The "Something You Can't Believe Until You See It!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a magazine titled "Our State - Celebrating North Carolina," which was given to my wife and myself by our son, Derek, who works for a company that distributes reading material of all sorts.  One of the short stories in the magazine was titled "His Cups Runneth Over."  Above the story on the magazine page was a photograph of a small wooden cabin that was covered in drinking cups!  I must admit that I am assuming the house was a wooden cabin, since you really couldn't tell by looking at the cabin since it was covered in...cups...drinking mugs to be exact!  An Unbelievable sight...so it was.  I can only imagine what it must have looked like in person.

The cabin was the home of the late Avery Sisk who was always a cup-half-full kind of guy.  Or...in his case...a mug-half-full.  Mr. Sisk died last March at the age of 81.  Mr. Sisk was the architect behind his famous "House of Mugs", an otherwise ordinary cabin that he inexplicably.....some would say ingeniously.....shingled with coffee mugs.  Now...we're talking about ground-to-gable coffee mugs.....thousands upon thousands of mostly ceremic vessels covering all of the cabins exterior walls, the front porch, the porch's ceiling, a second small building, and even a split-rail fence with an archway.  Each mug dangles from its own nail!  You might even find mugs hanging in nearby trees.  The last count, about five years ago, had the number at 30,000 coffee cups, said his son Kyle.

Kyle and his wife Doris...and the mugs with more in the background!

The "House of Mugs" got its start in the summer of 2000, when Mr. Sisk, who lived in Lincolnton, about an hour south of "House of Mugs" went to a flea market to buy an antique oil lamp.  While at the flea market, he and his sister, Ruby Shook, found a bargain they couldn't resist: 750 coffee mugs for $15.  Wow..now I would have taken them for that price!!  But, what was he to do with all of them?  After all, the man--this is no lie--wasn't a big coffee drinker.  So..he decided to hang the mugs in a corner of his cabin's porch, beginning with a boring "I Love New Jersey" mug.  Sisk began frequenting flea markets, thrift stores, antique shops, yard sales.....anywhere he might find inexpensive mugs for his collection.  Some days he might bring home as many as 1,000 mugs in the back of his pickup truck.  Eventually, visitors came to see the "House of Mugs" for themselves.....some from as far away as Germany, France, and Iceland.....and, began bringing Sisk mugs to further embolden his habit.  The mugs began to spread like kudzu, and Sisk couldn't stop them from growing because, well,  he didn't want to!  His hobby had become an addiction!  Now, he could had been addicted to something worse, but mugs???  A tour of Risk's menagerie revealed mugs printed with almost everything imaginable: Flowers, rainbows, hearts, Santa Clauses, snowmen, reindeer, dogs, cats, and cows.  And then there were logos from Universities, Businesses, and even a picture of Ronal Reagan.  When Mr. Sisk died, family members never debated whether they should dismantle the cabin that had given visitors, as well as Sisk, so much joy!  "My dad loved the coffee mugs, and he loved showing them to people," Kyle said.  "But, we're not gonna add to them.  That's what my dad would've wanted.  It was just his collection"  So, if you want to see something you'll never believe unless you see it with your own two eyes, head toward Collettsville and ask about the famous House of Mugs!  I'm sure someone you talk with will know where it might be.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.