Because the mannequin dressed as Cher immediately catches your eye, you might miss the revolving sunglasses display in the corner or the hand-carved leaf chairs or the lighted Knickerbocker beer sign wishing you “Happy New Year.” But you will definitely spot the 6-foot-tall cabaret menu on the wall by the antique cash register because of the light from the 3-foot crystal chandelier – and you are only in the foyer.

This is the home of Ron Paradis, 55, and Ben Grenon, 71, and it is a hoot.

You don’t visit this couple’s home. You experience it.

Every room – some more than others – recreates the aura of the pair’s gawdy, glitzy show business life before they moved to Maine.

As an internationally known female impersonator, Paradis waltzed across stages from Australia to San Francisco to Las Vegas to New York for more than 20 years, from 1963 to 1984. Along the way, as his career skyrocketed, Paradis collected the fascinating and often quirky mementos that fill his rural Detroit home.

“I sit with memories,” Paradis said recently, rocking the afternoon away on his sun porch. “After all, that’s all you have in the end, isn’t it?”

The story of how this couple ended up in the woods of Maine is as rich and full as a tour of their home.

Start in the kitchen: The French country kitchen cupboards, granite countertops and massive copper range hood were purchased from Joey Kramer, the drummer for Aerosmith, shipped to Maine and reinstalled. A 17th century water jug holds cooking utensils, surrounded by exquisite hand-blown, translucent glass bowls from France and a talking M&M telephone.

Turn the corner into the living area and a jukebox is playing 1950s tunes while another mannequin (there are at least eight in the house) wears a vintage poodle skirt. “I mean, you can’t have a jukebox without a poodle skirt,” quips Paradis.

Keeping the mannequin company is an upside-down 9-foot-tall papier-mache clown which revolves on an outstretched finger, a tray of beer resting on the sole of one foot. There is an antique bowling alley, a slot machine, and a display case of pre-Columbian grave bottles.

The back wall of the living area is the entire facade of a 1920s post office, complete with frosted glass and thick wooden moldings. Behind the doors are their offices, also overflowing with unique memorabilia and Paradis’ collection of pre-Civil War medical equipment.

The best is saved for last.

Walking into the bedroom is to experience the dressing room of a Las Vegas showgirl. Surrounding the canopy bed are Paradis’ handmade, hand-beaded and sequined gowns – some worth tens of thousands of dollars; hundreds of gowns, feather coats, boas and headdresses. “I was a size one,” he brags with a smile. “I was 90 pounds. A tiny fairy.”

The canopy bed is so high and filled with embroidered linens that Paradis needs a step stool to climb in. A nearby chaise is decorated with a rare, full length, albino Russian sable coat. A tower of wigs shine – black ringlets, pink curls, blonde tresses.

Across the room is a hot tub. Around the walls are pictures of Paradis, whose stage name was Kitty, incredibly turned out in showgirl attire. There are also autographed photographs of entertainment stars and awards, including Paradis’ trophy for Best Female Impersonator in the Country, 1968, and a special photograph of dear friend RuPaul.

“This is a fun house to go along with my fun life,” said Paradis, settling into his chair to tell another tale.

Paradis is exciting, funny and flamboyant; cropped hair tipped with blonde, Birkenstock sandals and a Boston Pride T-shirt. Grenon, wrapped in a flannel shirt and sensible shoes, is quiet, hands folded in his lap; white hair and soft, caring eyes.

The pair’s quick sense of humor flows through their stories, stories of Paradis’ first audition at age 15 at The 82 Club in Greenwich Village to discovering the dangers of an outhouse when they bought their first home in Maine.

Paradis and Grenon, now semi-retired antique dealers, have been together 36 years and are comfortable with their gay lifestyle, which they are quick to say has been accepted without reservation in rural Maine. “We have had only one small incident since we came here and that was with a bunch of good old boys drinking a beer outside the Hartland Post Office. I sort of put them in their place, and we’ve had no difficulties since,” said Ron.

“The secret is total honesty. I am what you see and there is no pretense. I don’t give anyone any reason to dislike me,” he said. “We need to start every day with a smile and end it with a smile. Honesty is the key.”

After high school, Paradis began traveling across the country, performing in hot spots such as The Punch Bowl and The Zone in Boston, the Frisco Follies in San Francisco, La Girls in Australia, The Flamingo Club in Florida and The Sands in Las Vegas.

“It was hard work. We put on three shows a night, seven days a week. It was tiring,” recalled Paradis. “In addition, I must have done 40,000 fund-raisers, for everything from crippled children to hospital causes. Towards the end of my career, AIDS came in and people – many of them dear friends – began dropping like flies.”

“It was time for the drag queens to go home,” said Paradis. With his father ill in New Hampshire, the couple came back to New England.

“I was really getting tired of all the moving,” admitted Grenon, who never performed but accompanied Paradis on all his travels. The pair nursed Paradis’ father until his death in 1984. That is when their adventures in Maine began.

“We learned a friend was being beaten by her husband up in Maine, so we decided to buy a house and provide a place for her to find sanctuary,” said Paradis.

They ended up looking at a small house on Davis Road in Palmyra in the dark. “We were looking with flashlights and, what did I know, it looked like we could fix it up so we bought it. I told Ben to write a check and we paid for it right there and then,” said Paradis.

Returning to the house in daylight, they discovered it didn’t have a north wall. “It had no heat, no water and an apple tree had grown up from the cellar right through the kitchen floor. It was a good thing it was there, because the floor was so slanted that when you started sliding through the room you could grab on and save your life.”

The place only had an outhouse. “Ben said, ‘I’ll fix it up. It’ll be darling,'” said Paradis. On the third day at the house, Paradis was in the outhouse when it collapsed around him. “I was screaming ‘Help! Help! I’m in the hole!'”

But the couple used their trademark sense of humor and plugged away – despite bets all over town that they wouldn’t make it – and the house was renovated and became home.

They made friends, lots of friends. “I have found the most wonderful, accepting, caring people here in Maine,” said Paradis. But these friends were not without their own sense of humor.

Shortly after moving to Palmyra, Paradis went to a neighbor whom he had come to trust, Carlton Preble, and asked him what kind of chickens he should buy to get double-yoked eggs. “White roosters,” Preble advised. And so he did.

On another farming foray, Paradis drove his white Mercedes Benz to a livestock auction to buy a bull. He drove the bull home in the backseat. It was months before they discovered that their bull, Moses, was actually a cow, which became Maureen.

Their next move was into a 13-room 1820s home in St. Albans. But this was also when Paradis suffered three major heart attacks and required triple bypass surgery. He was also diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The St. Albans home proved too much for him.

“So we brought Las Vegas here to Detroit,” which has a population of 750, said Paradis.

Moving into their seven-room, custom-built home in late January, the pair is still settling in, Vegas-style. Paradis has purchased a wheelchair and a van with a lift. “I don’t need them yet,” he is quick to say, “but I’m ready when I do.”

And just as quickly his smile broadens and his eyes twinkle.

“I look over here,” said Paradis, pointing to a mannequin in a black sequined gown, “and I smile.”

“I look over here,” he said, pointing to etched mirrors from Italy and a red-lacquered Chinese cabinet, “and I smile.”

“Who could ever ask for more?”