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Font ResizeThe Carousel of Happiness, a nonprofit organization, has raised most but not all of the money it needs to finish the 12-sided building that will house the carousel in Nederland. People can support the carousel with donations and "adoptions."
Adopt a green feature for $800 to $60,000: The 12-sided building is built with lots of green features, including solar panels, heavily insulated wall panels and radiant heat floors.
Adopt a painting for $2,000: Eighteen paintings from 1910 by August Wolfinger are framed in the top of the carousel.
Adopt a fairy for $200: Tiny fairies, many of which were made by local residents, will be placed around the carousel building.
For more information on how to donate: Contact Scott Harrison at 303-258-9246 or scottharrison1@gmail.com. To learn more about the carousel and see pictures of the animals, visit carouselofhappiness.org.
Stephen Swofford / For the Camera
Stephen Swofford / For the Camera
Twenty-five years after Nederland's Scott Harrison began carving a menagerie of wooden animals, the fanciful creatures will finally be part of a working carousel in May.
The grand opening of the Carousel of Happiness is scheduled for Memorial Day weekend at its permanent home in Nederland. It's been a long time coming.
In 1985,
"Working on this was a great balance," Harrison said. "It was just fun."
A year later, in 1986, Harrison bought the frame of an old carousel that was originally built in 1910 by Charles Looff, one of the great carousel makers of his time. Like many old carousels, the animals -- mostly ponies -- had been stripped away and auctioned off as artistic showpieces.
Harrison dismantled the carousel -- which had turned first at an amusement park called Saltair on the shore of the Great Salt Lake in Utah and then at a nearby state school -- and brought the parts to Nederland. Over the next two decades, Harrison went to work restoring the carousel and carving the replacement animals.
But unlike the carousel hull, which Harrison has kept very much true to its historical form -- even the restored wooden floor is made from boards of Southern yellow pine that also date back to 1910 -- the hand-hewn carousel animals have mostly strayed far from their pony roots.
At the Carousel of Happiness, all manner of animals will careen around the ride: an alpaca wearing ballet shoes, a dolphin with a wreath of flowers around its neck, a zebra with the occasional red or yellow stripe and even a gorilla with his arm thrown around a wheelchair-accessible space. Of the 35 whimsical sculptures, only one is a horse -- an Indian pony with feathers in its mane.
In 2005, Harrison turned his carousel project into a nonprofit foundation, and a board of locals has since been working hard to find a home for the carousel in Nederland and raise money for the 12-sided building that will allow the ride to run all year long.
"I really wanted to make it a community project," Harrison said. "We built almost everything with the help of volunteers."
And the Carousel of Happiness may also give back to the community, enticing tourists and boosting the local economy.
"It gives people another thing to do and keeps them in town longer," said Teresa Warren, chairwoman of Nederland's Downtown Development Authority. "I think it will be a destination for a lot of people who have never been to Nederland."
Contact Camera Staff Writer Laura Snider at 303-473-1327 or sniderl@dailycamera.com.
