Abita mystery house louisiana2/6/2024 Most visitors may not know that Preble is a fine art painter. If something breaks, it can be fixed,” says Preble, a New Orleans native. Separate displays depict a house trailer getting swept up in a tornado, a diorama of a New Orleans jazz funeral, or a Mardi Gras parade with Martians in the crowd. Lil Dub’s BBQ and gas station claims “Eat Here. The town library door opens to reveal an outhouse. The River Road exhibit is an automated display of plantation homes with veranda railings fashioned from cut up plastic Christmas tree light holders. Preble had an idea, and opened his curious roadside attraction in 2000. A miniature Western town was inside, and all kinds of junk filled the gift shop’s walls. In the mid 1990s during a New Mexico vacation, Preble discovered a funky roadside attraction called Tinkertown. If it’s oddball, strange or different, even better. “I like little things that don’t cost anything,” he says. The pop-top of a soft drink might become a headlight, or plastic fork the tines of a tractor grill.Īlways a collector, Preble said his grandmother had an antique store. These oddities and trash-to-treasure exhibits came from other people’s castoffs. ![]() Some pieces are simply out-of-this-world, such as the Airstream trailer that met up with a flying saucer, and the Moon Buggy that resembles something that flew off a Ferris wheel. There also are collections of barbed wire, garden hoses and paint-by-number paintings. Then there’s the collection of bicycles, an appropriate display considering Abita Springs is on the Tammany Trace rails-to-trail. Interesting as this might be, it’s only the gift shop, one that Preble admits appeals to the whoopee-cushion crowd and yes, you can buy one here.Ībita Mystery House is full of surprises, such as Buford the Bassigator–half bass, half alligator–which began life as a Mardi Gras float. Door facings are decorated with bottle caps and springs. ![]() Step inside to see the ceiling tiled with worn out modem, sound and computer cards. Welcome to the wacky, whimsical and sometimes serious world of John Preble, funky folk artist, compulsive collector, inventor, music writer and promoter, and self-professed curator of the Abita Mystery House at the UCM Museum (that’s you-see-’em museum). (Lynn Craddick photo)īelow: The gift shop at Abita Mystery House appeals to visitors with a sense of humor. Above: The entrance to the Abita Mystery House still resembles the service station, which it was in a previous time.
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