In the 1940s, a New York handyman began expanding a cabin with railroad ties and cast-off objects; it grew into a seven-storey labyrinth with around 35 caverns and alcoves

Clarence Schmidt did not set out to build one of America’s strangest houses. What began as a modest cabin on a wooded mountainside in Woodstock, New York, became an enormous handmade environment of rooms, walkways, balconies, gardens, grottoes and shrines. Built without a conventional architectural plan, the structure expanded as Schmidt found new materials, developed new ideas and reshaped the landscape around him. At its fullest form, the House of Mirrors extended nearly seven storeys down the mountainside and contained roughly 35 caverns and alcoves.

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