If the floor-to-ceiling glass windows didn't offer stunning views of the Highland Park Bridge and the Allegheny, I would have bet my last sprig of edelweiss I was in the bachelor pad of Matt Helm or James Bond.

Secret doors abound. Spiral staircases lead to hidden rooms. A huge movie screen drops from the formal living room's rafters. A fully equipped kitchen heats things up in the master bedroom. The master bath features a remote-controlled, sunken, black tub, a walk-in shower with 14 jet sprays, a tanning salon and a sauna.

Then things get a bit more bizarre.

The master bedroom is also home to myriad Hummel figurines, ceramic Disney collectibles and a complete set of collector plates depicting scenes from "The Sound of Music." The adjoining master bath's sink faucets are shaped like swans. Downstairs, the billiards room has a lavender-felt, gold fringe pool table. Things aren't quite bonding now. Maybe I pranced into the Liberace Museum?

No, here I was at Bayernhof, the quirky and somewhat quixotic St. Charles Place house that businessman Charles B. Brown III built between 1976 and 1982 in O'Hara. Brown always wanted his home to be a museum; when he died in 1999, he got his wish, even if neighbors fought the idea and lost.

To call Bayernhof (it means "Bavarian estate" in German) just a house is to call Picasso just an artist. The 19,000-square-foot showcase is pretentious, but it's never boring. Yes, there's too much going on here, too many memories and mementos, trinkets and tchotchkes left behind that tease, tickle and (at least in the case of the numerous mounted stuffed heads and one horribly politically incorrect arcade game) annoy.

Its excess is eccentrically eclectic; Brown's former office boasts framed obituaries of his father and grandfather, a color lithograph of the cast of "The Andy Griffith Show," a photo of Brown shaking hands with Ronald Reagan, a small sampling of books ("The Pill Book," "Frankenstein"), a gun collection. Roam through the rooms and certain images continually pop up -- Heinz ketchup collectibles, more "Sound of Music" plates, W.C. Fields keepsakes -- the latter of which is no surprise because, according to live-in curator Tony Marsico, Brown liked to drink. The house has 11 fully stocked wet bars.

Marsico relates how much Brown loved to entertain and how much he loved to have fun, but he works a bit too hard at talking about Brown's girlfriend of 25 years, a woman seen in a few scattered photos, a woman known as "Irna," although no one knows her last name and no one knows where she now lives. In one photo, I realize that Brown looks so much like Charles Nelson Reilly that perhaps and he and Irna were more like Chuck and Brett -- a perfect match only on some levels.

Bayernhof boasts 22 rooms, three secret passages, three spiral staircases, one indoor swimming pool with a 10-foot waterfall, one roof-top observatory, one canning kitchen (used only once to can sauerkraut) and plenty of Naughahyde, dark wood, heavy tapestries, and matching curtains and bedspreads. There's an indoor cave -- a winding, claustrophobic cloister of (fake) stalactites and (fake) stalagmites that lead to a (real) wine cellar. The cave is also home to a vampire bat -- Marsico warns visitors it exists but doesn't tell you it's fake.

Most people pay $10 to visit Bayernhof to see (and hear) the priceless array of vintage music boxes, juke boxes, Victrolas, pipe and barrel organs, and other rare and valuable musical "instruments" that clutter the place. There are some 150 antique pieces living here -- their sound still delights, even if the tunes aren't Top 40 hits. A unique musical machine is hidden within a chair's seat; take a rest and the notes emerge in a most unusual way.

Such sounds of music! No wonder Brown loved the movie; he even had a mural depicting a scene from the flick painted in the spa.

Tony turns on a music box. I begin humming when I recognize the familiar notes:

Edelweiss/Edelweiss/Every morning you greet me ...