If you ever wondered what is behind a secret door in a spooky mansion, then head to Washington DC. At the Mansion on O Street, you can actually open that secret door. If you value your life however, you might want to reconsider. I had a private tour of the O Mansion by its […]

Of the 400 remaining buildings designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright, some 250 are single-family homes. Several of these are open to the public; Michigan has at least three. The subject of this article is the Smith House in Bloomfield Hills, built between 1949 and 1950. Melvyn Smith and his wife Sara were both […]

Inner Space cavern was discovered by a Texas Highway Department core drilling team in the Spring of 1963. Six inch core samples were taken to determine if the ground was stable enough to support a large highway overpass. As they were drilling one of the test holes, the bit suddenly dropped 26ft. and the highway […]

There are many caves in central Texas, and some are right here in Austin. Back in August 2019, more were found in the area of La Crosse Avenue bridge in south Austin. You can’t visit those but there are 4 cave systems in the greater Austin area and south towards San Antonio that can be […]

This is the first in a series of articles about the Historic Homes of America. Many, such as the one we visit here, is a grand old mansion. Others, such as Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, will be mid-20th century homes. But all will be either state landmarks or on the National Register of Historic Places. […]

Austin author Raymond Villareal recently had his first novel published: A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising. He related in October at the Texas Book Fest that his inspiration for the book “came from my love of vampire books,” but it became much more than this. “It didn’t occur to me until I was writing […]

When is Fallingwater not Fallingwater? Answer: some winters are so cold the waterfall at the ueber-famous Frank Lloyd Wright house freezes. One of the guides told me it is quite eerie when the house is bathed in silence instead of the sound of water falling and flowing. Fortunately my visit in early October was unusually […]

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is already bustling with visitors, as the blue bonnets are reaching their annual peak now. The Center expects thousands more on the biannual weekend plant sale, Apr. 13(members only) and Apr. 14. A special part of the sale are hundreds of species of Texas natives, but while you are […]