Easter Island Head (Moai replica)

New Berlin, Wisconsin, United States

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

A 14-foot-tall, 9-foot-wide replica of an Easter Island moai head, built in 1980 from wood, metal lath and cement plaster, stands in a private yard on Cleveland Avenue in New Berlin, Wisconsin, and has been a local photo stop for years.

Private to your Passport.

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Easter Island Head (Moai replica)

This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.

Site-level location · 42.9956° N, 88.1055° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

You do not need a passport to meet an Easter Island head in suburban Wisconsin: a 14-foot-tall, 9-foot-wide replica stands in a private yard on Cleveland Avenue in New Berlin.

It was built in the summer of 1980 by the homeowner with the help of friends. In a 2017 WUWM interview he said he had always been intrigued by the mystery of the moai: “Everything I had heard or read about proved that they were an enigma.” In 2024 he told TMJ4 that building it was “sort of just a whim”.

Where the originals on Easter Island, according to WUWM, are 13 to 30 feet tall and carved from volcanic rock, this one is made of wood, diamond-mesh metal lath and cement plaster, bolted to a concrete slab. For its proportions he took measurements from a museum model, which he put at about 7 feet tall, and “just doubled everything”.

The head has become a local stopping point. WUWM reported in 2017 that people pull over to take photos, often posing as if picking its nose, and TMJ4 reported in 2024 that a wedding party in tuxedos once came to be photographed. The New Berlin Public Library turned a child’s photograph of it from a photo contest into a 500-piece puzzle.

It sits on private property. The owner told WUWM in 2017 that he does not mind photographs but does not want anyone climbing it, adding “this is not a public park here”. Look from the roadside, take your picture and leave the head, and the yard, as you found them.

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PRACTICAL

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WHAT TO EXPECT

A 14-foot moai replica seen from the road. According to TMJ4 in 2024, passers-by stop to take photographs. It is in a private yard; the owner told WUWM in 2017 that photographs are welcome but climbing is not.

ACCESS

In a private yard on Cleveland Avenue, New Berlin, Wisconsin. View and photograph from the roadside only; do not climb the sculpture or enter the property.

COMMUNITY

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WHAT'S NEXT

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Public art

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TRANSPARENCY

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