THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9606280253
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: 95 lines
The decorative scene in Pete Micken's front yard all started 1 1/2 years ago with a dead tree and a stump that Micken was too lazy to dig out.
The stump became the base for a lighthouse with a working light in the top, and the area to one side of the stump became a pool complete with running water.
But that was just the beginning.
Now Micken's front yard on Hunting Hill Lane in the Haygood area is decorated with a colorful European fishing village complete with people and boats. Red roofs and yellow, beige and white ``brick'' buildings line a ``river'' trickling down a spillway from the pool.
``My neighbors call it `Virginia Beachville,' '' Micken said. ``I don't know what it does to property values.''
Virginia Beachville has been evolving from the day Micken devised a scheme to turn the unwanted stump into the base for a lighthouse. First he wrapped an old piece of vinyl flooring around the stump creating a vinyl mold which he filled with cement. The cement hardened around the stump and on top of it.
But before it became completely hard, Micken removed the mold. Then, with a nail, he etched the wet concrete to look like bricks.
To create the lighthouse tower, he used another vinyl form with a cardboard tube in the center as a conduit for the electrical wire he'd need to get a working beacon in the top. He painted the lighthouse base red and the lighthouse itself, black and white.
Micken made the free-form pool in a scoop in the ground by molding the concrete with his hands. He painted the bottom of the pool blue. Then he surveyed the scene.
``I thought, `It looks pretty, but it's unbalanced,' '' Micken said. ``So I'll put a little boat house over there.''
So he started building on the other side of the pool. The boat house was built in the same way - with concrete poured into forms and the concrete, etched with a nail, and painted.
The village skirts one side of a raised flower bed and the bed itself gave Micken ideas for additions. When a flower died, he covered the earth with sand and created a beach, complete with shipwreck. Then he noticed a depression in the flower bed.
``So I added another pool and a spillway to the pond,'' Micken said.
``Then I thought, `What does a village need? It needs an inn.' It's a fishing village so we have a bait shop, then a church and a bar.
``This spring's addition was the castle down here,'' Micken went on. ``Later on, we'll build another spillway and lead the river down to the castle and make a moat.''
Gradually Micken's creation began to resemble a little fishing village in Spain where he had spent several years with the Navy, he said.
In addition to using old vinyl as molds, the rest of his project also has been cost effective. To use less concrete and to lessen the weight of the buildings, Micken filled the buildings' centers with old paint cans and other discards. A plastic ice cream parfait glass was the inside of the mold for the church steeple.
A garage sale regular, Micken purchased the village's small features for nickels and dimes on Saturday morning forays. For example a dolphin in the pool, a couple of boats and some fishermen figurines all came from garage sales.
Micken's lawn scene has become an attraction for animals and humans alike. Blue jays, doves and other birds enjoy the waterway and the pools. The largest animal who's taken to the scene was a big black Lab Micken found lying in one of the pools, cooling off.
``Cars stop and people get out to look,'' Micken added. ``I had a contractor call me about going into business to create customized flower beds.''
It's not as though Micken has nothing else to do. The retired Navy man has a computer-based training business he operates from his home and he's working on a master's degree in instructional technology. As owner and creator of the Virginia Hiking Stick company, he makes whimsical or decorative walking sticks from gnarled tree branches and trunks.
Still he has found time to build about about 12 feet of houses, all because he didn't want to dig up one stump!
P.S. TRY YOUR HAND at 18th century games like hoop rolling, lawn darts and Jacob's ladder at Colonial Game Day any time between 2 and 4 p.m. Wednesday at the Francis Land House. The games are free with admission to the house. To find out more, call 431-4000.
NET FISH and other creatures from the bottom of the sea on Ocean Collection boat trips at 12:45 p.m. every Wednesday through Aug. 21 with the Virginia Marine Science Museum. The fee is $10 for adults and $8 for children. Call 437-BOAT for reservations.
HISTORIC LYNNHAVEN HOUSE is accepting applications for its November Craft Fair now through Aug. 3. Call 456-0351. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know
about Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555.
Enter category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net ILLUSTRATION: Photos by MARY REID BARROW
Pete Micken's yard ornaments include a tree stump-turned lighthouse
and other little buildings, pools, boats and people that make up a
European-style fishing village at his Haygood area home. by CNB