One might call it a hobby. But perhaps a better description is obsession.
Why else would someone want to spend more than $2 million to buy and refurbish a 40-foot-high antique carousel? And then store the carnival ride in a spare room of his Barrington Hills mansion?
The man who undertook such a endeavor, Jasper Sanfilippo Sr., playfully calls it a project he launched during a “moment of insanity.”
But for anyone who has ever seen this carousel, now in the final stages of being refurbished, its sheer size and beauty can be breathtaking.
“I’ll be delighted when it’s finished,” Sanfilippo said. “It’s been a huge expense.”
It also has been a labor of love that has lasted a decade. Such was the magnitude of the work needed to restore the century-old traveling amusement.
Sanfilippo found the carousel in a dusty barn in Montana. Within a few minutes, he had to have it–regardless of the cost.
Transporting the carousel to Sanfilippo’s house in Barrington Hills took eight semitrailers, because the ride was in hundreds of pieces. A barnlike building on the grounds of Sanfilippo’s estate is the carousel’s new home. It boasts of 22,000 square feet with a ceiling 44 feet high and is made of flame-resistant materials.
When the carousel arrived, each of the 36 wooden horses was cracked or missing a tail or head. The wooden platform had to be replaced because it had rotted.
To begin restoring the carousel, negatives of paintings were bought from the Louvre. Artists used the shots to help them reproduce the paintings found on the carousel’s pastel-colored facade.
It meant starting from scratch with an open checkbook. The work involved several hundred artists and carpenters who worked long hours to restore all the horses, a platform, five gondolas, three bars and a ticket booth.
It also had a 36-by-112 foot hand-painted facade with wooden statues surrounding its exterior walls. Refurbishing the carousel continues to be painstaking. A 6-foot brass railing, only a small portion of the railing surrounding the carousel’s platform, took 140 hours to refinish.
“You have no idea what it costs to just restore a piece of brass railing,” Sanfilippo said.
Robert Ridgeway, who is Sanfilippo’s full-time curator, has spent six years overseeing the massive restoration. While Sanfilippo is reluctant to put a price tag on the time and money that he has spent over the years, Ridgeway estimates it took several million dollars.
He describes his boss as “a visionary of epic proportions,” adding that he himself did a “double take” when he first saw the condition of the carousel when it arrived in Barrington Hills.
“It was a disaster . . . it was in far worse shape that I could ever envision.”
According to Sanfilippo, there are only four salon carousels in existence. Three are in France but Sanfilippo’s carousel, when finished next year, will be the only one restored to its original glory.
When it was first built, the carousel, which is named the “Eden Palais” (“Palace of Eden”) and had a wooden statue of Eve sitting on a serpent’s tail above the ride’s platform. It is believed to have been displayed throughout northern France.
It was built as a party carousel, allowing people to board and dance and play games to the carousel’s organ.
Sanfilippo says some experts believe that his carousel was destroyed a long time ago, according to an article he found in a history book on carousels. Sanfilippo is waiting to receive professional photos taken recently of his carousel that he intends to send to the publisher of the book.
“They’re going to be very surprised when they see this,” he said.
But the carousel was almost destined for ruins. In 1959, the carousel was sold for $10,000 to an American who wanted to put the amusement ride in a Denver mall. Sanfilippo says the mall went bankrupt and the carousel was in a field for about a year before it was sold to a couple in Montana.
For the next 30 years, the carousel sat decaying in a barn. A decade later, the carousel is about to enjoy a second life. Next month, the carousel will be reunited with its centerpiece Gavioli pipe organ, which has spent five years getting a makeover in Belgium.
Once completed, Sanfilippo will throw a party and from then on, the carousel will only be displayed during charity events that Sanfilippo and his wife hold several times a year.
“A lot of what I do with these things is to preserve them,” explained Sanfilippo while turning on the building’s elaborate security system. “We go through life and then we’re gone, but they’re still here.”
