Alex Jordan: Architect of His Own Dream

Good book - and a true book, I believe, compared to the fairy tale book you can buy at the "House on the Rock" store. Alex Jordan was a weird guy, and this book tells you just what a "kook" he is. A fun read, especially after visiting the House on the Rock.

I was looking for more information on him after going to House on the Rocks and it gave me more information on Alex and his life.

I went to the House on the Rock and was amazed at everything I saw, and can't wait to go back because I'm sure I didn't see everything. This book is great to read up on the history of Alex and how the house came to be what it is today. Great investment.

I grew up in southern Wisconsin, maybe an hour and a half from Alex Jordan's fabled "The House on the Rock", Wisconsin's premier spectacle - or tourist trap, depending on your point of view. Though it's rather expensive if one considers it a museum - which it pretends to be at times but clearly isn't - and rather dull if one thinks of it as an "amusement", and architecturally more eccentric and cranky than brilliant, it still holds a place in my heart, and I've been back to visit a few times as an adult, each time noting that it's still expanding and morphing into something ever-new, now decades after its original designer and owner's death.This is the authorized biography of Alex Jordan (1914-89), the builder of the House, a lifelong Wisconsin resident born into a relatively wealthy family and inheritor of architectural pretensions. To hear this book tell of it, Jordan and his father Alex Sr., an architect of some ability who had started out in a meatpacking family, always felt a rivalry with Frank Lloyd Wright - and despite their attempts to learn from the great genius living in Spring Green - quite close to Deer Shelter Rock where Jordan's House was eventually built - were always rebuffed in a small-minded, arrogant way. Well, it's no secret that Wright wasn't the nicest human being the planet has ever produced, but it's symptomatic of this book that it always takes the Jordans' point of view as victims or as unfairly maligned in their own efforts.In any case as Alex was nearing middle age at the end of the 1940s, he conceived of the idea of his house - and tourist attraction, as he always planned it - and went to work, eventually creating a monstrous structure with many rooms, some warehouse-sized and housing enormous exhibits like a life-sized whale fighting a giant squid in plaster. The book is filled with photos (all black and white) and some maps and reproductions of Jordan's original notes, and gives a fairly detailed account of the early constructions. Jordan's deeper psychology, competetiveness, and rather intense rivalry with Wright (who probably paid him no attention at all) are barely touched on. There are other, non-authorized and unofficial works for that; as it is, this is still worth taking a look at for fans of the work and Wisconsonia in general.

I wanted a book that would tell me the true background about the creator of the House On The Rock. This book is well written, interesting and has great photos of Alex Jordan. Easy read with a lot of detail.

After visiting the House on the Rock, I wanted to read more about the life of Alex Jordan. The book was well-written and I enjoyed it.