The Minister’s Tree House

Posted on May 23, 2014 by

In the early 1990s, landscaper Horace Burgess bought some wooded land on the outskirts of Crossville, Tennessee. One of the bigger trees, next to a dirt road, caught his eye. He decided to build the world’s largest tree house in its branches.

After spending a couple of years on the project, he ran out of lumber and enthusiasm.

“Then I turned my life over to God,” Horace recalled. “And the spirit of God said, ‘If you build Me a tree house, I’ll never let you run out of material.'”

Eleven years of labor later, Horace had what he’d originally wanted: the largest tree house in the world. It spreads across not one, but seven big trees that grow through its floors and out of its windows. It soars 100 feet into the sky. Built without blueprints, its dimensions are a mystery even to Horace, who guesses that it covers around 10,000 square feet.

Since Horace stopped new construction in 2004, nearly every square foot of the structure has been vandalized with graffiti, some of it praising God and Jesus (“I don’t know how to take that,” Horace said).

Flooring has been ripped out, windows smashed, furniture hurled from balconies. “I have to remind myself that it is a tree house,” said Horace, who feels that it somehow triggers people to act like horrid eight-year-olds. “That’s why I’ve never prosecuted anyone for bustin’ the stuff up.”

Photos via ScienceDump.
Quoted text via Roadside America.

California’s Art Deco Cinemascapes

Posted on May 23, 2014 by

Oakland’s Paramount Theatre is one of the finest remaining examples of Art Deco design in the United States.

Completed in 1931, after its initial brief blaze of “movie palace” glory in the 1930′s, this remarkable auditorium suffered three decades of neglect and decline until its rescue by the Oakland Symphony, the City of Oakland and numerous private donors.

The Orinda Theatre was opened in 1941 and later slated for demolition in 1984 before it was saved through the efforts of preservationists and reopened in 1989.

The original lobby and main theatre were left intact as they were built in 1941.

Opened in 1940 as a stage venue called the Westwood Theatre, [The Crest Westwood, Los Angeles] went through several changes in ownership, name, and design over the next seven decades before closing its doors in 2011.

This, in spite of the fact that it had been declared a Cultural Historical Monument three years earlier.

Photographer Frank Bohbot via Messy Nessy Chic with more history and way more photos.

Chinguetti, The Sahara’s City of Libraries

Posted on May 22, 2014 by

Cave paintings from the Stone Age found near Chinguetti, depict the region as a lush grassland where wildlife once flourished.

This was once a prosperous medieval metropolis, home to 20,000 residents and a centre for scholars of science, religion, law, medicine, mathematics and astronomy in West Africa. A principal gathering place for pilgrims on their way to Mecca, it even became known as a holy city in its own right and over time, it was recognized as the seventh holy city of Islam, the “City of Libraries”.

The sands of the Sahara have all but swallowed Chinguetti, a near ghost town found at the end of a harsh desert road in Mauritania, West Africa. Its majority of abandoned houses are open to the elements, lost to the dunes of a desert aggressively expanding southward at a rate of 30 miles per year.

[B]ehind these walls sleep 6,000 books, some kept intact since the 9th century in the dry desert air. Today there remains less than ten libraries in the old town, catering to scholars that occasionally visit the isolated town.

Top photo via Jason Finch.
Middle photos via Oliver Blaise and Jason Finch.
Bottom photos via Oliver Blaise and Canal Blog.

Via Messy Nessy Chic for the full article and many more photos.

Abandoned Welsh Textile Mill

Posted on May 21, 2014 by

Once a thriving hub of industry, the textile mill now stands abandoned but still home to hundreds of color coordinated yarns.

The looms have stood unused for decades and the mill’s machinery is rusting away [since its closure in late 1980].

These images were taken by photographer Dan Circa, 29, after he was intrigued by the mill, located in Tal-y-bont, near Aberystwyth, Wales.

Via Mail Online for more photos.

The Tallest Tree in the World, The Hyperion Coast Redwood

Posted on May 21, 2014 by

This is Hyperion Coast Redwood. It’s the tallest tree in the world, with height of 115.56m (379.1 ft).

Hyperion is not only the world’s tallest tree but also the world’s tallest living thing. It might also be one of the world’s oldest, given that redwoods live for up to 2,200 years.

Via ScienceDump.

Yellowstone’s Grand Prismatic Spring

Posted on May 18, 2014 by

Hot springs form when heated water emerges through cracks in the Earth’s surface. Unlike geysers, which have obstructions near the surface (hence their eruptions), water from hot springs flows unobstructed, creating a nonstop cycle of hot water rising, cooling and falling.

In the Grand Prismatic Spring, this constant cycle creates rings of distinct temperatures around the center: very, very hot water bubbles up from the middle and gradually cools as it spreads out across the spring’s massive surface.

Water at the center of the spring can reach temperatures around 189 degrees Fahrenheit which makes it too hot to sustain most life. Because there’s very little living in the center of the pool, the water looks extremely clear, and has a beautiful, deep-blue color.

But as the water spreads out and cools, it creates concentric circles of varying temperatures—like a stacking matryoshka doll, if each doll signified a different temperature. And these distinct temperature rings are key, because each ring creates a very different environment inhabited by different types of bacteria.

And it’s the different types of bacteria that give the spring its prismatic colors.

Via Smithsonian.com.

The Pottery Hotel

Posted on May 16, 2014 by

If the old woman who lived in a shoe ever decided to vacation in South Korea, she would probably feel right at home booking a room at the Pottery Village Bed & Breakfast, a collection of six beach houses, built to look like giant traditional Korean pottery vases.

Rooms / vases, including one painted like the Arizona Iced Tea bottle, start from around $77 a night.

Via Messy Nessy Chic for the full article and additional photos. I admit, I like her article’s title much better.

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Category Archives: Misplaced Places

The Minister’s Tree House

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California’s Art Deco Cinemascapes

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Chinguetti, The Sahara’s City of Libraries

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Abandoned Welsh Textile Mill

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The Tallest Tree in the World, The Hyperion Coast Redwood

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Yellowstone’s Grand Prismatic Spring

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The Pottery Hotel

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