SPECIAL FEATURE: FUNSPOT’s NEW MINI-GOLF 2015
on Hole Sixteen and there was Waldo the Whale on Hole Nine. Originally, the whale had no name and in the first year, 1964, Funspot held a contest to name the whale. Lisa Mueller of Cincinnati, Ohio, who was eight at the time, won the contest. She was given a lifetime
pass to use the Mini-Golf and returned to play right into her thirties. Bob and John had the idea for the New Hampshire landmarks ornaments for some time. “One afternoon, shortly after we had opened the mini-golf, I was driving to North Conway with my
Funspot Owner and General Manager, Bob Lawton, on the first day inside the new 18-Hole Indoor Mini-Golf. The Funspot Family Entertainment Center in Weirs Beach has recently opened its brand new, 18-hole Indoor Mini-Golf Course. Using the completely refurbished, handmade scale-models of New Hampshire landmarks which were the fixture of Funspot’s outdoor course since the 1960s, this 5500 square-foot course is perfect for all ages and only costs five dollars to play. “After fifty years of constant maintenance all of the handmade scale models that were outside through all sorts of weather from May to September
we finally decided that it was time to bring the course, along with some great new components, inside,” said Bob Lawton, founder and owner of Funspot. In 1964, the outdoor Mini-Golf course was the first attraction at Funspot after Bob and his brother, John Lawton, moved their business to its new location on Rte 3 after operating their indoor mini-golf and arcade “The Weirs Sports Center” above Tarlson’s Arcade on Lakeside Ave in Weirs Beach since 1952. (The Rte 3 location is where
Funspot is today.) The first ornaments used on the original Mini-Golf were made by Jim Clough of Pine Grove Cabinet Shop in Winnisquam. It was the only Mini-Golf in the Lakes Region at the time and was successful for years. Besides a replica of the M/S Mount Washington, there were just a few generic ornaments originally for a few of the holes, all of which gave a New Hampshire feel. The windmill on Hole Three, The Barn on Hole Five, the Church on Hole Thirteen and the Outhouse
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First guests teeing up on the new mini-golf are Caroline Goren, Alyssa Fritschka and Christine Woodland of Moultonboro.
SPECIAL FEATURE: FUNSPOT’s NEW MINI-GOLF 2015
A view into the future Mini-Golf Room, above the bowling lanes, prior to the floor being installed.
Wes Peoples (on forklift) and Gary Strong of C C & C Riggers removing the old steel doors in front of the bowling lanes. Funspot’s Business Manager, Steve Lawton, in front of the cellular credit card machine in the Mini-Golf that dispenses golf tokens. Steve worked with ChuckWhite of Triad Designs to develop the one-of-a-kind machine with the electronics designed by White and the machine built by the Funspot Crew. family,” recalls Bob. “There was a house we passed by, opposite the Kancamagus Highway, that had birdhouses outside that were obviously hand-made and well crafted. So I stopped.” That’s when Bob met Fred Thompson and the creation of the scale model landmarks took off. Bob would spend countless hours at many of the historic landmarks taking measurements both outside and inside. He spent a whole day inside Kimball’s Castle in Gilford making
Mike Liappes (L) Bowling Center Mechanic and League Manager, looks on as Carrier Welding Services installs the first post.
Kevin Goupil (R) of Bonette, Page & Stone, oversees the pouring of concrete footings by East Coast Foundations. sure he had all the dimensions correct. He then drew scaled down diagrams of the proper size and dimensions and brought
them to Fred. “I’d take a ride up there just about every week or two to see how the work was coming along.”
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Bob said. “Fred was very talented. He did all the work in his kitchen. Everything was built to scale” The first landmark to be built was Spindle Point in 1965. Others to follow were the North Conway Railroad Station, the Cog Railway, The Jackson Covered Bridge, Kimball’s Castle and the Sap House which was scaled after one in Rumney owned by Rep. Manson Smith. Fred also built the Summer Cottage. Unlike the fiberglass orna-
SPECIAL FEATURE: FUNSPOT’s NEW MINI-GOLF 2015
TRB Construction installing an engineered beam.
Barry Salta (L) Project Manager and Keith McBey, Vice President at Bonnette, Page & Stone.
Employees of TRB Construction carry in one of the engineered beams.
Kevin Goupil, Construction Supervisor at Bonnette, Page & Stone. ments used on most Mini-Golf courses today, the Funspot ones were made of wood and every year they would bear the brunt of summer weather: rain, storms, heat and humidity as well as regular wear and tear as thousand of players would traverse the course over the summer months. For fifty years the models were removed from the course after Labor Day and transported to Funspot’s maintenance building where they would each have a makeover every year. Some just needed a simple paint job while others had to be rebuilt as time and Mother Nature
Bill Carrier (center) of Carrier Welding Services, installing the steel framework fabricated by Blouin Steel.
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SPECIAL FEATURE: FUNSPOT’s NEW MINI-GOLF 2015
Looking into the huge room that was hidden above the Bowling Center. The floor is completed for the new Mini-Golf.
Bob Temple of BT Acoustics LLC, installs the new ceiling. The installation of the floor is well under way. worked against the wood. “It was always one of our biggest projects in the winter,” said Lawton. “It was time consuming and used a lot of manpower but we were always proud that each year for fifty years, every one of those models would be ready for the summer looking as good as the first day they appeared.” Still, the summer season is a short one in the Lakes Region and as more Mini-Golf courses appeared in the area Funspot’s was still one of the premier attractions mainly because of those models. Over the last several years, the number of players during the season shrunk and the maintenance on the landmark ornaments as well as on the course itself in-
creased. In 2014 it was decided to close the outdoor Mini-Golf, meticulously refurbish all of the original handmade historic landmarks and open a brand new 18hole Indoor Mini-Golf that would be open every day of the year and would be completely self-service. Since 2004, Funspot had great success with their self-service, nine hole, Retro Indoor Mini-Golf which was designed to be similar to the original course over Tarlson’s Arcade built in 1952 by Bob Lawton and his brother John. It had seen thousands of players over the years. But that course was geared towards younger children and the new 18-hole course would be something that every member of the family could enjoy at a very reasonable price.
BUILDING THE NEW MINI-GOLF Above Funspot’s twenty-lane bowling center was a 50 x 110 foot (5500 square feet) empty space without a floor that was just right for a project as ambitious as an Indoor Mini-Golf course. So, the first step would be to build a floor above the ceiling of the bowling center to make the space usable. “Obviously the first thing that we needed to do was to hire a contractor to get the floor put in,” said Lawton. “Because of their exceptional reputation, the only company I wanted to do this was Bonnette, Page & Stone. They were hired for the job and had a tight window to work in since they needed to do this extensive Bowling Center is back in full operation and the installation of new LCD job within a few weeks so Funspot scoring monitors has begun. could have the bowling center,
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SPECIAL FEATURE: FUNSPOT’s NEW MINI-GOLF 2015
Installers from The Home Beautiful in Belmont, NH, lay the new carpet for the Mini-Golf.
which had to close eight lanes during construction, completely open in time for the summer vacation season. The complete job required new footings, steel columns and steel beams as well as the new floor and was finished in three weeks and two days with the very last piece of the project being complete at 6pm on July 3rd. “They were remarkable,” said Lawton. “I can’t tell you how happy we are with the work they did. The skill and professionalism of the entire crew was great and they made sure to accommodate our schedule. The next day,
Funspot owner and General Manager Bob Lawton (L) with Master Carpenter Don Pintacura.
Master Carpenter Don Pintacura installing window trim. Gary Vincent and Chris Ferguson of Funspot did the early stages of the layout for the mini Don was also the lead carpenter for the construction of the golf using Ram Board. D.A. Long Tavern at Funspot.
Waldo The Whale receives some dental work before returning to the Mini-Golf.
Longtime Funspot employees, Bubba Hahn (L) and his father, Cal Hahn, rebuild the park benches for the MiniGolf.
the Fourth of July, was a rainy day and Funspot was packed and we were very happy to be able to accommodate all of our guests by having all twenty lanes of bowling open.”
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THE FUNSPOT CREW TAKES OVER
With a busy summer ahead of them, the Funspot crew couldn’t really get to work on the new
Mini-Golf room until after Labor Day. With all new electric installed by J.W. Electric of Meredith the drywall work could be done. Once that was completed, Brad
SPECIAL FEATURE: FUNSPOT’s NEW MINI-GOLF 2015
Five decades of being outdoors took its toll on the Cog Railway Passenger Car.
The Campton Schoolhouse prior to extensive Campton Schoolhouse after renovation. renovation. Franklin of Meredith painted the walls. Master Carpenter, Don Pintacura, who had already done some rough framing in the room, went to work cutting out and framing the windows at the entrance to the Mini-Golf as well as doing the trim, baseboard work and the crown molding. Ceiling work was done by Bob Temple of BT Acous-
Fifty years outdoors required extensive restoration work on the barn.
Bob Lawton filling in hundreds of nail holes prior to painting.
tics, LLC, after which J.W Electric came back to install the LED lighting in the ceiling. Matt Porter of Porter Heating and Cooling in Laconia took care of all the air conditioning duct work. Capital Fire Protection of Loudon installed the Life Safety Fire Sprinkler system. The Funspot crew then finished off this portion of the job by installing the security cameras and music system. The Funspot Crew used all of the nearly completed room to cut, sand and paint the massive amount of lumber they purchased from R.P. Williams in Bristol which would be used as the boards for each hole. All of the wood was 1 ½ by 3 inch poplar, 16-feet long. “This was a long process,” said Lawton. “It was a huge job. There was lumber everywhere through-
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out that room until we had it all done. Then we stacked it outside the room.” Once all that work was completed the new carpet from The Home Beautiful in Belmont was put down on October 14th, 2014. During all this time, up in the Funspot Maintenance Building, Bob Lawton and the Funspot Crew were busy restoring all of the Landmark of New Hampshire historic scale model ornaments. Bringing them back to look brand new was a labor of love which took months. “I’d guess we started doing the remodeling in October,” said Lawton. “There was a lot involved such as Don Pintacura rebuilding the trestle of the Cog Railway model. There was a lot of detailed work that needed to be done to bring the ornaments back.” The interiors of the ornaments were completely refurbished including new wallpaper, paint, furniture, LED lights and scale model figures. (The cottage, one of the original Mini-Golf ornaments, is still being worked on as we write
SPECIAL FEATURE: FUNSPOT’s NEW MINI-GOLF 2015
Bob Lawton, a life-long history enthusiast, carefully restores the North Conway Railroad Station.
John McGray, Funspot’s Webmaster and Graphic Designer, lends a hand assembling the Mini-Golf as Bob Lawton looks on.
Chris Ferguson (L) and Gary Vincent installing the Purple Martin Bird House. Funspot has one of only three known Purple Martin colonies in the state.
this.) After the carpet was laid, the room was ready to set up and it was time to lay out the new Mini-Golf hole design. Using Ram Board, which is cardboard strength material which is laid down at construction sites to help avoid damage to the area where the work is being done, Gary Vincent and Chris Ferguson of Funspot, cut out templates of the Mini-Golf holes and laid them in place around the room until they had the perfect layout for all eighteen holes. “Laying out eighteen holes in that space was no easy job,” said Lawton. “Using the Ram Board was much more exact than laying it out on a piece of paper. It was the same width as the holes would be and it could be moved about easily and helped to make the layout perfect. We always wanted to be sure there was six feet between the green of on e hole and the tee of the next as well as keeping every hole twenty inches from the wall to accommodate left-handed players.”
Gary Vincent after installing the North Conway Railroad Station.
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SPECIAL FEATURE: FUNSPOT’s NEW MINI-GOLF 2015
End of an Era, New Beginnings For 50 Year Old Attraction
Funspot’s crew removed the red boards after Labor Day in preparation for the concrete removal.
W.F. Richards & Sons removing the concrete from Funspot’s Outdoor Mini-Golf.
Will Richards (L) and his father, Bill Richards, cutting the concrete on the Outdoor Mini-Golf. Bill drove a dump truck for Lauris Avery in 1964 during the construction of the course.
The layout with the Ram Board was completed by November 1st. As the landmark ornaments were each completed, they would be brought down and placed on their new location in the Indoor Mini-Golf room. Some, like the North Conway Railroad Station, took as many as six people to move. The next phase of the Mini-Golf was placing all the painted boards down to match the layout created by the Ram Board using lag screws to secure each one. The room itself is adorned with photos of some of the actual landmarks being represented on the course as well as some artifacts that high-
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light the history of Funspot, the Lakes Region and other areas in New Hampshire. Three of the most important features of the new 18-hole Indoor MiniGolf Course are that it is completely self-service taking both cash and credit cards, can be enjoyed by all ages from toddlers to grandparents, only costs five dollars per person to play AND you might even win a free game on the nineteenth hole. Bob Lawton and the Funspot crew would like to invite everyone to help celebrate the Lakes Region’s newest attraction! Come day or night, rain or shine, open every day, all year!!