Road Trip Memories » Town of Summer Place

We visited Town of Summer Place during a Corvair club trip in July, 2002 – just two months before our wedding. Town of Summer Place is the very cool realization of Jim Richardson’s dream…to build a replica of a typical 50’s town…in his own backyard, which helps him to raise funds for his charity “A Home For Every Child.” Click on the links below to learn more.

Jim has built something very special…Jim has a barbershop, Standard Oil station, cinema, fire station and even a working diner! They can even serve good old delicacies like cheeseburgers, fries, banana splits and cherry cokes! When we saw a brochure about Summer Place which indicated that events could be held there, we immediately looked at each other with that gleam in our eyes…we knew we were each thinking we should have our wedding there!! Monday, we got to work and started making the arrangements. We even decided to have Jim and crew cater and we served our guests burgers, fries and cherry cokes! Of course, banana splits and wedding cake for dessert.

Though it wasn’t on Route 66, it certainly was evocative of the spirit of Route 66!!

“Town of Summer Place”

This was just such an interesting place to see, all built within someone’s backyard! There was a large building available to have the reception. Not altogether glamorous, but functional anyway…the ambience of the “town” was what we really wanted. It gave everyone a chance to roam around and enjoy looking at everything, as well as Jim’s collection of memorabilia, restored vintage bicycles, ice coolers, etc. We decorated our tables with a Route 66 theme: I made table tents of Route 66 photos for every table, and we also used cutouts from Michael and Suzanne Wallis’ book; I also made mini Burma Shave signs for the tables, and a “road” down the center. We decorated everything in our Route 66 stuff, and Pat put together a display on Route 66.

Emily made us some real Burma Shave signs, which led our guests to the parking area.

ALL TO PAT

HER HEART

JENN GAVE

MUST’VE BEEN THE

BURMA SHAVE

We arrived in the Corvair owned by Pat’s best man, Pete Lapitsky. We were escorted by Jim Richardson in his classic sheriff’s car – see photo below. My maid of honor was my best friend, Lori Bouchard.