Shangri-La Stone Village, Prospect Hill, North Carolina.
Henry L. Warren was a retired tobacco farmer in 1968 when he began building leprechaun-size buildings in his side yard. He called it Shangri-La, and by the time he died nine years later (at age 84) the miniature town had 27 structures. Henry used rock he blasted from his own property. Shangri-La has a gym, bank, library, gas station, theater, and hotel. Henry reportedly worked on his tiny town from dawn to dusk, day after day, and at the same time used his considerable energy to incorporate 11,000 arrowheads into the walkways of his home. His wife once said: “As long as he had a cigarette and a Coca-Cola, he’d keep building.” A sign in front of Henry’s house reads, “Let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man.” He died while working on Shangri-La’s hospital.
