If you keep your eyes alive as you motor through the metro area, you’ll see some roadside oddities that’ll either leave you laughing or scratching your head. Our writer traces the origins of several of them.
Iron-Willed Woman
Standing on a mound of rocks near 11th and Penn streets in Jeffersonville is one of the metro area’s most exotic pieces of sculpture — a 20-foot-tall metal female figure whose wind-blown shawl has taken on the form of two wings. Called Winds of Change, its gown was fabricated from welded stainless steel, bronze and copper — slick and shiny. The figure’s arms, head and shawl/wings, however, are composed of rough-textured, weathered iron. "They’re made out of iron on purpose because, like all of us, she wears away a little bit over time," says Larry Myers, who owned a now-defunct scrap-metal business on the site (now a lumber yard) and hatched the idea 24 years ago to pay tribute to womanhood. He recruited artistically minded Jeffersonville High School senior Denise Freville to help bring Winds of Change to life. "There’s things I’d like to go back and change on her," Freville says today. "Not everything’s proportional. It’s kind of like folk art." A companion sculpture was designed as a fountain in the shape of an industrial-strength scale with boulder-size metal spheres inscribed with "love" on the heavier side and "everything else" on the other.
Flying Fish
When traditional advertising didn’t drum up enough business at his fishing-tackle store, Norman Pepper took matters into his own hands. The result? A 21-foot-long fiberglass smallmouth bass perched on a pole high over south Dixie Highway. "I had to have something that would work for me all the time," says the 65-year-old Pepper, who’s owned bait-and-tackle shops since the early 1960s. "That fish has worked for me and it still does." Pepper installed the big bass in 1998 and has seen steady interest ever since. The fish, which was manufactured in Sparta, Wis., has drawn the attention of people far and wide, including a family who drove from Paducah just to see the monstrosity. "They probably stood out there for two hours taking pictures," Pepper says. Pigeons may roost in the bass’s mouth, but it’s the weather that keeps Pepper awake some nights. "Every time we have a big, bad storm, I have a nightmare," he says.
Pillar of Portland
Jay Stottman was baffled by the rounded piece of punctured limestone when he first saw it. So were many of the experts he consulted after the slab was hoisted from the mud along the eroding bank of the Ohio River. "We didn’t know what it was for a long time," says Stottman, the chief archaeologist on the dig at Portland Wharf Park, where the disc was discovered. A vital piece of evidence was the series of holes in the center of the slab, determined to be rebar holes, convincing the scientists that the crudely chiseled stone was the base of a column. "Go look at the base of columns of (mid-19th-century) buildings in downtown Louisville, like Actors Theatre or the Courthouse, and they’re rough-cut," Stottman says. "Portland was a shipping town. It was here that this piece probably fell off a steamboat and was left behind. We think it was a piece of architecture that was on its way somewhere and got stranded here in Portland."
Water Garden
In front of a building at 2044 Frankfort Ave. that now houses an antique store and consignment shop stands a horse trough dating back to the 1870s. "It adds to the character of the neighborhood. It’s a connection to the past, a curiosity piece," says Alec Johnson, who’s lived near the trough for 12 years. "It’s strange to be walking down the street seeing all the cars and seeing something that was used for horses." Although the 12-by-18-inch iron bowl now serves as a flower pot, pictures of the trough in its heyday can be seen among a collection of old photographs lining the walls of a nearby Kroger on lower Brownsboro Road. Metro Historic Preservation Officer Joanne Weeter wrote in a report on the Clifton Historic District, "The watering trough, a simple iron post topped by a round iron water basin embedded in the sidewalk, was strategically located in front of Liebert’s Clifton Market, a mercantile store and saloon. Here a horse could quench his thirst outside after a long journey, while his rider could quench his thirst inside the saloon."
Taylor Made
In the Camp Taylor neighborhood just west of Poplar Level Road sits a small reminder of the World War I training facility that gave the neighborhood its name — Camp Zachary Taylor, once home to more than 125,000 troops. A monument behind a house on the corner of Lee and Grove avenues honors the "Naturalization Tree," a long-gone giant elm whose foliage shaded thousands of immigrants taking oaths of allegiance to the U.S. government. Although it appears to be on private property, the memorial and plot around it are actually owned by nearby Robert E. Newman VFW Post 3636. The Daughters of the American Revolution had the limestone monument put there in 1921, the same year Camp Zachary Taylor was auctioned off in 1,500 parcels. Ken Machtolff, an amateur historian largely responsible for the Camp Zachary Taylor historic marker on Poplar Level Road, says he wishes more people were aware of the camp and its role in Louisville’s development. "I just think it was significant in the history of the city," he says.
Bringing Up the Rear
It hasn’t run in at least a decade, but Brian Couch still gets great mileage out of his 1967 Cadillac Deville. What some may call "Cadillac Ranch Jr." has become a landmark in front of Couch’s Body Shop on Blackiston Mill Road in Clarksville. Just as notable is the vintage mannequin with exaggerated features and ever-changing wardrobe that sits atop the embedded car. The dummy’s been a firefighter as a 9/11 tribute, an Indiana University basketball player, Darth Vader, a biker chick, Peyton Manning and a jockey. "Sometimes I get carried away," Couch says. "I’ve spent up to $200 on an outfit." In 2003 he changed the Cadillac’s color from pink to its current black-with-flames motif. "A lot of people stop by or call. I get my share of nut-cases," he says. Despite the work and expense involved in refashioning the mannequin, Couch vows to keep enjoying the ride. "More than any advertising or recognition it’s brought, it’s fun," Couch said. "I’ve had a ton of fun with it and continue to have fun."
Glass-Encrusted Classic
No, that’s not a leftover from the set of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the corner of 30th and Main streets. It’s a 75-year-old apartment house speckled from base to rooftop with tens of thousands of colored-glass shards. The builder was a German-American ironworker named Egberd G. Stokkers, who hand-mixed the cement for the structure’s 16,000-plus blocks and hand-placed the glass while they were setting. The multi-colored facade stands in stark contrast to the drab railroad switchyard less than a block to its west. Stokkers, who lived in the house next door until 1965, installed an elaborate fishpond between the properties (later dismantled because of vandalism) that was illuminated at night by underwater colored lights.
WAVE for the Future
Looking like what you might imagine to be the Jetsons’ banquet table, this "hyperbolic paraboloid" has graced the corner of Broadway and Floyd Street since April 1967, a little more than a year before being formally dedicated as the main entrance to the WAVE Garden. "It bears no resemblance to anything," says WAVE-TV chief engineer Bill Eschbach, whose career at the station began in 1966. The angular archway was one of the first completed features of the shaded urban oasis commissioned by the late artist and art-lover Jane Norton to pay tribute to her husband, WAVE founder George W. Norton Jr., the victim of a 1964 automobile accident in the Bahamas. In a 1967 tongue-in-cheek letter to Louisville Times columnist Floyd Edwards, longtime WAVE weatherman Bill Gladden explained the symbolism of the futuristic entryway: "The ‘hyperbolic paraboloid’ is a building poised for flight, symbolizing the ever-reaching, always forward-looking spirit of the station, looking eagerly toward a future of service to the community," Gladden wrote. He then added, "If you charge me with any of the foregoing quotes, I’ll deny them categorically."
Big Hare
Finding Jane Leis’ house on Royal Avenue (off Eastern Parkway) is pretty simple. "I just say, ‘Royal, look for the rabbit,’" she says. Standing more than 10 feet tall, "Rudy Lou" — as Leis calls the wood sculpture that faces her house — was carved from the rooted base of a 137-year-old white oak by local artist Mike McCarthy. "I didn’t do it for the people on the street," Leis says. "I did it for me." Working mostly a day or two at a time, it took McCarthy about a year with a chainsaw, adze, hammer and chisel to finish his work. Leis, who has been a Montessori preschool teacher for more than 30 years, says Rudy Lou is no stranger to the camera. "It gets its picture taken a lot," she says. "You’ll hear them pass and then they’ll back up. As long as they come and look and leave, I really don’t care." McCarthy has taken more than one fri/files/storyimages/for a drive down Royal Avenue to see his work and gets the same reaction each time. "Everybody who goes by says ‘That’s really neat, but I wouldn’t want it in my front yard.’"
A Show of Hands
It’s 15 feet high, 20 feet wide and weighs more than 50 tons. But no number can measure the impact Opportunity Portal, a limestone sculpture of interlocked hands, has had on the clients and staff of the Nia Center, 2900 W. Broadway. "People admire that there’s a piece of actual art here," says Verna Goatley, manager of the Metro Business Resource Center, which is housed in the building. "We haven’t had any vandalism, so people must admire it." The imposing artwork became a reality after funding for it was included in the city’s 1998 budget. A call for entries was issued and Lawler White Studios of Stephensport, Ky., was selected. The sculpture arrived more than two years later in three pieces: two pedestals and the hands. "The worst part was carving up inside the palms," sculptor Meg White told Stone World magazine in 2001. "Dust and pieces of rock would get into your eyes."
Where’s the Beef?
It’s a payday-loan business these days, but the building at the corner of Bardstown Road and Hikes Lane has been home to many enterprises — including the Arby’s that opened there in 1969. The structure was built in the roast beef chain’s original "Conestoga wagon" design, which was upgraded in 1975 to accommodate diners, according to Kathleen Siefert, Arby’s public-relations director. While the curved roof drew comparisons to a covered wagon, the layout was less than user-friendly. "It had no lobby or anything," says Mary Ann Hollingsworth, who started her Arby’s career in 1980 at the site’s nearby replacement on Old Bardstown Road. "You just came in, ordered and took the food with you," says the 26-year employee, now general manager of the Arby’s on Breckenridge Lane.
Yard of Steel
Zac Crawford has nothing to hide. At least that’s the way it seems when you pass his home studio at 3161 S. Third St., near Churchill Downs. A native of Granville, N.Y., Crawford and wife Neisja display their stainless-steel sculptures in the front yard of their home and of the house next door, which they’re converting into an indoor gallery and office. The combined parcels contain a dizzying array of cutting-edge artworks. Step through the gate appropriately embossed with "OZ" and you enter a surreal landscape. Over here, a giant lily that serves as a light. Over there, a 16-foot steel palm tree. With watchful neighbors, the Crawfords say they have no fear of theft. "They’re good people and we kind of look out for each other," Neisja says. As pieces sell, the scene continually evolves. Catch it when you can.
Welcome Every Body
Whether working alone or with partner Charles J. Clarke, Arthur Loomis designed more than his share of notable structures in and around Louisville, including the Speed Art Museum and the Richardsonian Romanesque Conrad-Caldwell House. Few are as downright creepy as the former holding vault in Eastern Cemetery, on Baxter Avenue just north of Cave Hill Cemetery. According to Phil "Dr. Death" DiBlasi, a University of Louisville anthropology professor, holding vaults helped usher in the era of the modern funeral home. Instead of families showing the body of a loved one in their home, it could be viewed in a holding vault for a few days before burial. "It was kind of a transition from showing the body in the home to showing the body in the funeral home as part of this barbaric American tradition known as a wake," DiBlasi says.
