oh, the folly!

There is a suburb town outside of Winston-Salem called Kernersville, or, for the young and hip, K-Vegas. In the historic section of town is a very old house called Körner's Folly. This house is also Kernersville's main claim to fame. Basically, it's this huge house that costs like a bajillion dollars to build back in the 1800s before the bajillion dollar bill was even invented. For true and actual history, please go to some other more legitimate site.

After the house was built by Mr. Körner, his family inconveniently kept growing and so the house was added on to and remodeled several times. What you end up with is a very strange and big house: some rooms have 25 foot ceilings, while other rooms have about 5 foot ceilings. There are narrow hallways that would be darned inconvenient for the obese. There is a beautiful theatre in the attic, with gorgeous murals and a tiny stage. There are over a dozen fireplaces, each with a different tiled pattern. It's a weird, weird house.

The house, being so very old and oddly constructed, is falling apart. There is a historical society that is trying to restore it, but it turns out they need about seventy bajillion dollars to do all that. It's very sad, really, to tour this house, when you're used to touring historical buildings that have funding, such as Tryon Palace or the Biltmore Estate. I took the walk-thru tour one afternoon, and I was simultaneously amazed and depressed. Yes, those are fantastic murals, but they are peeling. And what intricate woodwork on the kitchen table that sits on the on the huge crack in the floor made by a growing tree root.

The name, by the way, came when the local townsfolk heard that Körner was building this bajillion dollar house. The guy heard about it and liked it so much that he had the name spelled out on the front porch, mosaic style. Sounds like my kind of guy.



That's the mosaic. If you are ever in Kernersville, I recommend you check the place out. If you like oddball stuff, and if you're here, you do, then I think you'll like it. It'll knock you back six bucks, but that is only a fraction of a bajillion.