The Other Way

One man's treasure

Mystery House odd even for New Orleans

New Orleans is full of "unusual" people and "interesting" places -- both adjectives your mama uses when she doesn't want to say, "Well, bless his heart. He's just not like other people."

Well, bless John Preble's heart, because he's just not like other people. A musician, an artist and a collector of epic proportion, he's parlayed his unusual view of life into a North Shore tourist attraction that appeals to the equally unusual visitor. He calls it the Abita Mystery House -- and it's filled with proof that one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Preble was born in New Orleans and moved to Abita Springs to create an artists' enclave for himself and his friends. He's done a little bit of everything -- taught at Loyola University, opened a pottery studio, flipped houses (thus learning wiring, plumbing and carpentry), opened a music venue in Mandeville and "created a series of paintings of Creole women that were very popular with art collectors," his website says.

He calls the Abita Mystery Museum "a folk art environment." John Bullard, former director of the New Orleans Museum of Art, reportedly called it "the most intriguing and provocative museum in Louisiana." I haven't figured out yet what to call it!

Visitors pay their $3 and enter through a vintage service station. Inside the "compound," there's a 100-year-old Louisiana Creole cottage; an Airstream trailer with a UFO "crashed" into the side; the "House of Shards," which includes 15,000 ceramic and glass fragments; animated miniature exhibits like a Mardi Gras parade with Martians in the crowd, a Southern plantation next to an oil refinery, a general store, a Cajun barbecue shack, mini golf, a New Orleans jazz funeral and a red neck trailer court; a collection of pocket combs; an antique hand-cranked organ; bottles; bottle caps; license plates; paint-by-number pictures; "the Macaroni Marble Machine"; and the 22-foot-long "Buford the Bassigator," a Mardi Gras parade prop created by Preble. I can't describe it. Use your imagination.

"The idea for the Abita Mystery House started by chance, when I met Ross Ward at Tinkertown Museum, Ward's New Mexico roadside attraction," Preble explains. "I had taken my family on a weeklong vacation to see the Santa Fe area, and on the second day of our vacation we visited Tinkertown. ... As we walked through Ward's museum, I was totally overwhelmed and intrigued. Not only was Tinkertown fun, but I sensed the presence of an individual's deep commitment to a quality of aesthetics that is rarely found in any artistic endeavor, much less a 'roadside attraction.'

"Before seeing Tinkertown, I didn't realize that the public might be interested in seeing my collections and inventions," Preble adds. "The Abita Mystery House now allows me to have an environment to share with people what I have been collecting and making for a very long time."

Bless his heart.

Becca Martin-Brown is an award-winning columnist and Features editor for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email her at [email protected]. To see photos of the Abita Mystery House, visit facebook.com/NWAWhatsUp.

NAN Our Town on 08/13/2015

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