Rebuilding the Palace of Depression

by Daniel Kov and Kayla Barrett

VINELAND – With help from local volunteers, the city is reconstructing the Palace of Depression, a tourist attraction described as “the strangest house in the world.”

The structure, which consisted of rusted auto parts, bricks and mud, was built in 1932 by George Daynor, an eccentric man who made a fortune mining gold in Alaska and then lost it all in the stock market crash.

He called the edifice The Palace of Depression. “The only real depression is a depression of individual ingenuity,” he declared.

The palace suffered a fire and was eventually leveled by bulldozers in 1969, five years after Daynor’s death.

The effort to rebuild the palace is being led by Kevin Kirchner, Vineland’s construction official and director of licenses and inspections. Kirchner suggested rebuilding the palace as a park after the city briefly considered using the site for low-income housing.

Daynor left no official blueprints for the palace, so the rebuilding effort relies heavily on old photographs and newsreels. The building materials are either donated or dug up from the site.

Jeff Tirante, who used to visit the remnants with his friends as a teenager, now lives in the basement where he serves the role as groundskeeper while the restoration project proceeds.

With construction having officially started in the spring of 2009, the project is progressing quickly. The work pauses only for the cold weather and should be completed by next winter.

Images 2, 8, 14, 32, 33 used with permission from Ourhero.biz and Jeff Tirante.