Sunday, April 5, 2009

Newark, Ohio's Longaberger Basket Company headquarters: What a picnic!




Newark, Ohio is host to one of the greatest eccentric roadside attractions of them all: the Longaberger Basket Company's world headquarters. It's a 7-story office building in the shape of a giant picnic basket. It's actually modeled after the Longaberger "Medium Market," their best-seller. What a sight to see. We were lucky enough to visit on a beautiful sunny Sunday morning in 2007, the kind of day that would be just right for a picnic, albeit a really, really big picnic. The building was the brainchild of company founder Dave Longaberger and it was built in 1995, long after the 1930s heyday of buildings shaped like big things as roadside attractions. The $30 million steel-stucco structure ­ features upright handles ­ weighing 75 tons each. To match the building's ambiance, the grounds are beautiful and lushly landscaped like a real picnic spot. How great it must be to work in a building that's the world's biggest picnic basket. Heck, it would be fun just driving past it every day on the way to some other job. I wonder, though. Are there some really big ants looming over the horizon, because it wouldn't be a picnic...
Here's their website: http://www.longaberger.com/ourCompany.aspx

5 comments:

The Viewliner Limited said...

WOW! Now this is what I call real "Americana". Great pics. Thanks.

Gunnar and Sherry said...

Thanks Richard! I would love to see what the inside of this place is like. Probably a lot of red and white checkerboards.

The Old Nail said...

That's incredible! lol

Unknown said...

You should see the ants!!!

Anonymous said...

I live in this city. It's pretty cool :)