The house with a whole lot of stuff _ you know, uh, things.(Chicago Tribune)

SPRING GREEN, Wis. _ A sign at the reception desk of the Taliesin Visitor Center says, "House on the Rock is seven miles south of here on Highway 23."

Apparently, some walk-ins get a little confused. The Taliesin Visitor Center is practically a shrine honoring Frank Lloyd Wright. Books about him, his architecture and his life fill the gift shop. Merchandise from mechanical pencils to stained-glass construction kits bear the famous Wright designs. Design buffs make pilgrimages to this place.

And yet ... Dave Nyquist, marketing director for House on the Rock, said people now and then miscalculate. "One time, a family went all through the Taliesin tour and then demanded their money back," Nyquist told me. "They said they never got to see the giant carousel."

Frank Lloyd Wright never would have tolerated anything so rococo as a carousel on his property, but the management of House on the Rock certainly does. In fact, it has the World's Largest Carousel in a dazzling room ablaze with lights and pulsing with carnival music. It has _ well, how much time have you got? Just about everything: mechanized orchestras, fancy lamps that look like Tiffany, dolls, doll houses, miniature circuses, model ships, a giant Sea Monster, antique toys, a full-size Street of Yesterday, a glass Infinity Room that extends 218 feet (140 feet unsupported) over Wisconsin's Wyoming Valley and, yes, children, the World's Largest Carousel.

Purists charge that the place lacks taste. Defenders might argue that the House encompasses every taste imaginable.

Most families that amuse themselves with weekends at the Dells or the pleasures of Spring Green know that the House on the Rock is the creation of the late Alex Jordan, obsessive builder and collector extraordinaire. A native of Madison, Jordan spent a rather aimless youth. Finally, he struck upon the idea ...