Art trails into the county
Steve Otto
sotto@tampatrib.com sotto@tampatrib.com
Published: February 15, 2010
Sure Tampa has its fancy-schmancy new multimillion-dollar art museum. But now Hillsborough County has what surely will draw international recognition among art lovers.
It took a court reversal to pull it off, but last week a three-judge panel overturned a Hillsborough County Code Enforcement decision that would have forced RV dealer Frank Bates to remove his "Airstream Ranch" display on Interstate 4, just before Exit 14 as you head east.
Bates angled the seven large Airstreams and a small one into the ground three years ago to mark the 75th anniversary of Airstream. "I'm a Texan" he says, "and I'd seen the 'Cadillac Ranch' display out there and wanted to do something similar."
The code enforcement people, who obviously had no understanding of art and figured it was just advertising for Bate's dealership, ordered it taken down.
"I'm on a couple of album covers; the display has been in lots of photo shoots and I've had tourists from as far away as Japan stop by," he says. Now that the display is going to remain, Bates says he is thinking about adding lights and maybe creating a small park. Go get' em Frank.
Story copied from Tampa Bay Online - Feb 15, 2010
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