Pam Hessey received her BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA in 1978. She started carousel restoration in 1984 and opened her own restoration studio, Hawk’s Eye Studio, in 1986. Restoration requires precision and maintaining historical accuracy to avoid decreasing the carousel’s value. Hessey has restored figures for the American Carousel Museum and many private collections, as well as numerous working carousels in the San Francisco Bay area.

There are three main carving styles of carousel animals: The Philadelphia style, the Coney Island style, and the County Fair style. The Philadelphia style is characterized by realistic horses with trapping details so authentic that one is startled to find they are carved wood. Gustav and his son William Dentzel, Daniel and Albert Muller, and the various carvers of The Philadelphia Toboggan Company created carousel figures that seemed ready to prance right off the platform.

The Coney Island style horses have flash, style and flair. The carving companies were located on Coney Island, in or near the famous park that made ‘amusement park’ an Americanism. Charles Looff, M.C. Illions and Sons, Charles Carmel, and Stein and Goldstein all carved imaginative horses that took fantasy to a new unprecedented level. The flamboyant flying gold-leafed manes and sparkling glass jewels caught the public’s eye and imagination, and people lined up to pay their nickel to ride their fantasy steed.

The County Fair style horses have an innocence and simplicity that the other styles lack. These carousel figures were made to travel with county fairs- to be set up, run for a day or two, dismantled, and moved to the next town. Their sleek, practical lines were created by Charles Dare in Brooklyn, New York, by the Armitage-Herschell Company in North Tonawanda, New York, and the C.W. Parker Amusement Company, first in Abilene, and later in Leavenworth, Kansas.

While a few new wooden carousels are being hand-carved today, the fine art of the antique carousel animal is unparalleled in our modern world. Stop and examine the detail of these imaginative, whimsical carvings before you climb aboard your next ride.

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