Book provides peek into Nohl's world

In the 1920s, Leo Nohl bought a wooded acre-plus on the lakeshore in Fox Point for a summer cottage. To mark the entrance to their land, he and his 12-year-old daughter, Mary, built two stone-and-concrete gateposts.

Many decades later, when her home had become the legendary drive-by of the North Shore, Mary Nohl wrote to friends about that youthful moment of staking claim:

"The pleasure of mixing concrete in a wheelbarrow and straining sand from the beach for concrete - I'm sure my sculpture-filled yard had its origins in the gateposts."

Untold numbers of people have turned onto Beach Drive for a look at the woodland Easter Island that Nohl's yard had become, teeming with the concrete figures she made. If the light was right, they could also see that she had built her art into the exterior of the house itself.

The ruder visitors came to scoff, mock and sometimes vandalize the "witch's house." But many cruisers were simply curious about this art environment in a placid lakeshore suburb.

Nohl, who died in 2001, did not invite many people inside her home, which is now in the care of the Kohler Foundation. The property's fragility and the complexities of zoning make it unlikely it will ever open to the public.

So a new biography, "Mary Nohl: Inside & Outside" ($29.95), is as close as we may ever get to sitting in her living room and soaking in the imagination of this determined creator. Without disrespecting Barbara Manger's biographical text, the chief thrill of this book is the chance to gaze at more than 300 photos of Nohl's life and work without having to check the rear-view mirror.

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