Carrousel District keeps on spinning
MANSFIELD, Ohio — The downtown area of this city is as sleepy on a Saturday morning as any place where the parking meters take nickels. It's called The Carrousel District — and for good reason.
The city centers on a namesake amusement ride and a factory that makes world-famous ones. Most of the shops, the diner and other spots at the intersection of Main and Fourth streets are right there, too.
The town really wakes up at 11 a.m., when most of those places pull up the gates and unlock their doors. But, for those who make it up with the birds flying south this time of year, one magical spot opens an hour earlier.
Carousel Magic! can be a quick stop to pick up a horse figurine. It can also be the spot to peel off the stripes of a zebra and learn how these nostalgic wooden rides are made and restored.
Factory tours also give a glimpse of projects the crew is working to finish. Last week that project involved creating gold- and silver-leaf trim on a carousel bound for Florida.
On a recent Saturday morning, head carver and co-owner Ross Clark explained how the shop's nine core workers have done projects including restorations for Ohio rides and creations for Japan.Starting with a history lesson that stretches back to knights who trained for jousting on rotating timbers, Clark explained the evolution of four styles of carousels: Philadelphia, Coney Island, country fair and menagerie. The latter means the ride includes real and fantastical creatures other than horses.At Carousel Magic! the exclusive creature is the otter, Clark said. The other styles vary in size and decoration.Then it's time to step into the bass wood sawdust. There's a giant band saw to cut out the bodies meant to be straddled. There's a post for piecing together. But a piece's definitive shape forms at the carver's station.A variety of tools allow the carver to work from imagination and end with just what he had envisioned.Then there's sanding. It's tedious, Clark said — but every piece needs to be sanded to perfection.Up a set of stairs, the wooden fixtures come to life with paint and eyes. Artists use enamel paints."If it can go on the outside of a building, it can go on a horse," Clark said.Horses get manes and saddles. Sometimes blankets, flowers or other touches are handpainted by a staff that expands to include local artists when needed.If all the learning inspires the child inside, the store sells kits and gives periodic classes to teach the skills to make a carousel creature.Don't have the time? The gift shop out front offers a completed carousel-sized horse for $4,000.
If the tour inspires the child inside to ride 'round and round in circles, Richland Carrousel Park is across the street. The semi-enclosed ride includes characters that don't move ("standers") and characters that glide up and down ("jumpers") on a menagerie carousel that includes 55 cats making a snack of a fish, giraffes, ostriches and horses looking ready to imitate the afternoon race in "Mary Poppins."This particular carousel was finished in 1991 and was the first new hand-carved ride to be built and operated in the country since the 1930s, the park says.Tickets are available inside the gift shop attached to the ride. A time around costs 75 cents, and deals are available for multiple rides.Those who would rather be spectators can find a seat in one of the rocking chairs set outside the fence. There are also some tables for picnic lunches or just enjoying the view.For those who prefer a restaurant meal, the Coney Island Diner is available nearby. The lunch counter claims to be famous for both its hot dogs and pea salad, but the menu also includes sandwiches.The diner is decorated with Mansfield relics that include a high school cheerleading uniform from 1956, quarter barrels that once held locally rendered lard and potato chips, and a bicycle hanging from the ceiling.Outside the diner, a playhouse, museum, bookstore, coffee shop, Greek restaurant, and pub are enough to fill the rest of the day. But, there's also a farm turned state park in the countryside 20 minutes away.
Malabar Farm is the preserved acreage of conservationist and best-selling, Pulitzer-prize winning author Louis Bromfield, who wrote in the early to mid-1900s.The farm's main house also is where movie actors Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall married and spent their honeymoon in 1945.The hills that surround Bromfield's Pleasant Valley (the title of one of his 33 books) farm wouldn't scare a Western Pennsylvania native. But they are home to scenic overlook Mount Jeez, the highest point. Signs along the valley road make it nearly impossible to get lost finding the park and other area attractions.On the farm is a year-old visitors center designed to educate children on the workings of a farm and the area history. The visitors center also houses the gift shop, where you can purchase tickets to tour the whole farm or just the Big House.The Big House tour is a ranger-led walking tour through the 32 rooms preserved much the way Bromfield left them when he died in 1956.There's the bed and private bath where his wife, Mary, who had been weakened by rheumatic fever, slept downstairs. Next door was an office dominated by a crescent-shaped wooden desk that Bromfield never wrote from. Guides explain he much preferred a window view from a card table.The walls are lined with versions of the books he wrote over a 34-year period. Nine, including "The Rains Came," were made into movies — and all made the best-seller lists. He won the Pulitzer Prize for an early work about a family, "Early Autumn."A split grand staircase, whose base served as the nuptial spot for the Bogart-Bacall wedding, leads to the bedrooms upstairs. The three Bromfield girls had color-coordinated rooms branching from a sitting room that includes more books along with animation cells of Disney's "Ferdinand the Bull," created from a Bromfield script.Back downstairs is a working kitchen with mid-century appliances. There's also the dining room, where meals were served under a candle chandelier.During warm months, visitors can extend the house tour to a farm tour. The wagon ride winds through the 100 acres, past livestock and fields of grain.On a distant part of the farm best accessed by vehicle, an 1800s stagecoach inn operates as a state-owned restaurant.The Malabar Farm Restaurant includes two indoor seating rooms and a few outdoor umbrella tables that retain the feeling of dinner at a friend's home, albeit a friend who reads. Bookshelves opposite the mantelpiece are stacked with Bromfield's works.The food here, so the restaurant touts, is local whenever possible. The menu has some classics like the Malabar Farm cheeseburger and chicken pot pie.It also lets the Bromfield aficionado choose a dish with connections to a book, such as the filet mignon Bombay ("A Night in Bombay") for dinner. The servers also inform guests of specials. The menu prices range from $5.95 to $21.95. A children's menu is also available.
