THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

When the gnomes moved into a Pennsylvania state park, the children in town begged their parents to take them there.

Hikers had begun spotting the whimsical dwellings along the footpaths of Little Buffalo State Park, northwest of Harrisburg, in early December. As word spread on social media and in a local news broadcast, more and more families came, some traveling two or three hours.

But the fun was to be short lived. The smurf-like village was dismantled this week after state officials, citing the surge of visitors, declared it a nuisance, in a move that has generated outrage well beyond the park’s small-town setting by the Juniata River.

“We don’t really think it’s a state park kind of thing,” Jason Baker, the park’s manager, said. “We like to have more visitors. We like having people come here. But the experience we’re trying to give is a natural, ecological experience.”

The gnome homes were the creation of Steve Hoke, 65, a former prison counselor and a grandfather of five who lives in nearby Newport. Restless in his retirement, Mr. Hoke said he was inspired by a video he saw about a similar project in Kansas.

He got permission from park officials to give it a try at Little Buffalo, where he walks daily, and set about building the wooden homes.

“The idea was to get kids out of the house, away from the electronics, and go for a walk,” Mr. Hoke said.

Altogether, he created 38 dwellings. Some sat atop wooden stumps, while others were little more than colorful doors affixed by hinges to holes in trees. They carried tiny signs that read “gnome headquarters,” “enjoy the forest” or “gnomes are nature’s work.” The creatures themselves showed up later, placed by an anonymous fellow traveler, Mr. Hoke said.

Mr. Baker, the park manager, said things got out of hand.

“It blew up a lot bigger than we ever expected it to be,” he said, citing worries about compacted soil and disruptions of wildlife habitat.

When he ran the issue up the state parks’ chain of command, it was decided that the gnome houses were a bad fit.

“We feel bad that people are disappointed,” Mr. Baker said. “However, part of our mission is to teach conservation and environmental ethics, and we don’t want to teach those kids that there are gnomes out here in the woods.”

The evictions have exasperated many local residents, who have vented in an online petition signed by more than 500 people urging the parks administration to back off. The gnome supporters called the project “lovely,” “whimsical” and an expression of “magic” in the forest.

Eric Tressler summed up one of the petition’s themes: “Stop taking nice things away from families.”

// posted by montag @ 2:02 PM