Presidents_Park
Presidents Park
Sculpture park in Virginia, 2004 to 2010
Presidents Park was a ten-acre sculpture park and associated indoor museum formerly located in Williamsburg, Virginia in the United States. It contained 18-to-20-foot (5.5 to 6.1 m) high busts of the presidents of the United States from George Washington to George W. Bush.[1]
The statues were sculpted by Houston artist David Adickes,[1] who was inspired as he drove past Mount Rushmore when returning from a trip to Canada.[2] The park was opened in March 2004 by local visitor attraction entrepreneur Everette H. "Haley" Newman III, who had been slowly taking delivery of the busts since 2000.[3]
The park had financial troubles and was closed on September 30, 2010.[4] Creditors put the park up for auction (not including the busts) on September 28, 2012, after a foreclosure auction originally scheduled for April 26, 2012 was cancelled without explanation.[5] By January 10, 2013, the busts had been moved to private storage at a nearby local farm in Croaker, Virginia by Howard Hankins.[6] In 2017, National Geographic showcased a video in which Mr Hankins expresses a hope to rehabilitate the statues for a park in the future.[7][8] However, many of the presidential heads sustained damage in the move and are currently in a state of disrepair due to being out in the open elements. The 400-acre Croaker farm where the 20-foot busts are located are only accessible to the public during pop-up tours the owner holds throughout the year.