Belinder Circle Fountain
Beginning in the 1920s, J.C. Nichols and, later his son, Miller Nichols installed sculptures imported from Europe in the Country Club district of Mission Hills, Kansas. The sculptures were given to local homes associations. J.C. Nichols’ plan was to create urban neighborhoods with country estate charms in a classical European style. Since that time, the City of Mission Hills has taken over the maintenance of the sculptures.
This 300-year-old marble fountain was imported from France to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where it was purchased by J.C. Nichols of the J.C. Nichols Company. It was installed around 1926. It consists of three cherubs dancing with arms intertwined around a pedestal that supports a saucer. The cherubs dance on a short, square platform with ridged sides. The cherubs share a flimsy fabric that drapes across their bodies and each cherub is holding a bunch of grapes. The sculpture may have been a birdbath originally and not a fountain.
The entire marble sculpture sits on top of a four-sided stone base in the center of a basin. A fountain ring encircles the stone base in the basin and projects streams of water in a circular pattern. The fountain was restored in 1993.
The fountain sits in the middle of a traffic circle at the intersection of Belinder Avenue, W 65th Street, Tomahawk Road and Norwood Street. The traffic circle is landscaped into a large diamond pattern with an ornamental shrub at each point and the fountain at its center.
