Beer Can House – Unusual House Design
Awesome Beer Can House
Beer Can House is a famous unusual house design in Houston, Texas embellished with flattened beer cans, bottle caps, and other beer paraphernalia. This unusual house was built by John Milkovisch a man who loved his beer! That’s a lot of beer to drink, in fact, it is estimated that over 50,000 cans were used.
The house was built by John Milkovisch began in 1968 when aluminum siding was popular. He successfully covered his whole house with flattened beer cans and over the next 18 years, this included making garlands of cut beer cans hanging from the roof edges. This actually made the house sound like a song and lowered the energy bill.
The Beer Can house became famous. As John was smashing beer cans and siding his house with them over the years, people would drive by slowly gawking, come back with their friends to see more. His wife Mary stated “He didn’t think anybody would ever be interested in it. He just loved drinking his beer and loved being outside and cutting up the beer cans.
After John and his wife died, The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art bought the house. They are working to restore the house to its former glory. Volunteers from Houston and as far away as California help with the restoration.
This house built out of beer cans is at 222 Malone Street in Houston, Texas. It sits in its original location among high-rise condos being built around it.
I like the shiny shed. Admission to this unusual house is $2.00. There are guided tours of the grounds and interior of the house along with a film for $5.00. Take a self-guided tour for the purchase of something from the gift shop.
You can visit the house here and learn more about it by the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art.
So the next time you have a bag of aluminum beer cans or pop cans are you going to start siding your house? Probably not, but making a garland out of beer or pop cans seems like a fun project.
See this unusual house built out of newspaper – The Paper House
Sources: Photo links via Creative Commons Wikimedia Commons here, here, and here. Other sources and Wikipedia
Hi Michelle. It’s amazing how a person’s obsession with a small thing like a beer can turned into something big.
I can’t imagine this. It is totally weird but what ever works. Lol! Wow…just wow!
I think it said he saved all those cans in his attic and then started to use them.
Hi Carol, I did not know NPR was talking about this house last week. Live in a shipping container? WTH! I have not seen that and am looking it up now.
I heard about this house on NPR last week – amazing recycling project.
Have you seen any of the houses made from shipping containers?
Neat! I’ve seen that house recently on a Yahoo article! The guy sure was a visionary (with a beer gut!)