It’s amazing what people can create when they put their minds and hearts into it. The structures you see below were born out of nothing but dreams and ambitions, and took shape throughout years, sometimes decades of hard labor. They may not be as popular as other American monuments, but these five architectural masterpieces are proof that anything is possible.

Mystery Castle – Phoenix, Arizona

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The history of Mystery Castle, a unique structure located at the foothills of South Mountain Park, began in the early 1940s, when Boyce Luther Gulley decided to fulfill his daughter’s wish of living in a real-life castle. He began gathering cheap and discarded materials like stone, car parts and adobe to build his little Mary Lou the home she always dreamed of.

Gulley was suffering from tuberculosis and died in 1945, but his legacy lives on in the 18-room Mystery Castle he built in his final years. Mary Lou and her mother moved in right away and their amazing story was featured in a 1948 issue of Life Magazine. The now not-so-young girl still lives in her Mystery Castle and conducts tours for the thousands of tourists that visit every year.

Ruble Castle – Glendora, California

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Often referred to as Rubelia, Rubel Castle is considered one of the first recycling projects in America. It all started in 1959, when Michael Clarke Rubel bought a large citrus orchard in Glendora, California. As his mother always threw extravagant parties for her high society friends, Rubel decided to build himself a haven away from the party noise. The house he created from hundreds of empty champagne bottles was just the beginning of a project that lasted twenty years.

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With the help of some friends Michael Ruble constructed his giant Rubel Castle around an old water tower, using any material he could salvage. The thousands-of-square-feet structure contains rocks, cement, wine bottles, motorcycle parts, toasters and other bizarre building materials. Like any respectable castle, it received visits from important royalty like Prince Phillip (husband of Queen Elizabeth II) and other important guests like Henry Kissinger.

Watts Towers – Los Angeles

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Located in the Watts district of Los Angeles, Watts Towers is a collection of 17 towers built by Sabato “Simon” Rodia, over a period of 33 years. Rodia, an Italian immigrant with a background in construction work, used steel pipes as skeleton for his art pieces and decorated them with broken glass, seashells, pottery and ceramic tiles. Neighborhood children would often bring the artists all sorts of found stuff, hoping he would use it in his project.

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Unfortunately Simon Rodia didn’t get along too well with some of his neighbors and some of them permitted their children to vandalize his art. Tired of all the abuse, the Italian construction worker turned architect left Los Angeles, never to return again. In danger of being demolished at one point, the international fame of the Watts Towers turned them into one of LA’s tourist attractions and a National Historic Landmark. And all because Simon Rodia “had in mind to do something big”.

The Heidelberg Project – Detroit

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The Heidelberg Project, a world famous outdoor art display, began when Tyree Guyton returned from the Army, only to find his Detroit neighborhood devastated by urban riots. He decided to change his home from a place where people were afraid to walk on streets into something they would be proud of. He started painting several houses on Heidelberg Street in bright colors and attaching salvaged items to them.

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Guyton’s dream was to make the Heidelberg Project Detroit’s first outdoor and indoor museum. Created in 1986, it was nearly demolished by local authorities, but Tyree Guyton launched a lawsuit against the city of Detroit and earned his project the status of “outdoor art environment”. Nowadays, over 275,000 tourists visit the Heidelberg Project every year.

The Grotto of the Redemption – West Bend, Iowa

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Believed to be the largest grotto in the world, as well as the world’s most complete man-made collection of minerals, fossils, shells and petrifications in one place, the Grotto of the redemption is one man’s monument to divinity. Father Paul Dobbersein was a German immigrant who, at one point, suffered from critical pneumonia. He prayed to the Virgin Mary and promised to build a shrine in her honor, if she would save his life. Dobberstein miraculously recovered and started working on the Grotto of the Redemption.

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The faithful priest began his work in 1912 and spent the next 42 years expanding and perfecting his shrine. Because he couldn’t find any crystals or semi-precious stones in West Bend, he often traveled to neighboring areas gathering materials to use as decorations for his religious monument. At the time of Dobberstein’s death, in 1954, the Grotto of the Redemption was the size of a city block and it’s still expanding today. Experts estimate the amounts of crystals and semi-precious stones used in the Grotto are worth over $4.3 million dollars.

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