Six months before a rare 1924 carousel opens at Canalside, volunteers restoring the horses and the rest of the menagerie can feel the excitement build.
"Every once in awhile, lunch especially, someone will say, 'Can you believe this is really happening now?' " said Helen Ronan, who oversees the restoration effort in a makeshift workshop across from the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum in North Tonawanda.
But more work remains for the 15 Buffalo Heritage Carousel volunteers restoring the wood animals that had been in storage since 1954. The work must be completed by mid-June so the pieces can be assembled for a planned July opening. The solar-powered carousel will front the Central Wharf, behind the Clinton's Dish food stand.
Painting the carousel's scenery panels looms as their biggest remaining job, while adding finishing touches to the animals such as metal horseshoes and repairing cracks that surfaced in some of the horses.
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"We have accomplished the restoration of the animals and are down to some final touches," said Laurie Hauer-LaDuca, Buffalo Heritage Carousel's president. "We can now focus on the decorative trim and scenery panels of the carousel."
So far, the volunteers have painted – and in many cases, repaired and rebuilt – 30 horses plus a lion, tiger, giraffe, ostrich, deer, mule and sea dragon. They transformed the animals' appearance from dirt and grime to sparkle and gleam.
After three years of work, the volunteers see the backstretch.
"I have loved every day, every minute," said Dale Docter, a member of the National Carousel Association.
The retired schoolteacher drives from his home south of Erie, Pa., once or twice a week to join the other volunteers.
"I don't mind the drive because I get to do something I've wanted to do for 35 years," Docter said.
The $5.5 million carousel project, which includes a $4 million roundhouse, has received recent financial commitments of $200,000, leaving $1 million still to be raised, according to Corky Burger, the capital campaign director. That amount includes creating a $250,000 endowment.
Last Wednesday, Christine Kasprzak, Judy BanWyck and Kathy Kwiatkowski applied the finishing touches on a colorful chariot adorned with mythical figures. Five clear coats of varnish will follow.
A half-dozen flowers on the chariot, glazed with gold or silver leaf, bursted in tinted yellows, golds, greens, reds and purples. The scene includes a woman wrapped in a flowing turquoise garment, every ripple revealed in the carved wood.
The backside of the chariot, painted in burgundy and golden rod with pinstripes by Judy Snow, leaned against a wall a short distance away, close to where a volunteer used an epoxy to fill small holes and cracks to the back of a chariot seat.
Two replacement replica chariots are being carved by Carousel & Carvings, an Ohio carousel restoration company. One of the chariots will be ADA-approved and feature a carved scene of an Erie Canal boat pulled by horses. In the row directly in front of it will be a Mule Named Sal.
The three-row carousel will feature 34 animals, with three additional horses as spares. A green and blue sea dragon – the lone fantasy figure in the collection – also will be touched up or varnished. The carousel, made by the Spillman Engineering Co., dates to when Calvin Coolidge occupied the White House, and the replacements are Herschell-Spillman or Spillman Engineering models acquired elsewhere to blend in.
Carol Spencer dabbed the sea dragon's mouth as she touched up its salmon-colored tongue.
"I love this creature," Spencer said. "He's my favorite right now. But the giraffe has been my favorite. The lion has been my favorite. The ostrich has been my favorite. Each time you work on a new one it becomes your favorite."
In another room, Docter, a wood carver, worked on one of the eight completed horses that had developed thin cracks. He used a reciprocating saw to cut into the opening to fill with epoxy. The cracks are believed to be due to a lack of climate control, and from the contraction and expansion in the aged wood that came from being subject to extreme weather conditions during the first few decades of storage.
Hauer-LaDuca said the carousel restoration company told them it isn't unusual for cracks to appear in historic wooden animals, but they're repairable and should acclimate to new weather conditions.
After repairing a crack, volunteers will find the right paint mix to match the carousel animal's color.
The group will be painting 14 rounding boards – the pictorial panels that form a complete circle around the top of the carousel – and 14 decorative shields that will be affixed to them.
The rounding boards will have Western New York landscapes sketched by Rosa Patton, a nationally recognized carousel restoration artist based in North Carolina who has guided the restoration effort and instructs the volunteers during periodic visits. She will help them paint the rounding boards and attach mirrors on her return in April.
Before that happens, volunteers will paint the decorative carved moldings and set beveled mirror panels on 28 upper and lower ornamental panels used to hide the carousel's center pole. The panels are expected to arrive in February.
Kasperzak said the bond formed among the volunteers will be hard to leave behind.
"It's bittersweet, it's really bittersweet," Kasprzak said. "We'll miss all the people and the fun of it, but we'll be glad it's all over with at the same time."
