Luna Parc is the mosaic-covered, sculpture-packed home and studio of artist Ricky Boscarino, tucked into eight and a half acres of woods in Sandyston Township, Sussex County. It’s been called the quirkiest house in New Jersey, it opens to the public only a handful of days each year, and no photo really prepares you for walking through the front door shaped like an artichoke.
If you’ve spent any time exploring New Jersey’s odder corners, you already know the state hides a lot of surprises down back roads. Luna Parc might be the strangest of all of them, mostly because it’s not a roadside attraction or a museum built for tourists. It’s someone’s actual house. Someone just happens to have spent close to four decades covering every inch of it in glass, tile, taxidermy, and whatever else caught his eye.
What Exactly Is Luna Parc?
Luna Parc is the semi-private museum, atelier, and private home of American multimedia artist Richard “Ricky” Boscarino, located in Sandyston Township, New Jersey. The name isn’t a coincidence, either. Boscarino has explained that he borrowed it from an amusement park outside Rome he used to visit during his college years, then made sure to spell it with a “c” so it wouldn’t be confused with Coney Island’s famous Luna Park.
The place started small. In 1982, the young artist graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design eager to create, and when he first bought the property in 1989, the then 28-year-old craftsman had no intention of turning it into the spectacle it is today. But the momentum never stopped. Once a rundown hunting cabin, artist Ricky Boscarino has spent nearly four decades expanding and creating the property. The original 600-square-foot cottage has evolved into a mansion nearly ten times its size, accompanied by an abundance of outdoor sculptures.
Why People Call It the Quirkiest House in New Jersey
New Jersey Monthly gave Luna Parc that title, and once you see the place, it’s hard to argue. The house, inspired by places like Parc Güell and the Hundertwasser House, has eleven levels, fifteen rooms, and what’s been called the most photographed bathroom in New Jersey. That bathroom deserves its reputation. It’s adorned in elaborate mosaic work made of more than one million pieces of colorful broken glass, stone, and tile. Boscarino built it as the very first addition to the original cabin, and it includes a four-panel stained-glass mural depicting the journey of life from spermatozoa to skeleton.
Wander further and the collections just keep coming. There’s a “Nature Lab,” which features a 200-year-old human skeleton and a taxidermy collection that includes a pearl-necklace-adorned deer and the head of a Cape Buffalo. There’s a Hall of Hats where most of Boscarino’s mannequins reside, showcasing hats collected from around the world alongside an old leather seat upcycled with thrifted belts and a funhouse mirror. Add in a Zen room, a library stuffed with art books, a small gift shop, and a ballroom filled with vintage light fixtures and old telephones, and you start to understand why one visitor said there simply aren’t words to describe the place.
Outside is just as busy. In the surrounding landscape you’ll find curvy mosaic walls, kinetic sculptures, and a pergola made of bottles. A TripAdvisor reviewer described wandering past an outdoor chapel, a trophy arch, and a blue bottle grotto that all feel oddly peaceful despite the visual chaos everywhere else. Materials get a second life in ways you wouldn’t expect: old bowling balls line the driveway while wooden crutches stand to form a fence, ceramic gravy boats serve as indoor waterfalls, and wine corks are repurposed as wall decor.
Where Did All This Come From?
Boscarino traces his eye for collecting back to childhood. Luna Parc is a repository of quirky collections and a showcase for his mosaics and sculptures, with roots going back to his childhood in Piscataway, where he collected rocks, insects, and minerals. By his own admission, “My room became a bit of a spectacle,” and his mother used to send guests in to look at it. That instinct never went away, it just found a much bigger canvas.
His travels shaped the aesthetic too. Boscarino has said his trips through Southeast Asia, Europe, Morocco, and Egypt all feed into what ends up on the walls, though he considers himself more Eurocentric overall, with European architecture proving a little more profound for his own work. You can see that influence directly in the mosaic style, which Atlas Obscura notes draws on mosaics influenced by Klimt, Gaudí, and Hundertwasser.
Is Luna Parc Open to the Public?
Here’s the part that trips people up: you can’t just show up. Luna Parc is not open to the public except for during spring and fall open houses, though a virtual tour is available on the website. Wikipedia’s summary confirms the same pattern: twice a year, the museum and atelier are opened to the public for a three-weekday open house. Some sources note a broader window too, with tours available a few days each month from May through October in certain years, so it’s worth checking directly before you plan a trip.
Boscarino keeps the dates close to the vest until close to the actual event. Luna Parc typically opens sometime after May 1st, with exact dates announced on Ricky’s social media pages. That unpredictability is part of the charm, honestly. This isn’t a business optimized for foot traffic. The house is only open on weekdays in summer because Ricky still lives there. You’re a guest in someone’s home, not a customer at an attraction, and the whole experience feels that way.
When it is open, expect crowds. In the early 2000s, Ricky decided to open Luna Parc to the public on select weekends, and every year thousands of guests now travel from far and wide to see his zany paintings, intricate mosaics, and eclectic sculptures. If you go, budget more time than you think you need. People report losing track of the hour just staring at details they missed the first time through.
What Happens to Luna Parc in the Future?
Boscarino has already thought about what comes next. In 2015, he established the Luna Parc Atelier Foundation, a non-profit he says will one day inherit Luna Parc to ensure it remains a museum or educational institution. The foundation’s own description backs that mission up directly: it’s an arts colony and visionary art environment that teaches apprentices hand-working and business skills necessary to succeed as self-supporting artists. So this isn’t just an eccentric one-man project destined to disappear. There’s a plan to keep it going.
Getting There and What to Know Before You Go
Luna Parc sits at 22 Degroat Road in Sandyston, way up in New Jersey’s northwest corner near the Delaware Water Gap, not far from Stokes State Forest and High Point State Park. It’s remote enough that Boscarino himself remembers thinking, as a kid attending summer camp nearby, that Sussex County seemed so far away, like going to Alaska or something. That distance is exactly why the place still feels like a secret, even decades after New Jersey Monthly and Weird NJ started writing about it.
A few practical notes if you’re planning around an open house: bring cash for the small shop, since Boscarino sells handmade jewelry and sculptures on site, and go in expecting to walk slowly. This is not a place you rush through. Every surface has something on it, and the fun is in noticing what you missed the first time you looked. As one longtime visitor put it after touring dozens of similar art environments around the country, Boscarino is simply the only current active environmentalist still creating on such a scale.
If quirky, hand-built New Jersey oddities are your thing, Luna Parc belongs near the top of the list. It’s not polished, it’s not corporate, and it’s definitely not for everyone. But for a few days each year, a hunting cabin in the Sussex County woods turns into one of the strangest and most personal art spaces on the East Coast, and that alone makes the trip worth planning around.
NOTE TO THE ADVENTURER: This guide is meant to spark curiosity for what lies beyond the horizon — not to serve as a guarantee. Roads fall into disrepair, buildings are torn down and rebuilt, and properties change hands; 'tis your responsibility to do your own research before setting out. Always heed local and regional law, and always respect ground that isn't your own. Take every entry here as a suggestion, not a decree. This guide's contents were gathered with the aid of artificial intelligence, and like any scout, it will from time to time lead you astray. You assume all risk in following its counsel, and neither this blog nor its author is liable for any loss, injury, or misfortune that results.
