San Francisco’s century-old Christmas Tree.

27-room home built with the fortune of a sugar magnate.

Visible below the waves are memorials to the city's Gold Rush dead.

One of few lasting examples of the brief octagon craze that developed into folly.

Not merely a museum – but a whirring powerhouse that offers a subterranean peek into the heart and soul of cable car operations.

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

Early prototype for Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim.

Only hotel where you can legally launder money.

The second building of its name to occupy this location might be the finest flatiron building in San Francisco.

San Francisco's oldest surviving monument and meeting place for 1906 survivors.

Prone to disastrous fires, the city of San Francisco has the Guardian, a fireboat gifted by residents, to watch over them from the bay.

These WWII-era murals were initially booed as a libelous portrayal of the American dream but have survived multiple attempts to have them destroyed.

This concrete tangle of square pipes has stood as a proud thorn in the city's side since the '70s.

The twin towers in this Chicago fountain use 50 foot tall video screens to spit on people.

Each of these gorgeous, intricately decorated rooms is painstakingly crafted to the scale of 1 inch: 1 foot.

The only Bahá'í house of worship in North America and one of only a handful worldwide.

A six-story-tall golden pyramid, surrounded by a moat.

A Borgesian work of art that may blur the line between fiction and reality a little too convincingly.

This picturesque cliffside beacon no longer calls to sailors but shines once a year in honor of a famous shipwreck.

A giant granite cross remembers missionary Father Frederic Baraga, and his safe passage across an angry Lake Superior.

The famed architect designed this Minnesota gas station of the future with a lookout tower.

Home of St. Urho, the fictional patron saint of Finland.

America's largest viking stands in a Minnesota city that believes it was visited by the ancient nords.

14th century Norse artifacts in Northwestern Minnesota could have proved a Viking landing before Columbus.