In 1924, dairy farmer Albert Zahn left his farm for a concrete‑block house he had built in Baileys Harbor, immediately filling its walls and yard with wooden birds, angels, and sea‑captains.
Louise Zahn, his wife, painted each piece in bright hues, turning the structure into Bird’s Park, a local attraction that drew day‑trippers for decades.
After Albert’s death in 1953, the original setting was dismantled, but the Kohler Foundation and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center acquired over 200 carvings—including a rooster weathervane and a rocking chair—and preserved them through conservation work by Megan Thumm Mackey.
Today the original house remains on Baileys Harbor’s north end, while the Art Preserve recreates the layout of Bird’s Park, offering visitors a glimpse of a farmer’s artistic legacy that once animated a Door County shoreline.