Dr. Seuss House aka The Goose Creek Tower – Talkeetna, Alaska - Atlas Obscura

Dr. Seuss House aka The Goose Creek Tower

Talkeetna, Alaska

This whimsical stacked cabin looks like something out of a children's book. 

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Hidden in the sparse woods outside Talkeetna, Alaska, is a bizarrely singular home known by locals as the Dr. Seuss House, though that isn’t what its creator calls it. While this whimsical house has no direct relation to the famed author, it is easy to see how the structure got its nickname.

Situated in the small town of Talkeetna, Alaska, the fantastical house is what most of us would describe as something we’ve seen in a Dr. Seuss book. Unlike anything Dr. Seuss wrote about, however, this “house is real, it’s not a fantasy” says Phillip Weidner, creator, builder, and owner of the towering home, which stands 185 feet high. 

Weidner did originally only plan on building a two-story log cabin, then he let his mind (and engineering degree) take over. He decided to add another floor. Then another, and another, and it just kept going up. Depending on how you look at it, and which ladders and staircases you climb to get to the top, there are somewhere between 14 and 17 floors.

Once you get to the top, you have a view of over 300 miles, says Weidner. The house’s official name is Goose Creek Tower, but Weidner calls it his “poem to the sky.”

The house has been under construction going on 20 years now. As Weidner is one of the top trial lawyers in Alaska, he has a hard time finding time to work on it. He says though, when he is done, he and his family will enjoy the tower. Most of all, he will sit up top and watch the Northern Lights.

The house remains an oddity that visitors to the small town can view from the road, but it is no longer open for explorers.  

Know Before You Go

The house is not complete and is on private property that is monitored. But if you take a ride on the Alaskan railroad through Talkeetna you’ll get an amazing view. You can also see it briefly from the highway but it is gone in a second, so be on the lookout.

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