FLORIDA PLACE TO EXPLORE
Wonder House
Polk County · Central Florida
A four-story concrete house in Bartow that a Pittsburgh contractor began building in the 1920s after doctors gave him a year to live.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
Conrad Schuck was a building contractor and stone quarry dealer from Pittsburgh. Told he had about a year left, he came to Florida and began building a house, and the work apparently agreed with him, because he lived another forty years and never quite finished it. He built in concrete poured over stone and reinforced with steel rails, walls eighteen inches thick at ground level, using material taken almost entirely off the land itself apart from the rails and the imported tile. The floor plan is a cross, with every room opening onto two porches so air moved through the house before anyone had air conditioning, and there are eighteen rooms with three full bathrooms and two half. Underground are a pump room 22 feet down and a storage room above it, with pipes running out to a terraced pool that was circulated and stocked with fish. The DuCharme family bought it in 1964 and completed it. Tours run by booking
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