JH (Harry) Widholm gets himself a Crystal castle next to Crystal Lake In the foothills of the Laramie Mountains in the 1960s. A fairy-tale house built from 30,000 embalming fluid bottles.

Finally for sale. Owner Vicki Launer Fisher told Cowboy State Daily she sold the one-of-a-kind vacation cabin because she hasn’t been able to use it much since her husband died.

The 766-square-foot one-bedroom, one-bathroom home is located on 3.34 acres. The price of this cottage? According to the No. 1 Real Estate list, that amount is a modest $325,000, and that includes furniture.

Those who visit the Crystal Castle may be more surprised by the interior than the exterior of the house, with its rounded lines and steeply sloping roof made entirely of bottles. The interior is surprising because the embalming fluid bottles are not very visible inside the house, except for a few decorative bottles placed in the foyer.

“They took out the colors in the cabin,” Launer said.

But this was just for fun. The rest of the bottles are hidden behind plaster walls, making this cozy cabin look like any other home on the inside.

One thing the castle’s new owner might wonder is how good the embalming fluid bottles are at insulating.

“They’re not bad,” Launer said.

He doesn’t know what the R-value of the bottles is, but in the winter the cabin is always warmer than the ambient air, and in the summer it’s usually about 15 degrees cooler before the air conditioning turns on.

The house also includes a fireplace in case more heat is needed. And it has all the other amenities one would expect from a modern lakeside cabin.

There is a kitchen, dining table and living room area, as well as a bedroom and bathroom. Perfect for a vacation cabin near Curt Gowdy State Park, a small but beautiful place with lots of outdoor adventures.

Knott’s Berry Farm Inspired by the Bottle House

Widholm was a handyman who became somewhat obsessed with bottle houses after seeing one at Knott’s Berry Farm in California in 1946.

Many bottle houses were inspired by California’s Gold Rush days in the early 1900s. Building materials were scarce at the time, but bottles were plentiful, especially for miners whose demands were unmet.

Knott’s Berry Farm used 3,082 wine and whiskey bottles to build their tiny cottage in 1944; He used a bottle house built in Rhyolite, Nevada, in 1905 as a model.

His work inspired a number of other bottle houses at the time, such as the Wimberley Bottle House and others, built in the Texas pioneer town of Kimberley in 1960.

Widholm had all but forgotten about his California bottle house until one day he noticed a newspaper ad offering to sell several cases of empty embalming fluid bottles.

These bottles are square, not round, Widholm thought, remembering the old bottle house he’d seen in California.

He suddenly called the newspaper’s ad number and told the man who answered that he would buy all the bottles. In fact, if the man had known there were other bottles of embalming fluid, he would have bought them too.

Widholm knew he would need a lot of bottles to build an entire cabin. In fact, it would take a total of 30,000 people to build the cabin, which he designed to look somewhat like a castle, with short towers at each end.

Once he had all the bottles he needed, he treated them just like bricks; although they are fragile bricks that can break if handled incorrectly.

For this job, he had to find a special mortar that would stick to the bottles. He took care to place each bottle facing inward to ensure that the wind would not whistle inside the bottle and cause the house to appear haunted.

According to the book “The Bottle House” by John and Helen Harper, the total cost of the bottle house, including the bottles, cement and other materials, was only $3,500. Average home values ​​at the time were around $12,000, so his project was not only new and beautiful, but also affordable.

Even Deer and Antelope Love the Crystal Castle

The Crystal Castle shines like diamonds from a distance when the sun shines right on it, but without getting closer to the building it’s impossible to tell that it’s made entirely of glass bottles. These extend to the roofline.

Fisher first saw the unique lakeside castle when she was a little girl, playing at her parents’ cabin next door. Although she always wanted to play inside the goal as a girl, she never could.

He knew that one day he would buy the castle. The owner kept an eye on it for years until he finally decided to sell it. He didn’t hesitate to close it. After all, having a crystal castle by a crystal lake is not something that is possible every day.

Launer considers owning the Crystal Castle a great joy, even though he is currently selling it. People always stop by to see the unique cabin, one of a kind in Wyoming, and many media outlets, including HGTV, have featured the home over the years.

Even the deer and antelope seem to love this gorgeous little glass house; Just as one would expect from a modern-day fairy-tale castle.

“I have pictures of deer lying next to the house,” Launer said. “They like to lie down against the house.”

Renee Jean can be reached at [email protected].