To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

"It literally started with just a few hubcaps on the fence," the cathedral's owner Vince Hannemann said.

Vince started constructing the cathedral decades ago.

"It finally got big enough that people started asking me ‘What do you call that? My mom was the one that came up with the name ‘Cathedral of Junk’," Hannemann said.

Hannemann said he kept building and people kept coming, from all around the world, including TV crews from Japan. People continue to stop by daily to see the Austin landmark.

But that could change. In response to a complaint, the city told Hannemann that his Cathedral is not up to code.

"He knocks on my door and says ‘You have seven days to come up into compliance or remove the Cathedral’," Hannemann said.

Now he is racing to do what he can, while people in the community volunteer to help him meet code.

Hanneman had to close the Cathedral to the public, but eventually opened it back up, closing off entire sections to appease the city's guidelines and all the visitors who were still coming to tour it.

"By popular demand, yesterday I just couldn’t turn people away anymore. I mean kids coming down from Georgetown to do book reports; I was like ‘Oh man, I can't turn you away.’ This place is better than sugar for kids," Hannemann said.

He said the worst-case scenario could mean demolition, and with little money to pay for an architect and the permits, he said he feels the city has left him no room to save the place.

"Just really feel like the city is missing in action here, that they should be a little bit more forthcoming and a little bit more helpful," Hannemann said.

Ronald Potts, of the city's Code Compliance, said public safety is their priority.

"It's not been rated by fire or anyone, so we can't take into account his financial situation, we have to weigh life safety over finances, our job is to look over the welfare of the public," Potts said.

So for now, Hannemann relies on that very same public to help him find a way to keep this old Austin religion from becoming myth.

One volunteer Jamie Bush, who showed up to help Hannemann said the cathedral is too precious to be torn down.

"One man's trash is another's treasure, and this is definitely a treasure here. It's a beautiful Austin landmark that needs to stay," Bush said.

Hannemann has until March 31 to bring the cathedral up to code.