by Charles Spillar

The Valley of the Moon is having a one-night show this Saturday, June 20 titled MOONSTRUCK. This fun event is for the whole family to enjoy and they will get to see the great things happening at this historic children’s park. The 85-year-old Moon is definitely rising again!

Valley of the Moon is a unique area built by George Phar Legler in the 1920s for the purpose of appealing to the magical imagination of children. Mineralized rock cliffs, caves, pools, and garden miniatures have blended with tropic and desert flora to create this amazing place for children and families. The park exhibits some of the real Folk Art of the early 20th Century hand crafted by the late Mr. Legler.

“We are hoping with this event to show the community the exciting improvements we are making in the park and what is needed to complete our restoration efforts. It is also about experiencing the magic created by its founder and enjoying family fun”, stated Randy Van Nostrand, President of the Valley of the Moon.

The Tucson community has really been opening its heart to this children’s fantasyland. The architectural firm of Burns/Wald-Hopkins/Shambach have given them advise on priorities for restoration, Brad Haber of Sonoita has assembled a group to donate necessary materials for the building of a new troll bridge, new volunteers have come forward to help convert some of the parks lighting to solar.

Last week, Darling, Environmental & Surveying, Ltd created a detailed site map of the entire property and of its complex features and blessed the Moon with a donation of its services. They used HDS technology (high definition 3-D laser scanning technology). The end result can be viewed and navigated like a 3-D model. Conventional mapping of the property could have taken months. Darling did it in 14 hours. People in Paris, Moscow & around the world will soon be able to visit the historic park via their website and take a 3-D tour. This high tech procedure will save countless hours and thousands of dollars for restoring historic stuctures in the future.

New grass will be planted in the Moon’s amphitheater in the next few months and they will once again be renting their facilities this fall for weddings, birthdays, commercial shoots, etc. The income received will help to finance the restoration of the closed historic sites unavailable for the public to visit presently. Five statues from the closed Magic Carpet Golf property will arrive at the Moon within the next few weeks and will be located in the front portion of the acreage.

Bring the whole family as you follow Princess Rosemary in the search for the “golden key to happiness” down the winding paths and enchanted gardens for this free show. Costumes are encouraged on this one-night only show Saturday, June 20th from 7:30PM till 9:30PM. Tours leave the gate every 30 minutes. ADMISSION IS FREE!. Address: 2544 E. Allen Road. North of Prince on Tucson Blvd. to Allen Rd. YOU will leave being “Moonstruck!” More details at?: http://www.tucsonvalleyofthemoon.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 at 9:49 pm and is filed under Tucson Art. Tags for this post: Darling, Folk art, George Phar Legler, historic property, laser scanning, restoration, tucson, Valley of the Moon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.