Croaker, Va. – Those of us who live in the District of Columbia have long grown accustomed to larger-than-life representations of U.S. Presidents. Memorials to this country’s “founding fathers” are hard to avoid; Lincoln sits resolute in his Doric temple, Jefferson stands tall over the Tidal Basin and Washington’s obelisk, of course, towers over all of us.
Millions of tourists flood the city every year to visit these places, wielding selfie sticks as they climb marble staircases to take a jaunt back in time. But these neo-classical pantheons are a bit polished for my tastes.
In Croaker, Virginia, about two-and-a-half hours southeast of D.C., there’s a far less exclusive presidents club, one where T.J. and Abe rub shoulders with Tricky Dick and Slick Willy. It’s not open to the public and not really even intended to be a monument at all.
In Croaker, local businessman Howard Hankins has taken our commanders-in-chief and, quite literally, put them out to pasture.
Photos by Pablo Iglesias Maurer
Williamsburg, Va. is a place that has a little bit in common with D.C. It, too, welcomes its own throng of visitors every year, and much like the District, most who visit do so out of a desire to get a better understanding of this country’s roots.
And while most flock to “Colonial Williamsburg,” a 300 acre or so section of town that aims to re-create the city’s colonial past, there’s also a more modern side to the city. On the outskirts of town, visitors trade gristmills and horse-drawn carriages for water parks and go-karts. Shoe cobblers become Foot Lockers, a potter’s workshop becomes a Pottery Barn.
In the intersection of Williamsburg’s colonial past and present-day sprawl was President’s Park, a ten-acre, open-air museum that housed 15- to 20-foot high busts of the first 43 U.S. Presidents. Tucked away in a wooded area behind a Day’s Inn, the park’s sculpture garden housed busts that were conceived and created by Houston artist David Adickes, who felt inspired to sculpt them after a visit to Mount Rushmore.
“I was overwhelmed by the majesty of it,” Adickes told the Washington Post’s John Kelly in 2011. “Driving to Texas, the idea occurred to me to do a park with all the presidents, big enough to get in front of and look in the eyes, rather than from a quarter-mile away … I’m a Texan. Big is impressive. The Statue of Liberty, for example, as a piece of sculpture, is not that great, but standing in the harbor 151 feet tall, it’s great.”
Adickes wanted to find a home for the busts in D.C., but found that to be a tough sell. Eventually, he located a buyer in Williamsburg, local entrepreneur Everette “Haley” Newman. Newman and his fellow investors poured over $10 million dollars into to commissioning the 43 sculptures and opening the park.
The sculptures started arriving in 2000. While Newman worked with the city to get approval for construction, the heads found more temporary homes, roaming the countryside on flatbed trailers and eventually landing at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens.
The museum finally opened in 2004, but suffered due to its location. Though adjacent to I-64 and a stone’s throw away from a cluster of retail, the park was essentially invisible, masked by the woods around it. The busts began to fall into disrepair. A lightning strike badly marred half of Ronald Reagan’s face, while others suffered a less spectacular fate, subject to the sun, rain, and bird traffic of the area.
The park was unable to afford a bust of President Obama—at the time Adickes put a price tag of $60,000 on the sculpture—and traffic dwindled to a near standstill. In September of 2010, Newman couldn’t hold on any longer. The park was shuttered and the land auctioned off, purchased by an unidentified buyer. An Enterprise Rent-a-Car outfit has since taken up residence.
President’s Park, it would seem, had gone bust. But what would become of the busts themselves? Enter Howard Hankins.
Photos by Pablo Iglesias Maurer
Hankins, a local businessman who runs—among a few other operations—a concrete recycling outfit, ended up with the busts in 2012 after the owners of the now-defunct park reached out to him. “They called me and wanted to know if I would come down there and crush [the heads] and haul them away,” Hankins tells me as we sit in a truck on his farm. “I said ‘heck no, can I have ‘em?’ I’m going to preserve them.”
Hauling them away was no small order of business. The busts, some as tall as 20 feet, weighed between 15,000 and 20,000 pounds and were certainly never meant to be relocated. Lifting them proved to be difficult, so Hankins and his crew were forced to crack some skulls, opening up a hole in each of the president’s heads to expose the steel framework beneath them. One by one, they used an excavator to hoist the sculptures onto a flatbed.
Six the first day. Eleven the second. Some of the first busts to go suffered the most damage, though Hankins tells me all of them can be repaired relatively inexpensively. By the time the 43rd was moved, Hankins and his men had it down to a science. He arranged the busts on a patch of land at his farm, assembled neatly into three rows. All told, the move cost him around $50,000.
A few years later, nature has crept up on the presidents. Grass and weeds grow thigh-high around them, and they’ve settled into the swampy ground they sit on. Wildlife, too, has taken up residence. Frogs serenade me as I wander the property, and when I brace myself against James Buchanan’s shoulder, one of them hops out of his collar and onto my arm.
The presidents are not arranged in any particular order, which makes for some interesting juxtapositions. George W. Bush finds himself sandwiched between Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt; probably not the company most would put him in, though “Dubya” may disagree. Bill Clinton peeks out from behind Ulysses S. Grant. JFK and Reagan have become neighbors in the afterlife.
The sculptures are truly beautiful, a testament to Adickes and his team’s craftsmanship. There’s something to be said for studying the lines and features of a person’s face, and it’s impossible not to when their head is twice the size of your entire body. In some of the faces, you feel a bit of weight. Washington looks like he’s seen better days. Rainwater has discolored the area around his eyes, in the process forming a line of faux-tears. I set up my camera in front of Andrew Jackson and his gaze meets mine. He, too, looks a bit troubled, and I feel the sadness in his eyes. Is it guilt? Maybe it’s just me.
With Hankins’ permission, I return several days later, this time around 1 a.m. The frogs have quieted down, and the moonlight casts an erie glow on the busts as I photograph them. It is an otherworldly site. In the distance, the sound of cars zipping by on the Interstate, their passengers completely unaware that just yards away is a sort of modern-day Easter Island.
I’m lucky to have had free reign when it comes to visiting and photographing the busts, a courtesy Hankins doesn’t extend to many these days. He certainly hears from his fair share of curiosity seekers, he tells me, but these days he’s more focused on finding a permanent home for his collection, something he hopes a bit of media attention might help with.
He’s got his eyes on a piece of land in Colonial Williamsburg, one he says will draw much more traffic than the park’s previous incarnation. The busts would someday take up residence there, along with an old Air Force One fuselage, maybe, and presidential limo. He’s bouncing around other ideas—a tie-in with the Spy Museum in D.C., for example, or an exhibit on the Secret Service. All fine ideas.
Until his plan becomes a reality, though, the presidents will continue to reside at the farm, relaxing under the warm summer sun in the Virginia countryside. It’s not quite Warm Springs, Monticello or the Crawford Ranch, but for now, it’ll have to do.
Photos by Pablo Iglesias Maurer
