Cape Coral’s iconic figure, Big John, is undergoing a significant restoration. Since the 1960s, this landmark statue has been a local legend, and now it’s preparing to make a big comeback.<\/p>\n
Clinton Strand, owner of Brand One, is leading the repair efforts.<\/p>\n
“So this is Big John. Big John is a landmark statue that’s been in Cape Coral since 1968,” said Strand.<\/p>\n
Recently, Big John has been away from the spotlight.<\/p>\n
“Big John suffered some pretty bad, catastrophic injuries during the last few hurricanes that came through,” said Strand.<\/p>\n
The statue has a huge crack across its chest and a gaping hole in its back. Years of weather and wear have taken their toll, necessitating extensive repairs.<\/p>\n
Strand shared that Big John stands at about 30 feet tall and weighs 13,000 pounds, making the restoration a formidable task.<\/p>\n
“Big John is also owned by a gentleman named Elmer Tabor. He’s a good friend of mine. He kind of reached out and wanted to know if I would attempt to fix Big John and restore him back to what he used to be. And I said absolutely,” said Strand.<\/p>\n
For Strand, the project is personal.<\/p>\n
“Tabor is one of the early residents of Cape Coral, and this was part of his family. Him being such a good friend of mine, I feel like he’s part of my family, too,” said Strand.<\/p>\n
The restoration journey has been challenging.<\/p>\n
“It all started out as a little bit of a misconception of what the repair is going to entail,” said Strand.<\/p>\n
“The internal components that hold him in place were all rotted away from over the years, and we had to replace everything. So it’s kind of a full rebuild,” he added.<\/p>\n
Strand explained the comprehensive scope of the work.<\/p>\n
“We have to fix the insides before we can fix the outsides. So it’s been quite the journey. It’s, it’s a huge undertaking,” said Strand.<\/p>\n
After a year of rehabilitation, Big John is nearly ready to return, just in time for the holidays.<\/p>\n
“I’m going to make it happen. Something will be in Big John’s place playing Christmas music. I’m hoping it’s him,” said Strand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cape Coral’s iconic figure, Big John, is undergoing a significant restoration. Since the 1960s, this landmark statue has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,3837,325],"class_list":["post-44512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-collaborator_gen_stories","tag-lee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}