As I noted in the last chapter, our Sandbridge Virginia rental beach house had a huge mermaid sculpture out front, and a house filled with countless other mermaids.  But our house wasn’t the only one with a front yard sculpture.  Plenty of other homes had front yard sculptures, and the range of subjects was pretty impressive.  As you’ll see in the slideshow below, the roster of front yard sculptures includes sailor figures, a 7 foot tall tiki figure, a mini version of the Statue of Liberty, a decorative dolphin, a seemingly-out-of-place Christmas Elf holding a bucket of sand, and a strange whale airplane combination riding on top of a wave pedestal!

But the pièce de résistance of Sandbridge is “Isabel,” the Sea Serpent gracing the front yard of the beach house named “Legasea.”  Believe it or not, we actually stayed at this house 11 or 12 years ago, and while I don’t remember anything distinctive or unusual about the interior, having this beast out front is more than enough to make things lively.

The sculpture is made with driftwood, and is set into the sand dunes to make it look as if it were slithering towards the beach.  The arch of the middle must be walked through in order to get to the front door.  From its head to the tip of its tail, it must be at least 40 to 50 feet long.

Sandbridge is, for the most part, a residential community, so other than a general store and a beach shop near the middle of town, there’s not much else around other than beach houses.  Tomorrow I’m going to drive about 15 miles north to Virginia Beach, where the much-more crowded area filled with hotels, restaurants, shops and so forth should make for a completely different experience.  I’m not sure what to expect from an artistic point of view – will there be street art, murals, or other such public art?  We’ll soon find out …