Everything OddWay knows about. Narrow it down by what you're after, or where you're going.
Giant objects, odd monuments and things built for no clear reason.
Mystic, CT
Hundreds of forks, knives and spoons were welded into an 18-foot upright striped bass outside S&P Oyster Restaurant. The fish was created in 2022 using utensils supplied by the restaurant itself.
Hartford, CT
Museum director A. Everett 'Chick' Austin designed this 1930s home to resemble a grand European villa, but much of the impressive facade conceals a house only one room deep. The theatrical architecture fits its famously eccentric former owner; interior access is by scheduled museum programming.
Norwich, CT
A giant cowboy Muffler Man has been part of Norwich since the 1960s and has watched over the West Main Street shopping area for decades. Big Bob wears a cowboy hat and holds an American flag, preserving a classic piece of fiberglass roadside culture.
Niantic, CT
Hundreds of thousands of used books are scattered through buildings, sheds and themed corners at this sprawling book compound. Cats, goats, strange decorations and sections with names such as Hades and The Haunted make it feel more like a literary scavenger hunt than a normal bookstore.
Stratford, CT
The eccentric Boothe brothers filled their property with unusual structures and collections, many of which survive in today's public park. Highlights include a miniature lighthouse, an old tollbooth, a blacksmith shop with dozens of sides and the wonderfully strange Technocratic Cathedral.
West Hartford, CT
Conny was once a walk-through, life-size sperm-whale sculpture outside the Children's Museum. When the museum moved, the enormous whale was cut apart; its surviving tail was reinstalled beside the Trout Brook Trail as an intentionally strange remnant of the original landmark.
Southington, CT
A curiosity shop inside Factory Square filled with taxidermy, natural-history specimens, antiques, strange artwork, unusual collectibles and other objects selected for maximum oddity. It functions as both a shop and a cabinet-of-curiosities-style browsing stop.
Bridgeport, CT
A new Bridgeport curiosity shop from oddities collector Ryan Matthew Cohn combines antique medical objects, taxidermy, natural-history pieces and unusual decorative material. It opened in 2026 and currently keeps limited public hours with additional visits available by arrangement.
Amston, CT
A large natural rock outcrop beside Route 66 has been painted into a giant American bald eagle, with local volunteers periodically refreshing the image. It is a simple but unmistakable piece of Connecticut roadside folk art.
Waterbury, CT
A roughly 40-foot moai replica with a red topknot survives beside the former Timexpo Museum. The museum closed in 2015, but the enormous concrete head remains beside the shopping complex as a bizarre leftover from an attempt to connect Timex with explorer Thor Heyerdahl.
Eastford, CT
A huge glacial boulder has been painted to resemble a frog since the nineteenth century. The surrounding roadside rest area has repeatedly faded, closed and revived over the years, but the green frog itself remains a beloved Route 44 landmark; services around it may be seasonal.
New Milford, CT
This extraordinarily narrow house was constructed in a form local history has long connected with a property dispute, earning it the label of a spite house. It is a private residence, so the stop is strictly an exterior view from lawful public space.
East Haddam, CT
Actor William Gillette, famous for portraying Sherlock Holmes, built this eccentric stone castle above the Connecticut River with secret doors, custom wooden locks, unusual built-in furniture and an estate railroad. The grounds are broadly accessible while interior castle tours are seasonal.
Guilford, CT
Each holiday season, Gozzi's Turkey Farm displays live turkeys whose feathers are dyed vivid colors including pink, purple and green. The tradition has become a peculiar local Thanksgiving and Christmas-season ritual rather than a normal farm visit.
Hartford, CT
The Connecticut Science Center displays a genuine lunar sample associated with Apollo astronaut David Scott. It is a small object with an enormous backstory: a physical piece of the Moon sitting in downtown Hartford.
Avon, CT
A 165-foot hilltop tower rises above Talcott Mountain and looks more like a European country estate than a Connecticut observation structure. It can only be reached on foot, and the interior museum operates seasonally, but the tower and its setting make the hike worthwhile.
Waterbury, CT
A former religious theme park covers a Waterbury hillside with miniature biblical buildings, grottoes and other handmade structures beneath a huge illuminated cross. The attraction fell into decay after closing in the 1980s but is now being gradually restored, leaving an unusual mix of folk art, ruins and active pilgrimage site.
New Haven, CT
Eero Saarinen's dramatic hockey arena is nicknamed the Yale Whale because its sweeping roof and curved concrete spine resemble a giant marine animal. It remains an active Yale athletic venue, so interior access depends on games and university events.
Cheshire, CT
A dead roadside tree was carved into an oversized version of Kid Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy. The sculpture is illuminated after dark and is occasionally dressed for holidays, giving the residential roadside piece an evolving personality.
Greenwich, CT
An enormous reclining bronze gorilla reaches an open hand toward visitors outside the Bruce Museum. Created by artists Gillie and Marc, King Nyani is intended as a gentle counterpoint to monster-movie gorillas and is currently listed by the museum as an ongoing installation.
Bethany, CT
The Kriz family’s enormous horseshoe pile is the accumulation of generations of farrier work, with the current pile begun after a 1955 flood washed away an earlier collection. It was moved to the Kriz Farm in Bethany in 1978 and continues to grow, but it is on a working private farm rather than a public roadside attraction, so visitors should not enter without permission.
Brookfield, CT
A giant waving Santa Claus stands year-round outside a storage property on Vale Road. The restored fiberglass figure has become an all-season roadside landmark where Christmas never really ends.
Woodbury, CT
Scrap metal, discarded machinery and automotive parts have been assembled into human figures outside Murray Brothers Garage. The homemade characters turn an ordinary repair-shop lot into a compact roadside sculpture garden.
East Hartford, CT
One of the pieces on the Hartford-area Lincoln Financial Sculpture Walk compresses major stages of Abraham Lincoln's life and career into a vertical sculptural column. It is part history lesson and part unconventional presidential monument.
