization (myself; Harrison Scott, past president; Dave Omieczynski; and Richard Valot) had a meeting with representatives from the Angeles National Forest (including Jerry Perez, Forest Supervisor; Justin Seastrand, Environmental Coordinator; Ricardo Lopez, Road Engineer; and Jamahl Butler, District Ranger). Our meeting, which was held on the Ridge Route near the southern end, was to discuss a range of topics regarding the road. We initially met at the Ridge Route and Templin Highway, where we made introductions and briefly went over the meeting details. From there, I led the group with my sport bike up the road to the southern gate. At that point, we discussed the land ownership problems and the 2010 paving, which we believe will help us with our goal of getting the road reopened. After our discussion, they opened the gate and I led the group on a tour of the Ridge Route from the southern gate to Reservoir Summit. The initial plan, however, was to only go about four miles north to see the recently reconstructed section of road. At each stop, the US Forest Service (USFS) people decided to go a bit further. We didn’t mind this at all! Along the way, we made stops at some of the sections of the roadway that had been repaired as well as some of the historic sites along the road, such as the National Forest Inn site. At each major stop, Scotty brought out his books and showed photos of the sites. Once we reached Reservoir Summit, we had another discussion regarding the state of the roadway. Overall, it was in very good shape with only a few areas needing more immediate attention. Many sections had been resurfaced and we did make it clear that we didn’t want to see a wholesale repaving of the roadway for the sake of preservation. They seemed to understand this. After our discussion and hike to the reservoir, we all headed back to the southern gate to finalize our meeting.
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The meeting was productive and positive. There is still a lot of work to be done, but they were willing to help and to work with us [to reopen the road]. It seems to be coming down to a funding and land ownership issue right now, both of which we foresee getting resolved at some point in the not-too-distant future. They stated they would do additional research regarding the land ownership issue at the southern end of the roadway. Another concern is roadway maintenance, which we may be able to help defray with volunteer effort. Instead of a Memorandum of Understanding, we may be entering into a Volunteer Agreement regarding cleaning drains and such along the roadway. With regard to opening the roadway, there is still no estimate on when it will reopen. There are still additional issues that need to be addressed, but we at least have a better understanding of what the USFS sees as the problems. One of them, overall condition of the roadway and ability for vehicles to travel safely, I tried to prove by using my sport bike. If I can go on the roadway using that vehicle, most everyone should be able to pass over it safely as well. Only time will tell if this meeting was truly successful, but I believe it was. I will give updates when we hear back from the USFS in the near future. When we start to plan work parties on the road, we will need volunteer help and support. People interested in following our progress and in volunteering to help in our efforts can read more at ridgeroute.org or email us at admin@ridgeroute.org.
HINT: “You know his Mum. A postage stamp painting: Old Grey and Black.” 1) IDENTIFY the NOTABLE AMERICAN who appears above in the car. 2) SEND your ANSWER to: driving@americanroadmagazine.com or AMERICAN ROAD, PO Box 46519 Mt. Clemens, MI 48046 The names of all individuals providing correct answers will be entered in a drawing for the prize(s) shown below. One winner will be selected immediately before our next issue goes to press. No purchase necessary. Estimated odds of winning are 1/10,000.
Michael Ballard President Ridge Route Preservation Organization San Diego, California Michael, thank you for the update on California’s historic Ridge Route—the first paved highway linking the Los Angeles Basin and the San Joaquin Valley over the Tejon Pass in the Sierra Pelona mountain ridge. We applaud your dedicated effort in preserving this historic roadway—initially paved between 1917 and 1921. We know our readers will appreciate the information and the opportunity to volunteer. Please keep up the great work!
ROUTE 66 CLASSIC BOOK PACKAGE! Package Retail Value: $122.80! Get your kicks with this Route 66 collection of books: Route 66: The Empires of Amusement; Route 66: Romance of the West; Strange Route 66: Myth, Mystery, Mayhem, and Other Weirdness on Route 66; and 66 on 66: A Photographer’s Journey.
Born Lázló, actor Peter Lorre gained fame playing a serial killer in Fritz Lang’s M. In his later years, he starred in Roger Corman’s “Poe Cycle” of films. CONGRATULATIONS TO MICHAEL EVANS OF IXONIA, WISCONSIN!
AMERICAN ROAD
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FRIENDS IN THE FAST LANE
Road Event Retrospect ARCHEOLOGY’S WACKY WISCONSIN CONFERENCE
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1 (1) IT’S SHOWTIME! Members of the Society for Commercial Archeology pose at the SC Johnson Golden Rondelle Theater in Racine, Wisconsin. Built as the Johnson Pavilion for the 1964 World’s Fair, the historic building continues to function as a performance space.
ISCONSIN DELLS, Wis.—“Wacky” and “archeology” in one breath? Yup. In June 2019, sixty-nine roadside enthusiasts, preservation advocates, and neon sign nuts gathered at Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells for the 42nd Society for Commercial Archeology conference. Paper sessions were complemented by tours exploring the unique built environment of Wisconsin Dells, its initial inspiration in the natural Upper Dells formations, and the area’s transformation from mid-century tourist destination into the “Waterpark Capital of the World.” A final day tour visited surrounding iconic sites: the Al Ringling Theatre in Baraboo, House on the Rock in Spring Green, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s spectacular SC Johnson administration and research campus in Racine. Wacky!
FLYING HIGH: CRAIG’S BIRD PAINTING TAKES TOP HONOR
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2 (2) BIRD’S-EYE VIEW Artist, animator, and American Road Staff Photographer Tony Craig painted Interlude, a work that depicts a barn swallow resting on a boat tie. The painting was accepted for the 2019 Birds in Art show at the Woodson Museum in Wisconsin.
ARKERS ISLAND, N.C.—A little birdie told us about a big honor: Tony Craig, Staff Photographer for American Road, was pleasantly surprised when his painting of a barn swallow taking a rest on a boat’s tie line was accepted for the 2019 Birds in Art national show at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin. Interlude, the title of Tony’s work, will join other paintings of avians in the Birds in Art tour that will travel from Texas to New York to Maine in 2020. Tony himself finds birds an appropriate subject for many an artistic medium: He also confesses to a passion for duck decoy carving.
THE TEENAGE GAS BARON OF MIAMI, OKLAHOMA
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3 (3) SUPER SERVICE: A modern Horatio Alger has bought a 1920s-era service station along Route 66 in Miami, Oklahoma. Nineteen-year-old Eli Chenoweth hopes to relocate the building and restore it to its operational glory on the Mother Road.
IAMI, Okla.—Okay, Boomer. When you were a teen maybe you worked at a vintage Route 66 service station. Generation Z buys ’em. In pairs. Eli Chenoweth, a 19-year-old entrepreneur who opened The Frozen Elephant shaved-ice shop at age 16, has purchased the oldest service station in Miami, Oklahoma, dating from 1921. He hopes to move it to adjoin his previous purchase, the Miami Marathon Oil Service Station, a Route 66 National Historical Landmark since 1995. “I love Miami,” Chenoweth told KSNFTV in a recent interview. “I want to motivate the young people.” This represents an evolution of his own business motives from 2016, when he told the Miami News-Record, “I like to have all the money.” Photo 1 by Kevin Patrick. Photo 2 by Tony Craig. Photo 3 by Eli Chenoweth.
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MEMORY MOTEL Solomon’s Castle Ona, Florida
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hey say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. They also say that a man’s home is his castle. But only in Ona, Florida, do they say that one man’s trash is another man’s castle—and a treasure of a home, to boot. That’s the story behind Solomon’s Castle, a quirky landmark-cum-art-museum-andB&B that stretches above the surrounding orange trees like some shiny, medieval mirage. At first glance, its mere presence suggests that Sir Galahad may have visited the Sunshine State: This fortress looks like something plucked from the pages of Le Morte d’Arthur or Idylls of the King. But closer examination reveals it to be more Monty Python than Malory: Two knights in armor flank the castle’s drawbridge—a white knight called “Day” and a black knight called “Night.” An awning hanging over a tower window is monogrammed with a large “S” as if it were a large bath towel. And are those really aluminum plates from a printing press tiling the castle’s walls? Indeed, they are: cast-off printing plates from the local Wauchula newspaper, The Herald-Advocate. They give the fortress its Excalibur-like sheen, and they serve, collectively, to turn the castle into a time capsule: As has been noted, the hidden sides of those plates are covered with yesterday’s headlines. You could peel them off and read old news. The old printing plates were affixed here— like everything else on this plot of land—by a sculptor who truly believed in repurposing. His name was Howard Solomon. He was a native
BY KARRAS STRASBURG
New Yorker who moved to Florida in 1955 and worked as a cabinetmaker, shipwright, and interior designer before purchasing ninety acres of swampland southwest of Ona in 1970 and beginning to build. “Dad has been called the Rembrandt of Reclamation, the da Vinci of Debris, and the Wizard of Odds and Ends,” says Solomon’s daughter, Alane. “When he first came here, he realized that he didn’t have a lot of room for building out, so he started building up. He’d add a tower here and a turret there, and before you knew it, he had a castle.” Solomon began sharing his quirky Camelot with the public at the behest of the local Kiwanis Club. Back in the day, he gave a lecture about art there, and members showed up at his home the following Sunday afternoon to see what he’d been talking about. For the next twelve years, Solomon gave free tours of the premises, even as the castle and its attractions grew. At one point, he decided to build a replica of a sixteenth-century Portuguese galleon sixty-five feet long—an endeavor that became the restaurant known today as The-Boat-inthe-Moat. He later admitted, “At the time, I didn’t know if it was going to be a gift shop or a restaurant. It didn’t matter to me. [I] just wanted to build a boat in a moat.” Visitors today find Solomon’s Castle filled with everything but the Holy Grail. Solomon was a prolific artist, and he outfitted his palace with all manner of sculptures, typically wrought from cast-off materials. There’s a menagerie assembled from coat hangers (complete with a unicorn); an alligator made from an oil drum (“His name is Samsonite because
Solomon’s Castle • 4533 Solomon Road • Ona, Florida 33865 • (863) 494-6077 • solomonscastle.com
his mother was luggage”); a lion shaped from welding rod; and an elephant with its tusks fashioned of manatee ribs and toenails of clamshells. There are “Piston People”—humanoids crafted of old car pistons—a motorcycle christened “Evil Kornevil” concocted from an old corn picker, and “Dr. Kevorkian’s Dueling Set”—a framed pair of pistols with barrels pointing back at the shooters. Guests who’d like to stay overnight in the surreal realm are welcome to book the Blue Moon Room—a handcrafted efficiency apartment nestled into the East Wing of the second floor of the tower. A vaulted ceiling and elegant stained glass windows contribute a touch of medieval charm to this hideaway equipped to sleep two. Breakfast is served in the morning. Of course, visitors who want to forgo the snooze can just grab a bite at the aforementioned Boat-in-the-Moat. In fact, lunch is the perfect time to view Solomon’s last handmade sculpture, modeled just before his demise at age 81 in 2016. It’s a ten-foot replica of a turnof-the-century locomotive, as delightfully incongruous with its Arthurian surroundings as nearly everything else inside the castle. But just when it begins to bring to mind the anachronisms of Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, guests may notice that it’s ever stranger than it first appears. “Yes,” Alane says. “It’s built of cream of chicken soup cans from the kitchen.” KARRAS STRASBURG is a Department Editor for AMERICAN ROAD. Large castle photo © Ilene MacDonald. Additional photos courtesy Solomon’s Castle and Alane Solomon.
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