Carrousels : Works of Art Have a Charm That Rides On

Ask 8-year-old Cathy what she likes about carrousels, and her answer is an immediate and joyful “Everything!” She has mounted a prancing gray beast on the carrousel at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. The mall is probably known as much for its merry-go-round as for its shopping possibilities.

To those watching Cathy and a handful of other children on a recent morning, it becomes clear that carrousels, with their music, their flash, color and movement, are still the stuff that dreams are made of: Ride a white horse, its trappings sparkling with jewels, and you’re a princess. Ride one that charges around the ring with head thrown back and teeth bared, and you’re a cowboy.

For Cathy’s grandmother, Alwynne, who spins around to Pop standards emanating from the sound system, carrousels conjure up memories of childhood.

“That’s the first time I’ve done this since I was a girl,” she said when the ride was over, “but you know, I enjoyed it just as much.”

Carrousels are no longer front-row seats to excitement. Rather, carrousel animals are fast becoming treasured bits of Americana, valued for their artistic merit and much sought-after by collectors.

“Originally, they were not considered works of art, just a seat on a ride,” said Wilba Wilcox, an Anaheim-based man who carves and restores carrousel animals. “In the late 1950s, you could pick them up free if you’d haul them off . . . the most you’d pay for one was, maybe, $200. Now they’re called ‘sculptures’ and they cost anywhere from $5,000 to $75,000, depending on the animal, the condition and whom it was carved by.”

Wilcox occasionally demonstrates the fine art of merry-go-round animal carving and restoring at shopping malls and amusement parks. His work will be on view at Knott’s Berry Farm’s Christmas Crafts Market in Buena Park from Friday through Christmas Eve.

Carvers’ names roll easily off the tongues of carrousel cognoscenti: Charles Looff, M. C. Illions, Charles Parker, Allan Herschell, Solomon Stein, Harry Goldstein, Gustav Dentzel.

Dentzel is regarded by many as the father of the American carrousel. He arrived in this country from Germany in 1860, settling in Philadelphia where he opened a cabinet shop. During the next few years, he toured with his first carrousel (his father had carved and assembled one in Germany 30 years before), expanding his business to the G. A. Dentzel, Steam and Horsepower Caroussell Builder-1867.

While Dentzel was noted for the realism of his animals, Looff, one of his main competitors, opted for more flash. Glass “jewels” and other fancy trim adorn his animals, and the buildings housing them had colored glass in the windows and, often, exotic architecture. Looff’s first carrousel animals were carved from scrap wood gathered at the furniture company where he worked. By the late 1870s, he had a factory in Brooklyn, N.Y., and his second carrousel was installed at Coney Island.

Another carver, Charles Dare, made smaller, simpler animals that could be used in traveling shows and country fairs.

Basic Styles Established

These three established the basic styles of carving, although there were other proponents: The Philadelphia style is represented not only by Dentzel but also by Daniel and Albert Muller and the Philadelphia Toboggan Co. Looff’s Coney Island style was followed by his proteges, Illions, Charles Carmel, Stein and Goldstein. The Country Fair style of Dare was practiced also by Parker and the Tonawanda, N.Y.-based Tonawanda Engine and Machine Co., which later gave birth to the Armitage Herschell Co., the Herschell-Spillman Co., Allan Herschell Co. and Spillman Engineering Corp.

The origin of the ride, writes Oakland-based carver and restorer Tobin Fraley in his book “The Carousel Animal,” is in the game of horsemanship dating back to the Crusades. Another popular book on the subject is “Painted Ponies,” by William Manns.

Many of these late-19th-Century carrousels are on view at the American Carousel Museum in San Francisco, 633 Beach St.; telephone (415) 928-0550.

Museum owner Larry Freels, an architect and real estate developer, runs the museum through his nonprofit Freels Foundation. His collection consists of more than 300 pieces (about 75 are on display), including a rare 1895 Dentzel hippocampus (sea horse); two Dentzel roosters (there are only four known to exist); a Philadelphia Toboggan dog in original paint; a Looff greyhound dog complete with star-burst mirrors and tassels; a Dentzel “Fourth of July” horse adorned with an American flag, an eagle and firecrackers, and a group of Daniel Muller carrousel animals in original paint.

About 170 in Use Now

Reflecting on the heyday of American carrousel carving, Brian Morgan, treasurer of the National Carousel Assn., estimates that between 2,000 and 5,000 wooden carrousels were operative in the United States at the turn of the century. He says the current figure is about 170, citing poor weather, fire and neglect for the decline. Formed in 1973 to help preserve carrousels, the association (P.O. Box 307, Frankfort, Ind. 46041), which numbers about 1,600 members, will hold its annual convention next fall in San Diego.

(The American Carousel Society, 470 S. Pleasant Ave., Ridgewood, N.J. 07450, is another nationwide organization interested in the fate of carrousels.)

But carver William H. Dentzel, a Santa Barbara attorney and grandson of Gustav Dentzel, perhaps best puts into perspective the merits of these magnificent old machines with their hand-carved horses, dogs, cats, lions, tigers, bears, ostriches, deer and rabbits:

“They’re the cradle of the amusement park,” he says. “They tantalize the eye and they are a treat to the ear. But even better, they’re fun to ride.”