Carousel bound for Gulf

PORT TOWNSEND, Wash. – Instead of giving a hurricane-devastated town building materials or medical supplies, Bill Dentzel is donating a handmade carousel.

The carousel will go to Waveland, Miss., which is still rebuilding after being hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

What Dentzel chose to donate to the Mississippi town should come as no surprise. Carousel-making is a longtime hobby of his.

He is carrying on a tradition of Dentzel carousel builders dating back five generations. The sign above his great-grandfather Gustav Dentzel’s shop in Philadelphia says, “G.A. Dentzel Steam and Horse Powered Carousels.”

And Gustav’s father, Michael Dentzel, built carousels in Germany in the middle of the 19th century.

He shipped Gustav to America on a boat carrying a carousel.

Gustav had two sons, William and Edward. William carried on the family tradition, and Edward migrated to California, giving up the family craft.

Edward eventually became mayor of Beverly Hills. His son, William II, became Bill Dentzel’s father.

William II became a lawyer but eventually discovered his lineage and began pursuing the family craft.

“Every free moment he had, he would make carousels and donate them to children’s hospitals,” Dentzel said.

“He was a lawyer. He could afford to do that.”

In all, five generations of Dentzels have carried on the tradition.

Some of the family’s carousels can be found in California’s Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm and San Francisco Zoo, as well as at Dollywood in Tennessee and at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

Come February, one will be in Waveland.

Waveland city officials are happy to accept the gift, Dentzel said.

Carousel of the Olympic Sea is the name of the machine, coined long before its destination was Mississippi.

“The irony of it is, the carousel will be keeping its name and going down to the Gulf Coast,” Dentzel said.

Dentzel, 57, and five others from Port Townsend helped after the 2005 natural disaster, traveling down the Southern state in two biodiesel buses.

What they saw there and who they met created a lasting bond between the two cities, Dentzel said.

The trip and subsequent journeys have come to be called the Hurricane Katrina Sister City Project.

“You see roofs all over the place, and the house is gone,” he said. “They just got blown down. There’s been a constant stream of people going down there since.”

Besides offering Waveland residents the glee of spinning around on the carousel, there was another reason he wanted to donate it: “To bring awareness to the fact that this situation is not over.”

In the meantime, Port Townsend High School shop and art students are putting finishing touches on the 10-person wooden carousel.

It’s being built in Jim Guthrie’s shop at Port Townsend High School and is not the first time it’s been in the shop or been surrounded by students tinkering with it.

The project to build the carousel began in 1991, with the hope of establishing a permanent location in Port Townsend to keep and operate it.

Port Townsend students of all ages worked on the carousel, carving the figurines – an orca, a reindeer, a frog, a bear, a wooden boat – and painting it.

Dentzel estimates that more than 1,000 students over the years have had their hand in building the carousel.

Guthrie said he recalls one student in the mid-1990s who really stood out.

The student wasn’t especially good in many subjects, but he shined in shop class and in helping to build the carousel.

He even spoke at Port Townsend City Council meetings in support of establishing a location in the city to keep the carousel.

“He really took a lot of pride in the carousel,” Guthrie said. “It was an area where he could really contribute to the community.”

A Port Townsend location never was established, so the carousel was in storage for years.

Now, 16 years after construction was begun, Port Townsend High School freshman James Narverud, 14, is taking a lead on the project to get the carousel ready to ship to Waveland.

Narverud comes from a family of carpenters, so wood working is nothing new.

“What’s different is, I’m doing something I’ve never done before,” Narverud said.

“Then again, I’m learning how it’s made and how it’s different from other carousels.”

Art students are touching up the paint job on the eight large panels that encircle the motor housing in the center of the carousel.

“I think it’s probably going to help their own artwork,” said Port Townsend High School art teacher Kathleen Burgett, “because they’re large pieces, and we’re giving them license to do what they want.”

Said Dentzel, “If you look at how long we’ve been working on this, it’s sort of an epic.

“It’s been buried deep and resurrected, like the phoenix.”