Children's Museum opening coastal landscape addition to their KidGardens Exhibit

  • Bo Petersen
  • Posted: Monday, March 7, 2011 12:01 a.m.
    UPDATED: Friday, March 23, 2012 6:45 p.m.
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Dale Messenger, Dave Price, Richard Batey and Thom Hunt work on an interactive exhibit of a coastal habitat in the garden at the Children's Museum.
Brad Nettles /Dale Messenger, Dave Price, Richard Batey and Thom Hunt work on an interactive exhibit of a coastal habitat in the garden at the Children's Museum.

Four-year-old Addison Lucarelli hopped into the ring of rock-shaped concrete like she was hopping into a tidal pool.

"This is where the waterfall is going," she told her parents. She's right -- a waterfall complete with a splash area tidal pool where kids can get their hands in the water. It's being created with trowels, so the water can lap onto erosional banks with oyster shells and fiddler crab holes, alongside cypress knees, palmettos and native plants.

The child's size Disney World-type formation is under way as an expansion to the outdoor KidGardens at the Children's Museum of the Lowcountry in downtown Charleston, courtesy of a Summerville man with a penchant for creating landscapes from scratch.

Jody Smith, of Coastal Rock Productions, is donating the $20,000 landscape, along with Thom Hunt of Big Bamboo Studios of Fairbury, Neb., Carlile Landscaping and other businesses. Partly it's a promotion for the companies. Partly it's because Smith's four children love the museum, particularly 6-year-old Hayden, who heads straight for the water exhibits.

It's also because Smith went to Disney World as a 12 year old, where the rides didn't catch his imagination as much as the artificial rock formations, "how they put everything in place," he said. After becoming a landscape designer, he learned the craft of sculpting concrete overlays to mimic natural rock.

"I was shocked," said Robin Berlinsky, the museum education director, when Smith brought her a concept drawing. She refined it to work in with the garden planting program, one of the kids' favorites. For museum director Denis Chirles, the offer was a no-brainer. No way the non-profit museum could do something like this on its own, he said. "Not at all. Not even close."

Asked if she'll be back for the March 14 exhibit unveiling, 4-year-old Addison nods and her eyes light up.

"I like to play in the water," she said, "and I like playing at the beach too."

Reach Bo Petersen at 937-5744.