Fairyland Statues at Ulele

The story

In 1957, Tampa opened Fairyland, a municipal storybook park inside Lowry Park where generations of local kids walked past fiberglass vignettes of mother goose rhymes and fairy tales. Decades later, the park was demolished, and its mid-century inhabitants didn't get a proper burial—they were tossed into a dark city storage facility where they sat gathering dust and rotting away for years.

Local historian Mario Nuñez eventually rediscovered the forgotten statues decaying in municipal storage. Recognizing what they were, Columbia Restaurant Group owner Richard Gonzmart bought the survivors at a city auction, hired restoration artists to scrub off decades of grime and repair the cracked fiberglass, and moved them to the grounds of his riverfront restaurant, Ulele.

Today, these restored survivors stand scattered outside the red-brick 1903 waterworks pumping building along the Hillsborough River. You'll find Cinderella beside her pumpkin carriage, Humpty Dumpty balanced precariously nearby, and various other vintage fiberglass refugees sharing space with a bronze statue of Princess Ulele along the public walkway.