Greetings From Iowa
Rancho Deluxe
Season 6 Episode 604 | 4mVideo has Closed Captions
Visit Rancho Deluxe, the Original Bicycle Garden in Mason City, created by Max Weaver.
Visit Rancho Deluxe, the Original Bicycle Garden in Mason City, created by Max Weaver. Max Weaver has been a notorious dumpster diver all his life. He's been picking up stuff in Mason City since he was five years old. Max started Rancho Deluxe in 2003 with a shade garden for his wife and it just kept going. Every piece in the garden is something that has been thrown away.
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Greetings From Iowa is a local public television program presented by Iowa PBS
Greetings From Iowa
Rancho Deluxe
Season 6 Episode 604 | 4mVideo has Closed Captions
Visit Rancho Deluxe, the Original Bicycle Garden in Mason City, created by Max Weaver. Max Weaver has been a notorious dumpster diver all his life. He's been picking up stuff in Mason City since he was five years old. Max started Rancho Deluxe in 2003 with a shade garden for his wife and it just kept going. Every piece in the garden is something that has been thrown away.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship♪♪ ♪♪ Max Weaver: I started about five -- the first thing I collected was baseballs.
♪♪ Max: This is called Rancho Deluxe, the Original Bicycle Garden and it has been around since 2003.
♪♪ Max: I just ran out of room with the stuff that I collected over the years and I started to put it out here.
What I did first is if you follow me, I just had an idea that, you know what, I'm going to surprise my wife.
♪♪ Max: I made this little garden for her to drink her wine, for girlfriends and to read and to do yoga.
♪♪ Max: I just kept going.
♪♪ Max: I just started putting stuff out.
Everything here, every piece that you see here has been thrown away.
Nobody wanted it anymore.
Even some of the beautiful rocks, they just -- take 'em.
And I've been a notorious dumpster diver all my life.
I think you'll find anybody that does stuff like this, somebody once called this outsider art.
I don't know what any of that stuff is, I'm not trained in anything.
But I can tell you that people that do this are cut from a different cloth than most, it's a different fabric.
And I'm one of those guys too.
♪♪ Max: This is a stage that I put in.
I've had a lot of different stuff going on here.
♪♪ Max: The place is, it breaks down in the community a third of the people love it, a third of the people don't like it and a third of the people don't even know it's here.
But people from out of town, when they get here, this is on a dead end here, when they get here they're looking for it and it's out there and they come.
And I really get a kick out of some of their reactions and stuff.
They just like stuff like this.
♪♪ Max: This is the west entrance to the Rancho Deluxe.
It's the Hollywood entrance.
It's the most photographed thing down here.
♪♪ Max: I've had some pretty good artists down here and I'd like to get more.
♪♪ Max: What we've got here is an incredible work of magic, art, whatever you want to call it.
It's those 3,000 pound blocks that I told you about with a couple inches of cement thrown on them and when they get ready they're carved, hand carved.
And well, it speaks for itself.
If I had a nickel for every time somebody tried to open the door I'd be, well I could probably take a vacation.
But anyway, Mark Whitten is the person's name.
He lives about four blocks over here.
And that's another thing I want you to know -- you just never know who your neighbors are but there's incredible talent everywhere whether it's a woman or a man who is baking pies or making bread in the neighborhood.
♪♪ Max: They tore Mason City down, I picked it up.
I spent hours and hours picking stuff up.
And it's been a labor of love since 2003.
♪♪
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