Snowzilla's happy home

"I haven't kept my house up," he acknowledged. "It wasn't nice when I bought it and it's not nice now."

No excuses, no rants. Billy Powers isn't a bad neighbor. He's a man out of Anchorage's past.

And he's the creator of Snowzilla, the magnificent snowman that's grown to two stories and gone from neighborhood wonder to worldwide renown.

"I got here in 1957 and Anchorage was a whole different kind of place at that time," he said Friday. Mr. Powers, 51, grew up in 1960s and '70s Anchorage. He delivered papers to the late Orville Lake, who kept a dog team at his log home near Tudor Road. He went to the school bus stop with "Ricky" Mackey, the 1983 Iditarod winner whose family had sled dogs in Anchorage in those days.

"It was pioneer and I loved it," he said. "People had cows, they had horses, they had stuff."

And they did stuff. Mr. Powers has done stuff in his yard, from building Snowzilla to fabricating welds by the thousands to hobby blacksmithing to running a commercial flower business with his partner, Peggy Davis, a florist and gardener who has won City of Flowers competitions. Last week Snowzilla's hat was perched on top of the flower watering tank in their old blue Nissan parked at the curb.

Some neighbors -- led by one couple, according to Mr. Powers -- have complained about the rundown house and junkyard grounds over the years. City inspectors have called. Their messages, he said, haven't always been consistent from inspector to inspector.

"I have literally played musical sheds. One shed I've moved three times. The other I've moved twice. One shed I took completely out."

He's been warned and fined, and has promised a prettier property, as he did last week.

"One day at a time," he said. He said he has other priorities, like the couple's five children still living at home.

He doesn't seem to be bitter. "The neighbors are grand," he said. "I have a sweet bunch of neighbors here. I even try to get along with the ones who are callin' continuously." Three years or so ago, when he was doing piecework welds to pay the bills, he did no grinding at night for the sake of neighborhood tranquility. And he tried to cover the flare of the welding torch he used in the wee hours.

He likes where he lives. He likes the fact that all the houses in his neighborhood aren't the same. "To me, a row condo is about as ugly a living unit as there is."

Last week the property looked like a work in long-stalled progress. You wouldn't need to know the address to know the house.

But it would be wrong to call it blight. A mess? Sure. The place won't make the Parade of Homes, and Mr. Powers knows Anchorage isn't pioneer any more. He needs to clean up the property -- without changing the spirit.

The makers of Snowzilla and prize-winning flowers know a fundamental truth about neighborhoods.

"I'm a lot more interested in the folks than I am in the house itself," Mr. Powers said. "I think people make the neighborhood."

BOTTOM LINE: Billy Powers needs to clean it up, but don't call him a bad neighbor.

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EVEN Rep. Mike Kelly: Fairbanks Republican steps up, says Uncle Ted and others should retire. GOP voice in the wilderness, or first call?

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