Upcoming Events
› Chattanooga Miniature Modelers will display their work at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum’s Railfest Sept. 10-11 at 4111 Cromwell Road. They also will host an exhibit of their miniature landscapes and cities at the Hamilton County Fair Sept. 24-25 at Chester Frost Park in Hixson.› For more info go to www.chatmodmod.org or email chatmodmod@gmail.com.
The fishing camp looks like a charming part of someone’s dreams.
The frame house has wooden shingles, hardwood floors made from carefully-cut coffee swizzle sticks. The moss flecked, golden-brown shingles were cut from cigar bands. Visitors enjoy the shade of a deep porch near handmade lobster baskets stacked neatly on one corner of the dock while a boy in a straw hat casts a line into the water. Two men playing checkers are a fraction of an inch tall.
The camp itself is tiny enough to hold in one hand. And it was all built by Willy Clonts, a “scratch builder,” the honorary title given by model city builders to someone so talented, he can create whole worlds from materials he scavenges, carves or makes himself.
“I also made the smaller boat for that harbor,” Clonts says, nodding toward a jaunty powerboat on a dark-green, hard-plastic ocean harbor that three men are placing on a large table. “Each of us here is really good at different things, so we can make some really great towns and cities together.”