Places Edited by Sandi Hemmerlein

A couple turned their front yard into an artistic masterpiece.

Micro-distillery in Brooklyn produces New York’s first homemade rum since Prohibition.

A big shiny gin and whiskey distillery in Sunset Park.

On the top floor of an upscale department store stands a lavish restaurant housed in a replica of a luxury French dining car.

The largest dune field in the Mojave offers a chance of hearing the 'singing sands.'

This incredible collection of vintage pinball machines can be played at 25 cents a pop.

The seamy, underground secrets of Portland's criminal past.

Site of the first pathological and bacteriological research facility in the United States.

A former insane asylum despised by Nelly Bly and Charles Dickens is now fashionable apartments.

First a horse rendering plant, then a 19th century landfill, this beach is full of glass from thousands upon thousands of broken bottles.

Two New York rooftops are home to the largest rooftop soil farms in the world.

A charming desert roadside bakery that produces 10 times more bread daily than it has residents in its town.

The Los Angeles flood disaster that took 400 lives and ended the career of William Mulholland.

Oh, just a motel on the edge of the desert decorated with thousands of clowns conveniently located next to an abandoned graveyard.

There's nothing creepier than a cemetery next to a clown motel.

The eerie burnt-out remains of a prominent building where 30 protestors lost their lives.

Large but largely ignored, these 42 life-size Liberty Bell replicas were a peculiar, unexplained feature on the facade of a Macy's department store.

A Looff creation in Santa Monica best described as “a California-Byzantine-Moorish-style fantasy.”

A glittering South Asian anomaly in a wealthy Los Angeles suburb.

Get up close to emus and ostriches, or buy their tasty meat.

Resting place of Hollywood's immortals is also site of summer film screenings.

Named after a bandit and the star of several Hollywood prehistoric landscapes, these sandstone formations are a historical part of the Los Angeles natural landscape.

Vacant Beaux-Arts buildings that serve as reminders of a beach town’s glory days.

A basement full of treasures lies beneath this inn that has worn many hats throughout its 140+ years.