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Cowtopia
In May of this year, Mark Cline and his wife, Sherry, installed Cowtopia amidst the eighteen holes of the Bethpage Miniature Golf & Ice Creamery in Urbanna.
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Ice cream garden
Walt Hurley says, “The dairy theme has always been on the property in a subtle way. In the future, we plan to enhance it throughout the resort.”
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Bethie mobile
Mark Cline describes Cowtopia as a magical land where giant dairy cows go after a long day and do just about anything they want.
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The fat cow sings
“Our mission is to continue adding unique elements to Bethpage Camp-Resort that differentiate it from our competitors and make it a memorable destination for our guests," says owner Walt Hurley Jr.
What do you do if you have a 200-acre camp resort on the Rappahannock—twice selected as Park of the Year by the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds—with 1,200 RV sites, thirty cottages, a five-acre freshwater lake, two swimming pools, an eighteen-hole miniature golf course, a 12,000-square-foot reception center, and a marina? If you’re Walt Hurley Jr., owner of the Bethpage Camp-Resort and Bethpage Miniature Golf & Ice Creamery in Urbanna, you keep reinventing it, beginning with the minigolf course. And to do that, you hire the very best: the internationally recognized, fedora-wearing artist/sculptor Mark Cline.
In 2012, after Sandra Mathews, owner of Creative Designs of Virginia, told Walt about the artist, he took off for Natural Bridge. When Mark Cline pulled up with a gigantic dinosaur head in tow, Walt knew he’d come to the right place. “We wanted to design a fun, exciting course for families that tied back into the history of the property,” says Walt. The property, which has been in the Hurley family for generations, was once a dairy farm that supplied milk to Urbanna residents after the American Civil War. “The dairy theme has always been on the property in a subtle way. In the future, we plan to enhance it throughout the resort.”
In May of this year, Mark Cline and his wife, Sherry, installed Cowtopia amidst the eighteen holes. Mark describes it as a magical land where giant dairy cows go after a long day and do just about anything they want, from boating on giant ice cream sundaes to tasting ice cream made from their own milk. “I couldn’t be more pleased with the incredibly creative concept he has developed for us,” says Walt. “Our mission is to continue adding unique elements to Bethpage Camp-Resort that differentiate it from our competitors and make it a memorable destination for our guests.”
Mark and Sherry Cline run Enchanted Castle Studios in Natural Bridge, where he designs, sculpts, and manufactures … well, strange, otherworldly foam and fiberglass creatures. They include a big pink hippo on a mini-golf course, a gigantic King Kong climbing a truck stop, assorted terrifying monsters and dinosaurs, and tours such as Professor Cline’s Haunted Monster Museum on view at roadside attractions, museums, and private estates around the world. Most renowned among Mark’s work is Foamhenge, a wacky idea that started out as one of Mark’s infamous April fool’s pranks. At sunrise, April 1, 2004, Natural Bridge residents awoke to find a full-sized replica of Stonehenge, fashioned from foam and fiberglass.
Now open to the public, Foamhenge—called one of the “top 25 strangest roadside attractions”—has garnered worldwide attention. Suddenly, Mark was “on the map,” featured in books, magazine articles—most recently, the July issue of O, Oprah’s popular magazine—and on broadcast media ranging from the Discovery and National Geographic Channels to the Wall Street Journal Radio Network.
Bethpage Miniature Golf & Ice Creamery
804-758-GOLF • Facebook.com/BethpageGolf
Mark Cline • enchantedcastlestudios.com