Ashland’s park fountain has been the backdrop for life-changing celebrations since 1916 – Here is Oregon - hereisoregon.com

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People can’t help walking up to an elevated patch of Ashland’s Lithia Park, taking in the exalted view and then posing in front of the most formal spot around: the ornate Butler-Perozzi Fountain.

Since 1916, even in times of needed repair, as it is now, the 12,000-pound Italian-made marble fountain has been a Belle Epoque beacon to anyone with a photogenic subject and a camera. For generations, it has been a place to pause and ponder, and document life-changing occasions: high school graduations, marriage proposals, reunions.

Or to enjoy spontaneity in an arts-centric city.

“One time, when we were randomly walking through the park, we saw a couple who had a little speaker system and were doing some sort of ballroom-style dancing around the fountain,” said Ashland resident Sabena Vaughan. “We stopped to watch, like a real-life scene from the movie ‘La La Land.’”

Now, Ashland Parks and Recreation, with $800,000 raised through private donations and local and state grants, is hoping in 2025 to restore the beloved landmark, make the site more accessible and have a reserve for ongoing preservation work.

“The fountain was a gift to us from our predecessors, who installed it and maintained it for us, their future,” said Meiwen Richards, who lives in Ashland and donated to the restoration project. “For this, we should care for it and pass it on in good condition to those who will come after us.”

The classic tiered fountain resting in a reflecting pool on a hillside near Granite Street was a cherry-on-top addition to the city’s best improvement project: the 100-acre Lithia Park that extends from the downtown Plaza area and the former grounds of the Chautauqua arts and culture programs, which in 1935 became the Oregon Shakespeare Festival campus, to the foothills of Mount Ashland.

A vote in 1908 approved the local Women’s Civic Improvement Club’s wish for Lithia Park, named after a free-flowing lithium oxide water spring. Strolling pathways shaded by maple trees would replace old mills, cow barns and fences on land along Ashland Creek. In 1914, horticulturist John McLaren, superintendent of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, was hired to design ponds, lawns and secluded landscapes surrounded by woodlands.

The Butler-Perozzi Fountain was a big deal when it was dedicated on the last of three days of parades, fireworks and rodeos on Fourth of July 1916, according to Peter Finkle of Walk Ashland history tours. Early Ashland entrepreneurs, developer and rancher Gwin Butler and creamery owner Domingo Perozzi, purchased the fountain at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco for $3,000 and gifted it to the city.

Exactly 107 years after the dedication, a fundraising campaign led by the nonprofit Ashland Parks Foundation was launched July 4, 2023, to restore and repair the landmark plus improve accessibility, lighting, plumbing and electricity, at a cost of $600,000. Money raised through private donations would also include an extra $200,000 to establish a maintenance fund.

One person responding to an online city survey calculated that a new fountain would cost a fraction of repairing the old one. But nearly 70% of the 500 people who responded didn’t want a replacement; they wanted the fountain that has endured, when celebrated or hidden behind overgrown brush, polished or vandalized, loved and forgotten. “It has just always been there,” one resident stated.

“There was community interest in putting this artistic object here,” said Pat Acklin, a volunteer on the Fountain Restoration Steering Committee. “People respect this fountain as part of history.” Oregon’s historic preservation office awarded $20,000 to repair the inner basin and column.

In October, the $800,000 goal was achieved, and foundation president Mike Gardiner said Ashland Parks and Recreation staff and consultants with the Architectural Resources Group will create construction documents and refine the scope of the project to invite contractors to bid on the project. The hope: to start the restoration and repair work in 2025.

Forty years ago, city planning director John Fregonese launched a fundraising campaign to restore the fountain, a reproduction of Gondi fountain in Florence and made with modifications by the Florence studio of Antonio Frilli, then shipped to San Francisco. Italian-trained Ashland sculptor Jeffrey Bernard recreated missing bowls by sourcing marble from the original quarry in Carrara and refurbished four gargoyles and foliage on the lower bowl.

The original marble statue of a boy riding a goose on top of the fountain was relocated to a display in Ashland’s public library, and a bronze replica was cast to weather the elements in Lithia Park.

“The Butler-Perozzi Fountain is a gorgeous piece of Ashland’s history that has beckoned people for over a century,” said Diane Garcia, who was chair of the Ashland’s Historic Preservation Advisory Committee in the 1980s during the first restoration of the fountain and is a founding member of the current restoration steering committee.

“It’s the centerpiece of the park,” Garcia continued. “Its regal staircase lures you to ascend to the top, admire the fountain, and have a bird’s-eye view of the beautiful park and the people walking by. From there, you can imagine the park 100 years ago.”

Over the last century, many historic buildings in Ashland have been lost, due to fire or demolition, said Garcia, former executive director of Southern Oregon Land Conservancy. “Preserving historic places and sites is something I care deeply about. The craftsmanship and care put into the construction of the Butler-Perozzi Fountain can’t be compared to the new.”

— Janet Eastman covers design and trends. Reach her at 503-294-4072, [email protected] and follow her on X @janeteastman.