Places Edited by Rebecca Schandel

The largest library in Latin America owes its existence to an Old World earthquake and a Napoleonic invasion.

A colorful square marks the heart of the city's LGBTQ community.

This elaborate estate contains a stunning marble aviary, a sunken conservatory, and a magnificent music room with a two-story pipe organ.

An unrealized Taoist palace left abandoned in a Houston suburb.

An overlooked collection of over 350,000 artistic works created by psychiatric patients using art therapy.

The two-cell building in Nebraska was briefly owned by a teenage boy and then a Hollywood dummy.

A tiny art gallery in Sunnyside helps keep Portland weird.

This Portland shop is brimming with natural wonders, local art, and handmade goods fashioned from recycled materials.

The R&B singer's modest church guarantees a religious experience, regardless of your beliefs.

Eduardo Kobra’s breathtaking 32,300-square-foot graffiti wall took over Rio’s Olympic Boulevard.

An ornate Art Deco tile mosaic representing Nebraskan life, both modern and prehistoric.

The oddly shaped, steam-spewing building is now an art studio and gallery.

Inside the unassuming cemetery chapel is a magnificent stained glass window and mosaics.

A fascinating collection of art made from petrified wood and fossils by two octogenarian twin brothers.

A brick-paved former section of the historic coast-to-coast highway.

A gregarious Ohio resident has been building his whimsical temple to peace for decades.

The skeletal white beams stand as a monument to religious dissent.

No two pieces are exactly the same at Portland's hippo-themed hardware store.

An Iowa town celebrates its heritage with the tallest working Dutch windmill in North America.

The bespectacled, cocktail-sipping pachyderm is a strange but fitting liquor store mascot.

A half-mile long and three stories high, this bridge over the Des Moines River Valley mimics a descent into a mine shaft.

The abandoned remnants of a little sanctuary for world peace that fell into disrepair.

For over 100 years, this Indiana town has had a tree growing out the top of the local courthouse.

An homage to the pointers and retrievers that have long been a hunter's best friend.