If you have a question, Steve Pokin wants to hear it. Steve Pokin/News-Leader
Early this month I was doing research at the Library Center when Kathy Brock of Springfield spotted me and asked if I knew about a crooked tower within the Millwood subdivision.
She said she saw my recent Answer Man column on the crooked sign outside the Pat Jones YMCA and thought I might be of assistance.
I confessed to her I was unaware of the local leaning tower.
As the Answer Man, I have three areas of expertise: holes in the ground, big piles of dirt — the two often go hand-in-hand — and things that are crooked.
Believe it or not, Kathy, the tower has a name — The Leaning Tower of San Poppi — and it was deliberately built crooked.
"It was supposed to be that way," says Dan Schumacher, owner and general manager of the Millwood Golf & Racquet Club, which is near the tower and its mate.
The two towers are on either side of East Millwood Drive.
The other one — at least to me — is aesthetically vapid in its straightness.
The subdivision is off Highway 65 in Ozark. It is in both Greene and Christian counties and both Springfield and Rogersville school districts.
The tilting tower was designed to support the tilt, Schumacher says.
"It will never fall down and it probably cost three times as much as the other one to build," he says.
The tower has a crooked veneer but is structurally straight inside, says Keith Keltner, who developed the subdivision of approximately 275 homes.
The towers mark the San Poppi phase of the development, which was the final phase, he says.
Keltner wanted to give these particular homes a European flavor. All the houses here must have tile roofs, like many do in Italy.
In tilting the tower, he says, he wanted to be different.
"I wanted to do something that would create a lot of talk or interest," he says. "I can't tell you how many calls I had when I owned Millwood from people who wanted to know if I knew it was leaning."
Keltner, now 82, is retired and lives in Nixa. He once sang on the Ozark Jubilee TV show as a member of the Pitch Hikers and Jubalaires.
The name Leaning Tower of San Poppi, of course, is a sendup of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, in Italy.
The Millwood towers were built about 12 years ago. The Leaning Tower of Pisa, on the other hand, was built in the 12th century.
There is a city called Poppi in Tuscany, Italy.
Keep those questions coming. Send them to The Answer Man at 836-1253, spokin@gannett.com, on Twitter @stevepokinNL or by mail at 651 N. Boonville, Springfield, MO 65806.