House of Mirrors

Clarence Schmidt was born in 1897 in Queens NY. At the age of 31, he moved to an inherited property on Ohayo Mountain in Woodstock. By the late 1930s, Schmidt had built and sold his first house, called Journey's End. He began work on the second, a single room log cabin, at the same time. By 1967, that single room cabin had evolved into a seven story structure with ramps, balconies and rooftop gardens. Schmidt referred to the original cabin space as his "Inner Sanctum" and to the gardens as his "Mirrored Hope." The large house was a labyrinth of passageways leading to spaces covered in aluminum foil, paint, flowers, wood and shards of mirrors. Schmidt resurfaced the house with foil over tar and added projections of aluminum foil-covered string. Outside, the branches of bushes and trees were wrapped in foil and small shrines and grottos were added in the area he called the "alleyway." Most striking were the shrines that incorporated rubber masks, hands and feet. In 1968 a fire fueled by the gallons of tar Schmidt had used to "preserve" the huge house of mirrors destroyed it. He stayed at a motel for the winter, returned to the property in the spring, and began work on a second house. This second structure, known as the Mark II, consisted of three rooms built over a station wagon. The walls were covered with tree branches wrapped in aluminum foil and the surrounding foliage was wrapped and decorated as well. In December 1971, the Mark II was destroyed by fire. Clarence Schmidt moved back into town, sleeping in doorways and wherever else he could find shelter. A local agency placed him in a state hospital for observation and when he was found to have diabetes, Schmidt was placed in a nursing home in Kensington NY. By 1974 only rubble from the houses, some fragments of the shrines and grottos, and the gardens with their stone terracing remained. In the 1970s-80s, Schmidt's son Michael added some of his own sculptures to the remains of Journey's End. This site has vanished due to vandalism.