The World Institute for Extreme Beauty--A Place...A Vision...An Experience. thewalkerhouse.org
EXTREME BEAUTY
No landscapes, no places, no human beings are perfect. Landscapes, places, and people exhibit flaws and imperfections, what some philosophers have called a state of brokenness. The challenge is to find beauty in the brokenness—and to make the effort, sometimes an extreme effort of love, to find it.
Extreme beauty drives the development of the landscape (3 acres) and the Walker House (16,000 sq. ft.), and it informas the interactions with guests who come to the House through the 5 enterprises.
The enterprises cover the recurring bills and build an endowment to perpetuate the work related to extreme beauty. No money accrues to the owners, Dan and Kathy, who volunteer their time. The enterprises illustrate a fundamental principle of extreme beauty: people reveal beauty in their brokenness when they are talking, walking, eating, and so on. In other words, they show their real beauty when they are doing things, because activity reveals talent and individual talent is always beautiful.
THE WALKER HOUSE
Carved into the same hillside rock from which mineral ore was first discovered and mined in the 1820s, the Walker House stands proud as one of the oldest, unique, and most beautiful buildings in the United States–it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Come stay with us and relive almost 200 years of history–from the miners’ badger holes to the space age heating system. You can gaze in awe at the building’s stone, unchanged from the time Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States. And when you leave the Cornish Pub, you will not forget to rub the horse brasses for good luck!
We are developing the world’s first landscape, place, and enterprises that fully implement the philosophy of extreme beauty. We invite you to visit us to see what we’ve done with a landscape studded with field stone and Canadian thistle, a 177-year-old building with crooked windows and doors, and five enterprises driven not by profit but by extreme beauty. You may find the experience…well…quite beautiful.
