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Quirky effort in South Jersey to rebuild 'the strangest house in the world'

VINELAND, N.J. - Neither Kevin Kirchner nor Jeffrey Tirante will go so far as to say the ruins of the quirky old "Palace of Depression" here were haunted, but they have often felt over the years that a hidden hand has led them to the artifacts they need to rebuild "the strangest house in the world."

Jeffrey Triante of Vineland passes up a sheet of plywood to other volunteers putting the roof on the rebuilt/restored Palace of Depression in Vineland on October 26, 2016.
Jeffrey Triante of Vineland passes up a sheet of plywood to other volunteers putting the roof on the rebuilt/restored Palace of Depression in Vineland on October 26, 2016.Read moreELIZABETH ROBERTSON / Staff Photographer

VINELAND, N.J. - Neither Kevin Kirchner nor Jeffrey Tirante will go so far as to say the ruins of the quirky old "Palace of Depression" here were haunted, but they have often felt over the years that a hidden hand has led them to the artifacts they need to rebuild "the strangest house in the world."

They readily share odd stories about being led, seemingly by luck, to crucial pieces of the house that the eccentric George Daynor built during the Great Depression: A metal spire that graced the old building's castlelike turret was found stuck in the swampy muck and the original cornerstone was located after a convoluted series of unusual occurrences on the construction site.

"I would say I've been haunted by it," Kirchner, 66, says of his and Tirante's nearly 20-year quest to rebuild the house - originally created from old car parts and trash atop a swampy junkyard - as a museum.

"My wife says I'm evolving into George Daynor because I have an insatiable drive to see it rebuilt," says Kirchner, a retired licensing and inspections director for the City of Vineland who has braved various injuries while working at the site and has sunk more than $20,000 of his money into the project.

After learning that the property was to be put up for sale by the city - although Vineland ultimately retained ownership of it - Kirchner formed the nonprofit Palace of Depression Restoration Association Inc. and began raising funds and accumulating donations of materials, so far totaling about $300,000.

All the work at the Cumberland County site - including Tirante's role as caretaker, often staying there overnight - has been volunteered. The money raised includes $100,000 from a local history-loving physician. That amount will help build a visitor center once the main structure is finished.

"I think that people have such a love of this place and remember it from childhood as one of those places that tells the story of early Vineland," said John Fisher, 56, of Port Norris, a volunteer who grew up in Vineland.

Daynor used wrecked car chassis, old fenders, discarded coffee cans, old bricks, and other odds and ends to build walls that were held together with an unusual mixture of Portland cement, water from a nearby stream, and crankcase oil drained from the engines of old model Ts.

Part P.T. Barnum, part Wildman of the Woods, the fire-red-bearded and frizzy-haired Daynor and his "Fantastic Castle" were featured in several newsreel films during the 1930s and 1940s.

In the reels he seemed to capture the imagination of a nation of have-nots who were struggling during the Depression and World War II and who may have seen the unusual place as a monument to making something fantastic out of almost nothing.

Daynor would lead guests on tours, telling whimsy-laced stories of mermaids and other creatures and of an angel that supposedly led him to Vineland and to purchasing the four-acre property on South Mill Road with his last $4.

In the films and newspaper stories from the time, he'd talk of losing half his Gold Rush-made fortune during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the other half during the stock-market crash in 1929.

"He had all these unusual little sideshow things going," said Tirante, 58. "He was a real showman."

An estimated 250,000 visitors came to the Palace of Depression and paid a dime or a quarter admittance between Christmas 1932, when it opened, to the late 1950s, when Daynor went to prison for a year.

To garner publicity for the attraction, Daynor falsely told the FBI that the kidnappers of a New York boy had contacted him about hiding the victim in his dungeonlike tunnels and cellars. He was jailed for filing a false report. "It took a lot of hard work to accomplish what I did, to build my Palace of Depression," Daynor can be heard saying on one of the reels. "It not only took hard work, but it required endurance, patience, and lots of courage."

While Kirchner and Tirante dismiss notions of ghosts, they admit to channeling Daynor's perseverance as they've worked diligently for the last 17 years.

There was almost nothing left of the place when the men began the restoration.

After Daynor returned from prison, a sick man, the "palace" where he had previously lived with his common-law wife was never reopened to visitors because it had been so damaged by vandals. He was eventually taken to Cumberland County Hospital in Bridgeton, where he died in 1964, said to be age 104.

Though the eccentric man had permission to be buried on his property, Daynor was laid to rest in Oak Hill Cemetery among other notables in Vineland's founding.

After Daynor died, the city tore down what was left of the main structure. A thicket of weeds and large trees covered the property and for years all that was visible of the magnificent palace was the concrete-domed ticket booth near the front of the compound and some stone sculpture garden pathways.

Using old photographs and newsreel footage, the men assembled a scale model and have used it as a guide in re-creating the landmark. Donated bricks and pieces of concrete are being assembled into the thick walls of the new structure the way Daynor had. The structure is about halfway built.

Not everyone is happy about the idea of the museum. "I think what they have done over there is amazing," said Beth Anne Graves, 32, who lives several doors from the site. "But as neighbors we're concerned about an increase in traffic on our road."

A Halloween event brought out about 190 people on a recent evening and a Founder's Weekend each May brings 5,000 to 8,000 people to the site, Kirchner said.