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Ronnie and Harriett Westmoreland stand among the village they donated to Dawn of Hope, which has placed it in Market Square Home Gallery in Erwin.
(Jim Wozniak / Johnson City Press)

Donating a ‘wonderland’- Man donates special display to Dawn of Hope

By Jim Wozniak
Erwin Bureau Chief
jwozniak@johnsoncitypress.com

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ERWIN – Harriett Westmoreland wanted her basement back.

For years, the basement in the house she and her husband, Ronnie, own in Harriman was dominated by a wonderland of houses, stores, trains, seas, ships, trams and churches. Not to mention streets, play areas and snow. There is light and movement.

It is a ceramic village, believed to be the largest in Tennessee and possibly the Southeast, that Ronnie started 20 years ago. From humble beginnings with a downtown, it grew for 15 years into the huge collection that represented what New England is supposed to have looked like in 1900.

But Harriett decided the time had come for it to be moved. Ronnie complied.

Now, the village has made it to Erwin and has a prominent spot in Market Square Home Gallery, an antique store at the corner of Main Avenue and Union Street. The Westmorelands had donated the collection to the Dawn of Hope, which in turn has provided it to Market Square owner Brenda Hawley, who also operates the Choo Choo Cafe in the building.

The village was formally dedicated on Friday, and Ronnie Westmoreland is happy at how everything has turned out.

“It worked out great,” he said. “This is beyond my expectations, especially this place. This place is awesome. This is the best home that it could have – here in Erwin with the Choo Choo Cafe. I’m excited.

“We started with just a little section and called it the downtown,” Ronnie said. “It had a little courthouse. It was like on a coffee table in the living room.”

He decided to start expanding it, so he found a piece of plywood and mounted it on legs and put it in the window and painted a blue sky in the window.

Ronnie added a few things and then undertook a major expansion.

“I got the vision – what if we could build a village that looked like 1900 New England,” he said. “Christmas in New England is kind of (special).”

As he thought about it, Ronnie conjectured that fishing was a prominent part of this community. Then, he thought it would be good to add a mountain that could be used for skiing and a resort area.

Combining those two themes, he came up with the village’s name: Mountain Harbor. The town became a tourism destination and a fishing village. He later beefed up the harbor, which is made of Plexiglas with paint on top. There are no lights under it now, but Ronnie hopes that will be added over time.

As he took a reporter on a tour of the village, he showed a mall that overlooks the skating pond, with a theater and a hotel nearby. He highlighted the mountain area and said it weighed 100 pounds. It was a major production to get this section out of the basement, Ronnie said.

Other features include the tram station and the line that runs to the top of the mountain, where people can ski or stay at the lodge. Not yet installed is a cliff and waterfall that was part of the Westmoreland collection.

Westmoreland travels a lot in his job and would find items for the village when he was out of town. He would buy things at antique stores and Christmas shops but also got a lot in the Gatlinburg area.

“It’s definitely the largest (village) in Tennessee,” said Gary Cameron, who is affiliated with the Southeast Regional Train Center and conducted Friday’s event. “We’ve checked through all of the Chambers (of Commerce) and probably the largest in the whole Southeast.”

About four or five years ago, the village’s expansion ended because the couple had no more room in the basement. Then Harriett stepped in. Ronnie said it was hard to give it up.

“People had pretty well stopped coming to see it,” he said. “We had a couple hundred people a year sometimes come to see it in our home. But over the last few years, a handful.”

Initially, the Westmorelands thought the village could find a home at the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge, but it did not have enough room. Cameron had lived in Kingston, so the children’s museum called him.

“I went over and took a look at it and felt it was feasible to move it to Johnson City,” Cameron. It was housed at the regional train center for a while, but then he learned Hawley wanted a train in her store. Cameron came to Erwin, talked to her and showed her the pictures.

Then, at Cameron’s suggestion, it went to the Dawn of Hope in Johnson City, so clients there could set up the village and show it off. That was an easy sell to the couple because the Westmorelands are involved in the Michael Dunn Center in Roane County, the equivalent of Dawn of Hope there. It’s named after Harriett’s son.

There also were tax benefits to the donation.

Dawn of Hope brought the village from Harriman to Johnson City. Cameron said the keeping the village at Dawn of Hope was not workable, mainly because the public could not see it.

“It’s a positive thing to Unicoi County,” he said. “We’ll try to promote in the Asheville, (N.C.) area to draw people in on their way to Jonesborough or as a destination just coming in here and checking out the antique shops in town. I think the town has great potential.”