TWOP New York based reader, Bartender’s Skills with a Manhatten again taunts us with decay we would kill for. Worsts that exceed our bests. Millbrook’s Halcyon Hall, abandoned for 40 years and about to become a vanished worst is, well stunning, even in decay. If only Darch was like this. I love how they’re abandoning and demolishing buildings better than we have ever had.
BSWAM says, “This once-charming little 19th century shop in Clinton Corners has just been bought, so may be saved. ” Well this is the level Perth may aspire to. In Brick cladding maybe. Do you have the horror of brick cladding BSWAM?
And here is more of a classic worst, owners who have bought a heritage house and painted it purple. Except the house was built in the 17 fucking 80s!
And teh Tender pours salt into our Darch defiled wounds with this photo and comment. ”
The delightful April weather gives even the grandest lawn that “just registered” look this time of year.”
BSWAM says, “This pretty much sums up the state of the incredible shrinking American dream these last few years.” 
And here is a house with a fake dog.
And he closes with a mailbox that brings us back down to earth. He sent much more, but most of his worsts would actually make you cry, with what’s being lost, and what we never had.
Worst well.
The Worst of Perth 
Great collection, BSwaM. I really like that heritage house, but wouldn’t have gone with purple, personally. The contemporary SUV with dreamlet home is sublime.
New York is the new Coolgardie.
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Do I win or lose?
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A bit more news about the Hall–it was constructed as a luxury hotel in the 1890s and promptly went bankrupt. It spent the next 80 years as the main building of an exclusive girl’s school which also then went bankrupt. For the last 40 plus years various people have come up with various plots to save the place while going, you may have noticed a theme, bankrupt.
The current version will pull down all the wooden bits and leave the stone walls and the tower at one end, to what purpose no one seems sure. Except that whoever does this will almost certainly go bankrupt.
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Would’ve been burned down decades ago if it was in Perth… or at least emblazoned with disembodied cock.
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I think the Perth equivalent may be the Old Emu Brewery site on Spring Street. Bought by Bond Corporation (Bondy, surely a living Perth Worst) from FAI Insurance (Larry and Rodney Adler – a dead and a NSW Worst), then Westpoint Group (Norm Carey, an under-rated Perth Worst unless your gran did her dough with him) and finally Babcock & Brown (a corporate Worst that should really have been headquartered in Perth). At least one of them raised enough debt to demolish the place before going bankrupt.
One of this city’s finest holes in the ground and a lasting tribute to the spirt of Perth entrepeneurs.
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One thing I will say in Halcyon Hall’s defense…not very enthusiastically, though…is that nobody wanted to see it go.
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Speaking of vanished worsts, I saw today that this was vacant land now. Exterior
Interior.
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Rather surprised you didn’t use the pic of the tar-papered old cabin with the chain link fence and fake scary dog outside.
I will have to get some truly cringe-worthy images next go-round.
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I don’t remember seeing that one.
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Check your e-mail. I’ll resend.
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Id love to live in the first house it’s so big but it’s wrecked i’d fix it by simply plonking furniture in there. Thanks for this awsome post Lazy Aussie
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Wait: there’s more to North American architecture than I saw on The Brady Bunch, Happy Days and Family Ties??
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yeah loss of houses in America are like that and also you make me laugh David Cohen.
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Thanks TL!
TL, have you ever been in a…in a Turkish prison?
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No what’s it like mate if you know?
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Do you like movies about gladiators ?
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So scraps is a boy dog?
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not really i prefer comedy or a classic like Bruce Almighty.
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Have you ever seen a grown man naked L101?
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Don’t listen to them, TL.
You ever been in a cockpit before?
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The cockpit? What is it?
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Not you. Good day sir. I SAID good DAY.
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Connections, James Street Northbridge.
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No but the ones on the planes look awsome.
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yuck no
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Astounding. Keep em coming, Barkeep.
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These are stunning. Neither Perth nor Worst, I reckon.
By the way, it looks like the Ent Cent is due for a date with a bulldozer:
http://www.perthnow.com.au/business/major-perth-projects-move-closer-premier-colin-barnett/story-e6frg2ru-1226043309216
I’m sure it has been comprehensively Worsted in the past, but I will be sad to see its vibrancy lost to the heart of Perth.
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Yep, Grrr, but there’s always room for more.
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About friggen time. As much as it is an icon for many Perthites, who have fond memories of her in her heyday, it’s about time she was pulled down. She just looks sad and decrepit these days, covered in graffiti and surrounded by barbed wire. A definite worst.
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It’s wonderful. Should be kept.
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I’d have loved to seen it kept and maybe freshened up (or even better, restored to its gaudy 70s glory). Entry and egress from that venue was always easy and the acoustics and vision, though no Perth Concert Hall, which is arguably Australia’s finest venue on those fronts, was more than acceptable. I also dug the vinyl seats, covered in wonderfully lurid typically 70s colours like purple, orange and turquoise and being padded, weren’t unduly uncomfortable.
What I found most criminal was the fact that due to the shenanigans involving the owners and the State Government, the venue was closed in mid-2002, with a Christian rock concert being the last event held there—there should’ve really been some big gala event to send it off. It’s not as if the Ent Cent was unsafe or in really bad repair…in fact, since then, it has been basically maintained, in that it is very secure and the base electrical (room and exterior lights, security) is regularly serviced. What a waste…that is a Perth Worst unto itself. A perfectly adequate auditorium that many other cities would be more than happy to have, which was something of a trailblazer at the time: the largest indoor auditorium in the Southern Hemisphere (permanent capacity of 8003) for a decade, the largest proscenium arched stage in the world and largest TV studio; TWV7 were the original joint owners and installed a studio setup in time for colour’s arrival, the opening going live as a colour special (full-time colour didn’t commence until 1 March the next year) across the country on Boxing Day 1974.
So it’ll be a shame to see it go. I’d love to ask if I could get a peek inside one last time before the wrecking crew attack it. Many happy memories had there: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bob Dylan, Midnight Oil, the Russian Circus, and Fat Cat and Friends and Sesame Street as a boy.
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Geez, who edited that piece? Unless they were quoting Colin verbatim?
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If decayed worst is what you want, surely the fate of Halcyon Hall awaits Alexander the Great’s mansion.
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are u new here Tony? anyway Welcome to you.
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No, not new. In fact, I commented on that previous post.
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thanks ill look at it.
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hilarious
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Wonderful, not worsts Bartender. That mansion would have been stunning when it was first build. Such a shame it has fallen into disrepair over the years. It almost sounds as though every owner has been cursed if every one of them has gone bankrupt.
I love the American registered lawn photo. Again, not worst. But the 1780’s house photo bewilders me. Why the hell would someone think it’s OK to paint a building of that age bright friggen purple? It would have to be the American equivalent of a cashed up bogan, surely.
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The house is actually in excellent shape otherwise, which leads me to assume that it is owned by a pair of gentlemen “fond of pastels,” as the saying would have it.
There’s a large gay population in the Valley and many historic structures in the region have been restored in keeping with the “Painted Lady” craze associated both with San Fransisco’s post-quake wooden architecture and West Coast transplants. However this house struck a particularly discordant note due to its age, relative plainness and the oddity of the color.
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That would explain a lot. It does look well cared for from your photo. This particular pair of gentlemen must be colourblind though to think this colour was appropriate. One could get away with using a colour so bold on a modern house – it’s actually a similar shade to the feature walls in my own home which we estimate at about 10 years old – but a simple neutral tone would have looked so much better on this one. Even a soft pastel would have been better.
Isn’t purple the colour of sexual frustration? Perhaps it’s not a happy partnership.
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Halcyon Hall (pics 1 and 2) would make an excellent Angry Birds theme park.
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applause
superb
bravo
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!redruM
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Actually, the Overlook Hotel will have to wait. The park it stands in is not open to the public until May.
Yes, the actual Overlook Hotel. On Mt. Overlook, the Catskills. Burned down 60 years ago under mysterious circumstances dontcha know.
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Owned by the Midland hotel mafia?
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Off Topic, but from 1992v Perth TV Xmas Blooper Tape – contains Liam “Fucking” Bartlett:
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If Millbrook’s Halcyon Hall landed on Darch it would be a win-win situation.
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“Poughkeepsie”- what a great name. How do you say it?
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Poe-Kip-See.
Algonquin for “Broad Bank of Many Trees,” which it actually is to this day.
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Not so many Algonquin though; smallpox or Oklahoma?
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I have added the other pic. Didn’t realise t was a fake dog.
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Yep–a homemade job seemingly cut out of scrap metal and leaned up against the fence for that “Cujo?” moment so prized by American pastoralists.
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To be fair, if I’m shown a picture of what appears to be a dog, I rarely think: “I wonder if that’s s real dog, or just another fake one?”
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Might be a cat.
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Can anyone tell me are theese houses in Perth or the U.S?
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Perth, Tasmania maybe…
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OMG where when im old enough ill move into the one in the second photo if I have any money.
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Lovely stuff BswaM.
Suv owner – “I’ll get some wheels under the cottage, hitch it to my rig and shoot through after dark. Damm the gfc”.
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Millbrook is the Margaret River of New York
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