The $95,000 project was presented to the City Council as a proposal to improve the vacant lot, visible to those arriving to Santa Paula on the Fillmore & Western tourist train. The Rotary Club of Santa Paula is also supporting the project, an idea that Wilson has considered for about a decade.Upon his first glimpse of such a fountain, Wilson was fascinated. Later he found himself working along side artist Michelle Chapin of Ventura, who created a one-meter version for the high-tech industrial park in Moorpark.The fountain proposed for the new park will be much larger as well as mobile; powered by water, the 48-inch diameter, 6,000-pound ball will rotate “probably every five or 10 seconds,” Wilson noted in an earlier interview. “I have wanted to get one of these fountains someplace ever since I saw the first one… it’s a remarkable piece of physics and we have a natural” location for it.Last week, Wilson noted that the installation of the floating granite ball fountain would probably be the finishing touch of the project. “I’m pleased with it, I think it’s going to be great. The community in general has donated generously, so we’re in pretty good shape, might be able to get it all done with what we have in hand…. If we’re short we can call for more, although I’d prefer to do it with the amount of money we have.”
Floating granite ball fountain: Railroad Community Park nearing completion
March 03, 2006
Santa Paula News
There are more changes coming at the Railroad Community/Floating Granite Ball Fountain Park, with tree accelerated work expected to begin this week, weather permitting of course, according to the Santa Paula native who spearheaded the effort.
By Peggy KellySanta Paula TimesThere are more changes coming at the Railroad Community/Floating Granite Ball Fountain Park, with tree accelerated work expected to begin this week, weather permitting of course, according to the Santa Paula native who spearheaded the effort. “Basically, things are getting down to the concrete work, which could very well be started at the end of the week,” said Roy Wilson Jr. “I have no idea when they’ll start planting the trees,” a total of 27 that are native to the state that Wilson hopes will be planted in two or more weeks.Last summer, Wilson revealed plans to create the Floating Granite Ball Park just east of “The Warning” St. Francis Dam memorial statue at the corner of 10th and Santa Barbara Streets. “This project is alive and things are getting done,” although the originally forecast completion deadline of November 1 is far behind, he noted. “One of Dad’s (the late acclaimed architect Roy Wilson Sr.) battle cries was that ‘Slow work takes time!’ and I’ve had a lesson in slow work.”In cooperation with the city, the privately funded park is “so much more sophisticated and finished than I expected,” with groundcover, grading and curbs. “I think it’s going to be nifty when we’re finished” with the 10,000 square foot linear park.
