In one of Aurora|Seattle's first posts we mentioned the recent removal of the Aurora Rents elephant from its perch near 88th street, so that it could undergo a process of restoration. For the past two months, Bill Heath of W.R. Heath, Inc., a Snohomish based concrete contractor and friend of Aurora Rents, has been working on the elephant whenever he has had a chance. More recently, he's been showing up every day in the hopes of finishing the elephant in the next few weeks.
In a recent visit with Mr. Heath, Aurora|Seattle learned a bit about what exactly this project has entailed.
"One of the first things I had to do was get the pigeons out." According to Heath, there were pigeons living in the booth on top as well as the belly of the elephant, which was moved to its current Aurora location from Fremont in 1946. Heath put in some new wire screening to keep the pigeons out, but apparently they weren't pleased. "The pigeons still daily leave me some little things here and there," said Heath.
One of the most significant structural changes Heath had to make was to replace the original redwood that had been built in to various parts of the structure. "Over time the wood got wet, puffed up, and became weak." Heath had to carefully replace some of these wood pieces with steel bars without collapsing the structure on the elephant's back.
Among the other improvements Heath made were replacing the original deteriorated tail, restoring the trunk and tusks according to their original shape, and replacing many of the tile sections. Of the all of the tile sections, the front one was the only one in good enough condition to save.
When asked if he made any creative improvements, Heath smiled, "I made the ears a bit bigger. They were just a bit too small."
There are a few more things that Heath needs to do before he adds the final coat of waterproof stucco, but look for the restored Aurora elephant to be completed within the next month.
(For before photos, see here and here) 
