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All the United States Nevada Beatty Tom Kelly's Bottle House

Tom Kelly's Bottle House

The most magnificent bottle house in a town strangely full of them.

Beatty, Nevada

Added By
Sarah Brumble
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CAPTION
A peaceful, ghost town porch affixed to a glass house   Ken Lund
Most of the bottles are labeled Adulphous Busch, the forefather of Budweiser.    Rob Sinclair
Tom Kelly’s Bottle House reflecting eerie headlights   Dylan
Back side of Kelly’s bottle house, made of glass but with no windows   Ken Lund
A nighttime view of the home and its cement-and-glass-shard lawn ornamentation   Dylan
The undisputed king of Rhyolite’s bottle houses   Greg Willis
View from the parking lot   Schweg / Atlas Obscura User
19 Dec 2016   benoitmenez / Atlas Obscura User
  cherylann / Atlas Obscura User
  cherylann / Atlas Obscura User
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About

One of America's most peculiar ghost towns, Rhyolite, Nevada is uniquely rich in one thing: bottle houses. Three of these structures--made by embedding glass beverage bottles in various kinds of mortar--can be found in this long-dead desert town.

A marvel in its own right, the standout among these glass houses was built by a man named Tom Kelly. Like so many others, Kelly had been drawn to the West by the promise of gold. Around the year 1905, Kelly chose Nevada's Bullfrog Hills as the site where he would finally put down his pan and build a home. In the mining camp of Rhyolite, where the only source of lumber was the ill-suited Joshua tree, Kelly saw construction potential at the bottom of his beer bottle.

With an estimated 50 saloons operating in Rhyolite at the time, Kelly collected 50,000 bottles in less than six months, enough  to build a three-room house, complete with a porch and quaint gingerbread trim. Inside, the walls were plastered like a real city home. To miners of the day, this was a castle.

Already approaching 80 years old, Kelly declined to live in the home he'd built, and instead capitalized on the hubbub. Upon its completion in February of 1906, Kelly raffled off the bottle house for $5 per ticket. The house was won by the Bennet family, who lived inside until 1914. By 1920, the boomtown had gone bust, and a mere 20 residents remained in Rhyolite. In 1925, the bottle house got a facelift in the form of a new roof when Paramount Pictures used it for a movie set. It was converted into a museum of sorts after filming. From 1936 until 1954, Lewis Murphy was the Bottle House's resident caretaker, providing tours for all interested visitors. After his departure, the bottle house's final inhabitants were Tommy Thompson and his family, including eight children, who lived there until 1969 and added the miniature houses that can still be seen scattered across the lawn to this day.

Related Tags

Bottle Houses Ghost Towns Follies Travelnevada Outsider Architecture

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Added By

littlebrumble

Edited By

Avoiding Regret, hrnick, hana, cherylann...

  • Avoiding Regret
  • hrnick
  • hana
  • cherylann
  • Schweg
  • benoitmenez
  • Chris Moore

Published

May 9, 2016

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  • http://www.roadarch.com/h/rhyolite.html
  • http://www.rhyolitesite.com/bottle1.html
  • http://www.nbmog.org/bottlehouse.html
Tom Kelly's Bottle House
Beatty, Nevada, 89003
United States
36.897362, -116.829069

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Photo of Beatty

Beatty

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Places 6

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