Tuesday, March 29, 2011

The Beer Can House, Texas - La Quinta


Greetings From Route LQ (Hotel chain La Quinta)

This is what happens when ....
You Let A man Decorate

The Beer Can House
When John Milkovisch retired from his job as an upholsterer for Southern Pacific Railroad in 1968, he didn't just drink a few beers and lie around the house all day.  He drank 39,000 beers and used the empty cans to decorate his house.

222 Malone Street
Houston, Texas

Nearest la Quinta: 2 miles

With over 780 Locations, La Quinta Inns & Suites is everywhere you travel.

unused, from 2010

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Houstonian John Milkovisch worked through the late 1960s to transform his Houston home at 222 Malone Street into the Beer Can House.  It is a folk art monument to eccentricity and recycling. The Beer Can House is now one of Houston's most recognizable folk art icons.

Milkovisch started his project in 1968 inlaying thousands of marbles, rocks, brass figures and metal pieces in concrete blocks and redwood, all of which were used to make patios, fences, flower boxes, and an array of other items. The result was a yard with no grass, as the entire front and back yards were covered with cement. When asked why he did it, John simply answered, “I got sick of mowing the grass.”

Today, the Beer Can House is owned and operated by The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, a non-profit organization founded in 1980 to preserve and present works of extraordinary imagination and provide people the opportunity to express personal artistic vision.

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