One of Colorado’s zaniest of imaginative wonders will be featured on a new Home & Garden Television series premiering today. The Swetsville Zoo outside Fort Collins, where dinosaurs and giant bugs vie for space inside a farmer’s yard, will get some national exposure on “Offbeat America.”
The weekly show, at 4 p.m., highlights individuals who express their love of house and garden in wacky and phenomenal ways.
“People are going to be asking, ‘How do you dream up this stuff?”‘ says Graham Clarke, executive producer at the Denver-based High Noon Entertainment company, which produced “Offbeat America.”
“People like Bill have really had a lot of fun with their homes and have used their freedom to do amazing things.”
Most folks around Fort Collins already know about the prehistoric creatures, giant insects and the “heavy metal” band Bill Swets rescued from the scrap heap of farm living – including spare tractor parts, shovels, sparkplugs, old tires and bike forks.
What started out as a piece of lawn art named “Buzzard George” created from a bike fork, a shovel and a mower guard has morphed into a menagerie of more than 150 imagined creatures.
An estimated 20,000 visitors each year have visited the “zoo” since it opened in 1985 off Interstate 25 and the Harmony Road exit in Fort Collins. Swets has added nine parking spots – meaning there will be a total of 30 to handle the crowd he expects once the show airs Sunday.
“This is just a hobby that has gotten completely outta hand,” says Swets, adding that at 64 he’s just trying to keep the grass mowed. “Mentally, I’m 5, but physically, I’m 84.”
Swets will have to share some of the spotlight. A host of upcoming shows will feature more offbeat homeowners in Colorado.
A geologist who created his home by blasting a 2,000-square-foot hole into the side of a cliff near Grand Junction will be in one episode. And the show plans to shoot a mountain dome home near Conifer, complete with a waterfall and a fish pond smack in the middle of the house.
Staff writer Sheba R. Wheeler can be reached at 303-820-1283 or swheeler@denverpost.com.
