Luna Parc is a hand-built art environment in Sandyston Township, in the far northwestern corner of New Jersey, where artist Ricky Boscarino has spent more than three decades covering a once-abandoned hunting cabin in mosaics, stained glass, taxidermy, and found-object sculpture. It’s part private home, part museum, part fever dream, and it only opens its gates to the public a handful of days a year. If you’ve never heard of it, that’s sort of the point — this is the kind of place you stumble into the woods of Sussex County and then spend the rest of the day trying to describe to people who weren’t there.
What Exactly Is Luna Parc?
Officially, it’s described as the semi-private museum, atelier, and private home of multimedia artist Richard “Ricky” Boscarino, located in Sandyston Township near Montague in northwestern New Jersey, where since 1989 Boscarino has transformed the property into a multibuilding, mosaic-adorned art environment of colorful curving structures, outdoor sculptures made from ceramic, metal, and found objects, and a richly decorated interior that functions as a cabinet of curiosities. In plainer terms: one guy bought an ugly cabin and never really stopped building.
The name itself comes from a childhood memory. Boscarino calls the 15-room house Luna Parc after an amusement park outside of Rome, and once you see the place, the carnival reference makes total sense. Nothing here is subtle, and nothing here is finished — it’s a project that keeps growing the way a garden does, one new idea grafted onto the last.
From Dilapidated Hunting Cabin to Art Castle
The origin story is almost comically humble. When he was 28 years old in 1989, Boscarino took one look at a rundown eyesore of a hunting cabin in the woods of northwestern New Jersey and knew it was his future dreamhouse, saying as soon as he laid eyes on it he knew he’d spend the rest of his life there. The cabin had sat empty for roughly a decade before he bought it, and according to Boscarino himself, it was the last property available for under $100,000 when a realtor first showed it to him, and he knew right away that anything he built there would be permanent.
What started small has become genuinely massive. He started with 600 square feet and has built that up to about 4,500 square feet of art, history, world travels, and the stories that make up a lifetime of fanciful inspiration. And this wasn’t a weekend-warrior renovation — he’s worked on the house for 56,000 hours since his first night in the hunting shack. Do the math on that and you start to understand why every single surface, inside and out, has something painted, tiled, or glued onto it.
What You’ll Actually See When You Walk In
This is not a polished gallery with white walls and little placards. Luna Parc feels more like wandering into somebody’s brain. The exterior alone sets the tone: it’s been compared to Antoni Gaudí on acid, all bright colors and whimsy, mosaics and carved wooden gingerbread, curved walls, a fence made entirely of crutches, and an entrance that resembles an artichoke. The mosaic work isn’t random either — the house looks as if it had been plucked from some colorful dreamscape, filled with mosaics influenced by Klimt, Gaudí, and Hundertwasser, three artists obsessed with pattern, color, and organic curves, which tracks perfectly with what’s on the walls here.
Inside, the collections get stranger and more personal. There are about a dozen mannequins scattered through the house, including an Eagle Scout, a soldier in a Soviet officer’s uniform, and a bride dressed in Boscarino’s mother’s wedding gown that hovers eleven feet off the floor in a corner of the ballroom — not to mention the taxidermy. One visitor summed up the interior as a place where you can “wonder through his house and see everything from the bed pan collection to the credit card curtain”. It’s the kind of detail that sounds made up until you’re standing in front of it.
Boscarino’s obsession with collecting goes back to childhood, long before the cabin. Luna Parc is a repository of quirky collections and a showcase for his mosaics and sculptures, with roots tracing back to his childhood in Piscataway, where he collected rocks, insects, and minerals. That early fascination with insects got weirder before it got artistic — as a teenager, he gained national attention for his “RoachArt,” intricate dioramas in which he used American cockroaches to populate scenes at bowling alleys, beauty parlors, and grocery stores. Luna Parc, in a way, is just that same impulse scaled up to the size of a house.
How Big Is the Property?
Luna Parc isn’t just one building. The grounds sprawl across roughly eight acres and include a sculpture garden, more workshops, tents for seminars, and an outhouse surrounding the main house. Visitors routinely underestimate how long they’ll need — one Tripadvisor reviewer advised giving yourself about two hours to fully walk around, and another put it simply: “Soooo much to see.” Expect to lose track of time wandering between the main house, the outbuildings, and the garden paths.
When Can You Visit Luna Parc?
Here’s the catch, and it’s a big one: you can’t just show up. Luna Parc is still Boscarino’s actual home, so it’s the semi-private museum, atelier, and private home of Boscarino, and twice a year the museum and atelier are opened to the public for a three-weekday Open House. Some sources note more flexibility in recent years, with tours happening a few days out of any given month during the warmer season — open for tours two to three days each month from May 1 through October 31, so the exact schedule does shift year to year.
Group visits are sometimes possible outside the public open house dates. There are no walk-in visits allowed, though group tours are available for parties of ten or more people. The smartest move is checking the official Luna Parc website before you plan a trip, since open house dates get posted there and tend to fill up once word gets around.
Is Luna Parc Worth the Drive?
If you like your art museums a little dangerous and a lot personal, yes. One longtime visitor described it as a place where you’re awestruck at the immensity of the project, with the front yard awash in brilliantly colored sculptures, walls, and spires, everything encrusted with swirling mosaics of tile, glass, concrete, and painted metal. There’s no gift shop energy here, no velvet ropes. It’s one artist’s entire adult life turned inside out and glued to the walls of a house in the Sussex County woods — and for a few days a year, you’re invited to walk through it.
Planning Your Visit
- Location: 22 Degroat Road, Sandyston Township (Sussex County), New Jersey
- Access: Open only during scheduled Open House days or by arranged group tour — no walk-ins
- Best for: Art lovers, folk-art and “outsider art” fans, anyone who loves offbeat roadside attractions
- Time needed: Plan for at least two hours to see the house and grounds
- Before you go: Check the official Luna Parc website for current Open House dates, since the schedule changes year to year
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.
