Funny Farm

Ok, a disclaimer-​if you don’t like strange, odd, weird, off the wall kinds of places, don’t go here.
That said, a little backstory: this place hasn’t always been «The Funny Farm». Back around 1977, Gene Carsey and Mike Craven opened a marvelous little antique store on Highway 97 between Bend and Redmond called «Buffet Flat». (Back during Prohibition, a «buffet flat» was a black-​only speakeasy). It was a beautiful old building that had been built in the 1920s or so and used as a roadside stop. They painted it all over with black and white Art Deco designs. It was a very unique place in the middle of the highway, to be sure! I was taken there by my mom in 1978 when I was about 8 years old, and walking in there was like entering a magical world. They just had the BEST stuff! For years we went in there until I moved away in the late 80s. There was a big controversy at one point and the state/​city/​authority whatever made them move and demolished the building. They moved across the road and made the business the Funny Farm.
It is true that now it is but a shadow of its former self, but there is a kind of sad beauty all over the grounds. Since Mike Craven died, I think that the focus has been more on the costume rentals than selling antiques and keeping up the displays. Give the guy a break-it’s a lot for one man to take care of. I wish I could help but I don’t live in Bend. The place is what it is… accept it or not. If you want sanitary, plastic, perfect experiences, go to Disneyland.

This place scared the shit out of me and that’s no lie.
I was seeking a little adventure in Bend and decided to stray from my usual haunts to find something unique. But this place is not only odd and completely non-​conformist, I think it might be haunted. If you were a little kid, you would never in a million years knock on the door at Halloween.
I find it hard to describe, so this is one where you should check out the photos. The farm is filled with sculptures that are a combination of whimsical and head scratching. A sign post with one arrow pointing to «Beaten Path» and another to «Off.» Cows hanging from the trees, two-​headed bowlers and the oddest wind chimes I’ve ever seen. Most appear to have been created many years ago, so like Petersen’s Rock Garden, this place seems to be losing the battle to decay and the elements.
You walk in the front door to a combination antique store and costume shop and the centerpiece is a dollhouse with a miniature TV inside playing a movie. One small room rambles into another through twists and turns and then you are outside. The most interesting thing for my family was the house with a kaleidoscope that you view by sticking your head in Carmen Miranda’s mouth.
According to their sign, they are currently open Friday — Monday from 11:02a — 6:03p. We drove up outside of those hours and the owner arrived while we were there and let us in anyway. When we were leaving I thanked him for letting us go on a tour and I mentioned that I heard about his shop through an article about Oregon oddities and he got a far away look in his eyes and said, «Well, my mother always said I was odd.» Visions of Psycho. Run!

The Funny Farm has seen better days. On my first visit in the early 90s, the Farm was well-​maintained and well-​loved by tourists, who posed with surly fainting goats and mammoth surreal statuary, got unofficially hitched by the Love Pool and bought bowling ball seeds by the packet. The park gradually began to age but stayed on a more or less even keel until 2005, when one half of the couple who built and maintained the farm passed away. Since then, «The Far Out Park & Playground of Reuse and Recycling» has seen progressively tougher times, culminating in the surviving proprietor’s arrest for the alleged sale of marijuana and methamphetamine in late 2007.
Despite the tragic circumstances that have led to the downfall of this once-​popular outsider art haven, there is a sad beauty about the Funny Farm’s decay. As the psychedelic statuary bleaches and crumbles under the Central Oregon sun and native plants begin to reclaim the land, the Farm sheds its kitschy veneer for something more natural and poignant. You’d swear the bowling ball trees really were spreading their roots in the dusty soil. Artistic mementos of Gene and Mike’s sadly abbreviated relationship are everywhere. Nowhere but the Funny Farm could a statue of a two-​headed bowler in a silly-​looking neon onesie have such emotional gravity. A dirt yard in back of the main house is covered with half-​finished projects and bits of junk that may have once had artistic potential, now long-​abandoned and rusting away. There are few things sadder or so emblematic of wasted potential than a work in progress that just stopped progressing. That’s the Funny Farm.
Warning: I have no idea if this place is actually still around, and I hope someone more familiar with the attraction will shed some light on its current status. The proprietor of the Farm and his surviving family have clashed with the law on a number of occasions in the last decade, and as a result the Funny Farm has been closed with great finality and then reopened quietly multiple times. Roadside America reports it open as of October 2008, but I can make no guarantees.