What You'll Get
Beer cans’ cylindrical shape allows them to be stacked into pyramids or crushed into a passable facsimile of Rodin’s The Thinker. Explore new aluminum vistas with today's Groupon: for $5, you get a tour for two at The Beer Can House (a $10 value).
The one-of-a-kind Beer Can House represents the quirky architectural vision of John Milkovisch, a former upholsterer who began re-imagining his one-story home's simple landscaping using small found objects such as marbles, metal pieces, and lightly eaten candy bars. Soon after, he began decorating the side of the home with flattened beer cans, a pursuit that led to the collection of more than 50,000 cans and a countywide aluminum shortage. The decorations quickly caught attention from passersby while simultaneously lowering the Milkovischs’ energy bills and improving AM/FM reception throughout the area. Acquired by the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art after John and wife Mary passed, the house now receives careful restoration from volunteers from throughout the country to preserve its unique character. The Beer Can House is open 9 a.m.–1 p.m. Wednesdays–Fridays and noon–5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through Sept. 4, and noon–5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays only from Sept. 10 through June 5, 2012.
The Fine Print
Promotional value expires Aug 10, 2012. Amount paid never expires. May purchase multiple. Merchant is solely responsible to purchasers for the care and quality of the advertised goods and services.
About Beer Can House
After retiring from his upholstering job at the Southern Pacific Railroad, John Milkovisch spent his free time building structures around his house and drinking beers with his wife Mary. But when he ran out of space for building, he decided to use up his extra beer cans to create a shiny siding for his structures and his house. He began in 1968, and within 20 years he had completely covered his property with an estimated 50,000 aluminum and glass cans. The result was both fashionable and functional, with swaying garlands tinkling in the breeze, strings of cans adding a luster to all surfaces of the house, and the protective weight of the cans even helping cut the house’s energy costs. But you can’t have a house this striking and not get noticed. So pretty soon people began making trips to see this can-covered house, and in 2007, it was moved into the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art. Now guests can peer inside the house and examine the structures without getting chased by the owner's beer can-covered dog. The house’s guided tours also feature a documentary that covers the history of the project since its inception forty years ago.