We visited the Watts Towers on the Sunday before Christmas. Watts Towers are the remarkable creation of an immigrant tile setter named Simon Rodia, who worked on them from 1921 to about 1954.
Watts Towers from outside south wall.
There are seventeen towers and other structures on the property, the largest being about 90′ tall.
Watts Towers seen from the adjoining park.
The towers were created entirely by Rodia using hand tools only. He fashioned them from rebar wrapped in chicken wire and packed with mortar. The rebar he bent by hand, sliding the rods under railroad tracks to hold them steady.
Simon Rodia. Photo from http://www.wattstowers.us.
He then covered his creations with a mosaic made from all manner of common items – sea shells, broken bottles, odd bits of tiles and ceramics.
Mosaic with glass bottles.
Rodia also used all kinds of objects to create patterns in the mortar.
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Old School Garden 