Starting the house "to indulge a whim of a peculiar nature", the retired undertaker travelled western Canada collecting bottles from friends in the funeral profession to add to his own collection, until he had acquired half a million of the square shaped bottles, weighing 250 tons in all. The Glass House was meant to the Brown's home, but the project attracted the curiosity of passers-by from the start. Finally, suffering from complete lack of privacy, they employed a staff and admitted the curious to view their masterpiece.