An adage says if you want something done right then do it yourself. In 2019, the idea of doing nearly anything yourself probably seems antiquated.

However, despite today's tech-connected, hyper-integrated world, true visionaries and craftsmen still often really can't imagine doing it any other way. Such is the case at Canobie Lake Park, a hand-built amusement park located on the shore of Canobie Lake in Salem, New Hampshire, that first opened to the public in 1902. Founded as a trolley park, the original visitor experience featured botanical gardens, a penny arcade, and a few early amusement rides. In 1936 to the delight of visitors, the park's second owner installed a new wooden roller coaster named the Yankee Cannonball; a ride that still draws crowds 83 years later. In 1958, Canobie Lake Park was purchased by three close friends from New Jersey who decided to take on the challenge of renovating and revitalizing it themselves.

"Every year they add something new," says Mike Harrington, a decorative concrete contractor who has been installing concrete at Canobie Lake Park for the better part of thirty years. One of the park's three owners, Raymond Captell is the visionary responsible for dreaming up new crowd-pleasing environments. Harrington shares that Captell is never at a shortage of ideas or light on expectations. "Ray always has a clear picture of what he wants the finished attraction to look like. Maintaining the park's rustic, historic, handcrafted feel and using high-quality materials are both very important to him."

 

Harrington was first approached by Captell about using stamped concrete to create realistic, durable, repeatable concrete patterns as borders around various attractions sometime in the early 1980s. Since then, Harrington and his team have been back essentially every year, adding textures, upgrading features, and helping tie together the park's many different attractions with a wide variety of patterns and textures such as slate, granite, limestone, sandstone, cobblestone and brick. Perhaps the most unique aspect of their longstanding relationship is the way the two enterprises go about their business.

"We've never had a contract or a precise scope of work in all these years. It's always been an estimate and a handshake with Ray," says Harrington. "Thirty years ago, there were very few people building that way, so we were the choice locally. We've been back every year so quality has built
the relationship."

The 2018 addition Harrington completed for Canobie Lake Park was Tidal River, a 45,000-square-foot lazy river with waves, circling the park's Castaway Island.

"The big challenge was meeting the state and environmental requirements for capturing surface runoff in a way that met the owner's expectations for aesthetics," says Harrington. Sitting next to cherished natural resource, Canobie Lake, a primary determinant of what has been built on the property has long been containing the large volume of runoff that accumulates across the park when it rains.

Adding approximately two acres of new hardscape next to the pool meant the need to incorporate an extensive drainage system in the concrete deck. The design intent was to get it into the ground through natural percolation. While many hardscape options allow permeability including pavers and pervious concrete, Captell was opposed to installing anything other than stamped concrete, insisting that the solution be visually harmonious with the rest of the hardscape: in this case, three different imprints produced a meandering pebbled brook, bisecting the deck to elegantly conceal the drainage system.

"We've been working with the stamped concrete manufacturer since 1972," finishes Harrington proudly. "It's amazing for us to still be able to do something that feels new, challenging, and exciting after all this time."

As seen in LASN magazine, March 2020.