Heart of Gold

I'm back from the brink of certain death and I've got nothing but good times planned for this week -- cool art, colorful homes, and for today this fine fine masterpiece:

Resembling a gilded '77 El Camino that ran out of gas en route to casinos and ladies, Acido Dorado holds golden court in the middle of the Joshua Tree desert.

If the Palace of Versailles had a grill and knew how to ghost ride the whip, it would be kissing cousin to this street sweet pad.

And in fact a golden welded grille marks the mouth of this slightly lascivious lair, whose given name translates to Acid Gold.

Speaking of, who knows how many drugs Robert Stone -- architect at large -- imbibed during this vision quest.

He seems like the kind of guy who reads a lot of Carlos Castaneda and runs with Mescalito, because he obviously has some very strong feelings for this house.

If I ever get stranded in the desert, this is the mirage I'll be searching for. There's gold in them there hills (and probably lots of liquor, too).

But since Plan A is to avoid getting stranded in the desert at all costs, I am prepared to move on to Plan B, which is: calculate how many cans of spraypaint it will take to turn my bedroom into this scintillating slice of heaven.

I already have a white duvet -- how hard could the rest be?

[Interior Design, Pretty Vacant Properties]

A New Direction for Design Crisis

I'm thinking we need to narrow the focus here at Design Crisis and declare ourselves the world's leading authority on crazy ass tree houses.  With Erin's number one best post of all time about the probably haunted tree house here, my 24 hour around the clock coverage of the tree hotel here and this beast I'm about to throw at you today I'm ready to consider us 100% tree house experts:  full on qualified to appear as an expert witness in court in case any crizime ever takes place in a tree house. Let's do this.

I am ready to tell you homies about this here TEN STORY tree house somewhere in Tennessee  built by Horace Burgess, a landscape architect, after a fist-pump sealed agreement between him and God.

Constructed over 14 years, The Minister's tree house (no website) is built around an 80 foot tall white oak tree with a diameter of 12 feet, 6 other trees act as pillars supporting the structure.   The house itself is built with only salvaged materials, which, apparently was God's end of the deal:  Horace was to build the tree house while the big man would ensure that he never ran out of supplies.

The house's square footage has never been measured (although the number of nails used has: 258,000) but it's estimated to be between 8,000 - 10,000  square feet.  Among it's gazillion rooms are a church and a basketball court.  Divine requirement?  Possibly

The entire house cost $12,00o to build (it's unclear which materials were purchased)

I only found one interior shot of the tree house and it belongs to some dude on flickr who's disabled sharing of his photos, so if you want to see it you have to click here.  Even though I'm annoyed by this guy for not letting me post his photo (with credit!!!) I still think it's worth you cruising over to check it out.  Here

UPDATE! You don't have to go look at stupid lame-os share-blocked photos, instead you can read a hilarious post with tons of interior pictures over at modern sauce's blog.  It's a 2 parter:  here and here

So far the only real difference  I can see between the Mister's House and the one Erin toured last year is that I'm pretty sure she would buy this one.  Especially for $12,000.

all other photos via

Just Put the Dogs Down and No One Gets Hurt

Did you see Vidal Sassoon and his wife Ronnie featured in the latest issue of Architectural Digest?

Is it just me, or does this look like some sort of a freaky suicide pact? Perhaps the onslaught of criticism over their renovation of a classic Richard Neutra home has led them on a downward spiral deep into depression. Goodness knows they both look grim enough.

And I can see why. This house is hideous. Totally devalued. With great persistence, I might be persuaded to take it off their hands.

I will allow them to keep the dogs, though.