photo credit: http://www.bangordailynews.com/story/Living/Stephen-King-fan-repairs-mangled-front-gate,156466
.Bangor Daily News has an interesting update on Stephen King's gate. If you remember, a woman crashed into King's unique gate on September 26 of this year. The article focuses on Leamen Allen who works at Allenfarm Fence Company in Hermon. He has experience working on King's property, and several years ago worked on the crew that reinforcedthe fence around King's personal library. (I wish I had a library big enough to build a fence around!)
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Aislinn Sarnacki gives some details on the fence: The 270-foot long, wrought iron fence surrounds the high profile-home that King purchased with his wife, Tabitha, in 1979. Crafted by Terry Steel of Steel Forge in Bridgton in 1982, the fence and gates are embellished with iron flying animals resembling bats or gargoyles and a spider web motif. King and Steel collaborated on the design. Five 8 x 10 photos of the fence pre-demolition were taped to the workroom wall for Leamen to re-fer to as he straightened, welded, cut and replaced parts of the gate."
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Sarnacki describes the damage to the gate: The gate’s focal point is a giant, spindly spider. During the crash, the legs on its right side were yanked from its body.
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Leaman says that when the gate came in, it looked like a "dead spider laying on the floor." An appropriate analogy, since Leman is a Constant Reader since eigth grade. But get this quote, the article quotes Leman as saying he has read so much King that he had to tell himself to "branch out." What's he talking about? There are other authors out there?
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Sarnacki gives us one last quote from Lemamen that's great! “One thing I’d like to learn about the fence is where Stephen’s inspiration came from for the design. If I was ever to chat with him, as much as I’m interested in his writing and everything, I’d rather talk about his fence.”
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The full article is here, and is fantastic. Also there are several pictures of the gate that are quite interesting.
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Thanks for posting this article! Very cool. You mentioned Stephen King's personal library.... is that a separate building on the same property? :)
ReplyDeleteBret
http://brethelm.blogspot.com/
I too would like a personal library big enough to build a fence around.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I actually tried to find the answer to this (if the library is a separate building). Answer is. . . I have no idea! Of course, I just did some google searches. But it is an interesting question.
ReplyDeleteYeah, how rad would that be to have your own library that required a gate around it! :)
ReplyDelete