Loadstar’s Lair does not have a niche so much as it has a set of obsessions sharing a hallway.
The front page points visitors toward Tiger Territory, a Leonardo da Vinci section, Ye Olde Valve Radios, Vulture Culture, Ascension Art, New Zealand pages, a mailing list called “Justifiable Junk,” and something wonderfully labeled a “Navigation Remote Control.”
There is also an “E-mail this link to a friend!” graphic and a reminder that the page can break out of frames.
This is not retro styling.
It is the actual grammar of an older web.
A personal site that became several reference sites
The Leonardo material is the clearest example of how substantial the project became.
The section identifies its material as dating from 1998–2000 and organizes information on twenty-seven paintings attributed to, or formerly attributed to, Leonardo. It branches into anatomy, astronomy, botany, mathematics, cartography, architecture, geology, portraits, sculpture, music, mirror writing, chronology, fables, and his work under Verrocchio.
Then it wanders into machines.
There are pages on civil designs such as clocks, cranes, drilling machines, canals, flying machines, a parachute, and a horseless carriage, alongside military designs involving cannons, ballistas, missiles, a submarine, a tank, and scythed chariots.
Tiger Territory grew in another direction, collecting photographs and material about tiger biology and conservation. Other areas document vintage valve radios or simply follow the author’s interest somewhere else.
Modern publishing usually asks a site to explain itself in one sentence.
Loadstar’s Lair appears to have answered that problem by refusing it.
The result is closer to a personal library whose rooms were opened to the public. Each subject accumulated its own pages, references, images, and navigation until the site became useful far beyond the original homepage.
CacheRat’s 1,967 Ancient Web Domains research list includes sites like this because the older web often rewarded curiosity before it rewarded branding.
You came for a tiger.
You might leave knowing how Leonardo designed a crane and wondering whether you need a valve radio.