World’s Tallest Glass Tree

The World’s Tallest Glass Tree brings an unusual holiday spectacle to Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, where a giant Christmas tree is built by hand from recycled glass. Created by glass artist Jason Mack and community organizers Rob Elliott and Sarah Elliott, the tree combines live glassblowing, steel sculpting and woodworking into a one-of-a-kind Christmas display. Visitors can even participate by adding molten recycled glass to the spinning steel frame as the tree takes shape, while a holiday market showcases Wisconsin artisans, craftspeople and handmade glassware.

Standing about 36 feet tall, the finished tree features a 31-foot steel framework covered with roughly 3,000 pounds of glass and topped with a five-foot blown-glass star. Donated bottles and other container glass are crushed, melted at temperatures approaching 2,000 degrees and transformed into the colorful surface of the tree. Construction takes roughly seven to eight days, making the finished sculpture the culmination of a weeklong glassblowing project rather than a conventional Christmas decoration. The event also offers access to historic Yerkes Observatory and its Great Refractor, creating an especially unusual combination of holiday art, glassmaking and astronomical history.