They lived in their “Winter Palace” for the next five years while they built the main building that would be Eliphante, and the surrounding buildings, one of which would be called Hippodome, named this because it looks like a hippopotamus rising out of a body of water.  Livant lives in the Hippodome now – Kahn died a few years ago from a form of dementia.  The Hippodome has a phone and running water and electricity, but no bathroom.  Livant showers in a shower house that is solar-powered (and is pretty much just a hose in a shack), and if she needs to use the restroom she does it in the outhouse, or sometimes right out in the open.  The property is fairly secluded, and is only accessible across a stream.  Sometimes the stream is low enough that a car can just drive across it.  Other times, you have to take a canoe.

Their story is one of magic and tragedy – romance and heartbreak.  Livant was a suburban mother of two, married to a a psychologist.  She dabbled in painting and drawing, but lived her suburban life and volunteered in the community.  When her kids were a little older (one in college, the other in high school), Livant and her husband went on vacation to Cape Cod.  That’s where Livant’s whole life turned upside down.

Michael Kahn was a painter, ten years younger than Livant, and she fell for him immediately.  She left her husband and her kids, and moved in with Kahn, taking housecleaning jobs to support them.  All he ever wanted to do was paint.  When they moved to Arizona they built and when he wasn’t building he was painting.  Livant blossomed as an artist, and learned to weave as well as developed her painting skills.   They were happy together.

The house that was born of their union is part madness, part magic.  It is made of found objects and driftwood and any other thing they could find to build it.  They have mosaic tile work that used salvaged tiles from someone’s kitchen remodel.  They’ve made interesting use of AstroTurf.

Though they started building in 1979, Eliphante &  Hippodome and everything around them was consistently a work-in-progress.  In 1987 Eliphante LTD was formed – a non-profit art company – and in 1994 the Smithsonian listed it with their Save Outdoor Sculpture movement.  The property is in a state of disarray – in need of about $30000 worth or repairs.  Livant doesn’t have the money, and Kahn wasn’t able to secure a grant before he died.  Let’s hope that someone comes in to do what needs to be done to preserve this artistic treasure.

Entrance - the central curved beam looks like an elephant's trunk

Interior shot of Eliphante

Ms. Livant

ceiling and ceiling fan - mylar decor

photo by Baron Moe

This palatial summer home was built by Amir al-Mumenin al-Mutawakkil ‘Ala Allah Rab ul-Alamin Imam Yahya bin al-Mansur Bi’llah Muhammad Hamidaddin, Imam and Commander of the Faithful.  Why don’t we call him Imam for short?

Imam was the King of Yemen from 1926 to 1948, when he was assassinated.  We don’t go too far into politics or anything here on YLW, but apparently he was a pretty fair and nice guy, and he had 14 sons, so they were probably pretty sad.

Back to Dar Al-Hajar, though, because is that a beautiful place or what?  Imam had the place constructed as a summer home, and it was constructed on an already-existing prehistoric structure.  This particular valley that Dar Al-Hajar overlooks is a fertile ancient land that is talked about in rock drawings, for Pete’s sake.  Scholars speculate that the old construction on top of the mountain where Dar Al-Hajar was built was older than recorded history.  That’s, needless to say, pretty darn cool.

The structure itself is 7 stories tall, with open courtyards and little pools everywhere.  It has 35 rooms and the stairs look like they were built into the rocks.  They probably were.  The entrance has a 700-year old tree in it.  Even though Imam had the place built in the 1930′s, it looks like a place completely out of time.  A place of beauty and wonder that I’m sure his 14 sons enjoyed – from ducking in and out of the courtyards to exploring the caves beneath (unless the caves were really used for corpses, as rumors say).

Dar Al-Hajar is open to the public now as a sort of museum, though the Yemen travel website says that its “only jewel is the building itself.”

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This big beauty off Lincoln Highway in Hellam, PA is bound to give people some “kicks.” Get it? Ah, whatever.

Sure, there could have been more detail in the exterior, but you’re still living in a freakin’ shoe. Seems to me that if you want to live in a shoe, you should at least make it distinct looking. Now that I think about it, all they have to do is paint the band near the toes and then you’re living in a foot/sandal combo. Now that’s unprecedented!

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This frontier home rests in British Columbia, and was constructed with huge red cedar log. However, don’t mistake the word “frontier” for backwoods or Luddite. This 10,000 square foot cabin is wired as a smart, where everything from the televisions to the lights and even the blinds can all be operated by remote control. Oh, and if that little bit of technically goodness doesn’t get your mouth water, the home’s theater boasts a 130 inch 1080p projector, 7.1 channel surround system, and 15 stadium seats.

Ah, the simple country life.

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Want the convenience of apartment living but don’t want to give up on things like your garden or sunlight? Then there is a perfect apartment for you in lovely Rotterdamn. Referred to as the Cactus House, the twisted design allows for large balconies which aren’t directly overlapped by upstairs neighbors. The end result is a great deal of sunlight and the ability to keep a garden. The downside is that the apartment building looks a lot like Dagwood’s dream sandwich.

I’m sorry, I couldn’t shoehorn a Star Wars reference in. Feel free to supply your own.

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Construction began in 1969 by one Rex Martin and his wife Caroline Bogaert Martin.  They had traveled a bit in Europe and were stunned by the architecture, so they decided to try to recreate it on some prime acreage in Kentucky.  The finished “house” would have fifteen bathrooms, seven bedrooms, a fountain courtyard/driveway area, and more.  Unfortunately, before the place was finished the thrill was gone, and Caroline and Rex divorced in 1975.  The castle was left unfinished.

The property was for sale for years, with a price tag of $3 million dollars.  There were talks of an upgraded Medieval Times kind of tourist attraction, or maybe a museum.

Tom Post bought the castle, and did some massive renovations.  In May of 2004 the castle caught fire.  Post, who lived in Miami at the time, had planned to use the property for charity – hosting fund raisers and other events.  Despite the setback of the fire (which cost a bundle), post promised to rebuild.

All the repairs were finished by 2008.  The resulting renovations had the castle home to twelve suites, a formal garden and tennis court, a pool, a ball room, a dining hall, and more.  Of the sixteen total bedrooms, four of them are in the turrets.

The Grand Ballroom

A Guest Room

Now known as CastlePost, the property is still owned by Tom Post, and it is an inn and special events venue.  Two reports said that the property is for sale again, for a whopping $30,000,000.

Art League artists, Havel and Ruck, converted the dwellings into an apparent whole house but with a twist – a vortex through the middle of the homes which gives the impression of a twister hitting the homes from the side.  Using existing wood and materials, they created the appearance of the side of the dwelling being sucked through to the other side, but there’s no danger of being whisked away as if you’re small enough, you can crawl through the vortex to the other side of the property. Even for “larger” viewers, the artwork presented a cool visual image.

The outside of the homes, which had been used to exhibit art for the last 30 years, were peeled away and replaced in a contracting spiral which progressed through the outer shell of the buildings clear through to the other side.  The effect was a truly mind bending piece of art which while looking visually stunning,  also allowed the observer to get inside the building in a very different way compared to simply walking through a door.

In this instance, art is merely fleeting as the property and artwork were demolished in 2005 to make way for the new Art League building which now occupies the plot.  Nevertheless, we still have the photographs of a unique piece of art.

photo by Nick Douglas

The house is located one acre of wooded land in Highland Park, IL, and is over 5000 square feet.  It has four bedrooms, 4 baths, and a heated and cooled garage.

Remember the car?  With the crashing out the….HA!  So, don’t do that.

This is the kitchen.  None of the listings say what kind of appliances it has, etc.  That could be because the house was built in 1953.  Who knows?  The kitchen might not have been updated.  That’s not always a bad thing.  You don’t have to undo a bunch of renovations that aren’t your taste.  But, for the purposes of this article, who cares?  I’m not trying to sell this house, I’m just trying to tell you about it and show you pictures.  So, here are some more pictures.

The bathroom.

The dining room.

The entrance.

Another exterior shot.

The office.  Nice view, eh?

A view of the pylons that hold the house suspended over the forest.

The spacious open floor plan.

More of the spacious open floor plan.

The house was designed by an architect named A. James Speyer.  Speyer graduated from Carnegie Tech in 1934, and he thought most of the architecture in the US was boring, so he went and spent 3 years in Europe.  He came back to the US and did a little more schooling before he started designing buildings in America.  He designed this post’s feature home for Ben Rose.  I don’t know anything about him, but his family lived in the home until very recently.

The garage addition was designed by Speyer’s student David Haid, who reportedly wasn’t a super nice guy.  But whatever.  It’s a pretty cool garage.

The house costs about $1.7 million dollars.  That’s a pretty good bargain for that size house in that part of Illinois, all things considered.  Actually, that’s a lie.  But it still isn’t as expensive as it was when they first listed it at $2.1 million dollars.

Hell, Nord-Trøndelag

This tiny village in Norway has a population of about 1500, and gets pretty darn cold.  Like, -4 Degrees Fahrenheit cold.  Gives new meaning to the phrase “Hell freezes over.”  The town’s name comes from the Old Norse term for “cliff cave,” but tourists who speak English like to stop by and have their pictures taken next to the sign above or at the train station, which boasts a sign that says “Gods-expedition.”  It’s a play on words with the Norwegian term godsekspedisjon, which means “cargo handling.”  Fun.

Hell, California

In 1954, Charles Carr decided to be clever.  Either that, or he was a really quirky guy.  He founded Hell, California and he and his family were the tiny town’s only inhabitants.  They got bored with it, and the town was defunct and empty by the early 1960′s.  The California State Division of Highways started building US 60 and US 70, and eventually Hell’s service station, bar, and water tower were burned and torn down by the Division of Highways to make room for Interstate 10.  Depressing, huh?

Hell, Grand Cayman

On an island as heavenly as Grand Cayman, it is appropriate that a black, bleak, limestone field would be called “Hell.”  The residents of the town of West Bay – where Hell is located – have learned how to capitalize on that quirky half-soccer field full of ugly rocks.

Hell, Michigan

Hell, Michigan is the most well-covered town called Hell on the internet.   Meaning, there is more information out there about Hell, Michigan, than there is about any other hell besides the one that you go to if you are mean to puppies.  Michigan’s Hell is located in the Putnam Township close to Ann Arbor.  It’s an unincorporated community with an unofficial population of 266 people.  It also has an ice cream parlor (seen above) called Screams Ice Cream, a general store called Hell in a Handbasket, and a fictional college that offers “signed sealed and singed” degrees.

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The water’s depth at the North Pole has been measured at 13,980 feet. The Soviet Union and later Russia have manned drifting stations. They study what is basically global warming and predict that the North Pole could become ice free (seasonally) due to ice shrinkage or ice melting in as few a fifty years. Kaffeklubben Island is the closest land mass, off Greenland some 430 miles away.

From the 16^th Century, most people believed that the North Pole was in the sea. They sent expeditions to study the area using ships that were accustomed to sailing in cold, Northern climates. Lots of those expeditions ended badly, with few returning to tell the tale.

The Stella Polare set forth from Norway in 1899 and in March, 1900, Captain Umberto Cagni headed a party over the ice until they reached latitude of 86 degree, 34’ in April. They set a new record and returned home safely in August of 1900.

American engineer Robert Peary is credited with reaching the North Pole on April 6, 1909. In 1989 Wally Herbert, originally a supporter of Peary researched and found what he thought were tampered records. Then in 2005, a British explorer named Tom Avery made a trip to the North Pole similar to Peary’s overland trip and found the North Pole in 36 days, 22 hours. This was 3 hours faster that Peary had made it. Avery was quoted as saying that he was more convinced than ever that Peary did indeed discover the North Pole.

Currently, journeys to the North Pole are much more common and even open to tourists during the Christmas season. Usually those trips are by helicopter or ice breaking boats.

At this time of the year, doesn’t it make you wonder, since it has gotten so much easier to get to the North Pole, do Santa Claus and the elves ever think about relocating?  Why do we think that Santa lives at the North Pole?  An interesting website presents their evidence, saying that OBVIOUSLY Santa lives at the North Pole because:

1.  He wears really warm clothes

The website claims that it does not get as cold in Sweden or Finland, so Santa obviously needs such warm clothes because he lives in the North Pole.  The website also claims that Walt Disney said that Santa lived in the North Pole, so it must be true.  Another page on the website says that Santa lives in Finland, and that Walt Disney was paid a great deal of money by Northpolian whalers to say that.  The Swedes maintain that reindeer live in Sweden, so it logically follows that Santa does too.  For a full synopsis of each country’s argument, check out Santasnationality.com.  Then tell us what you think.

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