Skatopia: Skate Mecca In Meigs County
June - 02- 2005
By: Nick Claussen
Athens NEWS Associate Editor

People from all over the country and the world are traveling to nearby Meigs County to a place most people in Athens County have never heard of.

Off Ohio Rt. 124, down a few winding roads, out in the middle of nowhere, an even smaller road leads to Skatopia. At first glance, this place looks like an ordinary old farm, albeit with some interesting cars and trailers scattered around.

That's misleading, though, as Skatopia, is a hugely popular skateboard park that has been featured in video games, written about in national publications, visited by skateboarding stars, shown on television, and talked about by people all over the world. While many people in the region have never heard of Skatopia, those in the know refer to it as a "skateboarders' mecca."

"I think it's amazing," said Carlos Zuniga, who was skating at the park last Friday. "I'm from Toledo, and I came down to check this place out."

Skatopia has several areas to skateboard, including (warning, skating lingo ahead) a huge "full pipe," a "vert ramp" and several bowls. Some of the skateboarding areas are indoors while others are outside.

Skatopia is also home to the Museum of Skateboard History, which boasts more than 1,200 vintage skateboards.

Perhaps best of all, Skatopia is filled with people who skateboard together, hang out with one another and combine their efforts to keep improving the place.

On June 10-11, Skatopia will host Bowl Bash X, a mini-festival that fills the property with more than 40 live bands, brings in skateboarders from around the country, and helps to raise money for the park. Skateboarding is always free at Skatopia, but the park raises money through contributions and the sales of merchandise, including the new Skatopia shoes that soon will be sold in 22 countries.

BREWCE MARTIN IS the force behind Skatopia. He has loved skateboarding all of his life and started Skatopia with another person in 1995.

"I've always been building ramps in my yard. My mom actually built my first one for me," recalled Martin, who is 39. His mother knew that if he was skateboarding in the yard growing up in Vienna, W.Va., he wouldn't be out getting into trouble, he said.

"Basically, my mom gave me the incentive," he said. "I just always made my home a place where my friends had fun."

Since Skatopia was founded in 1995, hundreds of people have donated to the park and helped build it up, Martin said.

"It's a 30-year project," he said. He wants to build a "skateboarding monument," and it seems he's well on his way. Martin makes money for Skatopia through the sale of various skateboarding items, through donations and from corporate sponsors. He also helps build skateboard parks across the country and helped to build the Athens Skatepark, which people at Skatopia speak of highly.

"I have been building parks in one form or another since 1979," Martin said. "But skating is my main priority. I focus on skating more than on working. I'm just a kid at heart."

Martin said he works hard to keep improving Skatopia for himself, and for all of the people who skateboard there.

"I'm pretty much on a mission to support Skatopia without charging people to skate," he said.

Even when he has bands playing at Skatopia, he still does not charge admission. One of the next big projects at Skatopia, in fact, is to build an amphitheater for future concerts. He is currently trying to raise money for the amphitheater.

"What I'm doing is creating a music venue to support my lifestyle and support everyone's free skateboarding," Martin said. "We have a huge network of people that are involved that now contribute."

It's understood at Skatopia that if people are there skateboarding, they also will help out with the work. Martin lets people stay at the park, whether they are camping outside or crashing in his house. Zuniga and his wife, Brooke, in fact, just showed up at 11:30 p.m. one night recently hoping to skateboard and spend the night on the property.

Many components of the park were also donated, such as the wood to the full pipe that was donated to Skatopia after it was used at a "Gravity Games" competition, according to Martin.

"I am really the most anti-capitalist person there is," said Martin, who describes himself as anti-political. "I believe in living by example, and my example is this dream. I'm going to live it, and I'm going to share it with everyone else who has this dream. I don't care about the rest of the system. This is my system, and if you like it and want to get involved, come on out."

While people are dropping in and out of Skatopia all the time, and people are often living there for a few days or longer, Martin said it's not a commune.

"A lot of people think we are communal living, but don't mistake it; this is a dictatorship. I am the dictator. This is my home, this is where I live," he said.

On most days, Martin is at Skatopia skateboarding and improving the property. When times get tough financially, as they do every so often, he takes a job helping to build a skateboard park somewhere so he can raise more money for Skatopia. Martin said he works on two or three parks every year and is hoping to keep building up Skatopia's finances. He sells a wide variety of clothing and skateboarding items at the park and on the Web site, and is always looking for donations. The video game that Skatopia was featured in recently, Martin added, was "Tony Hawk Underground Thug 2," which came out around Christmas.

COLE BIRD OF PARKERSBURG and Aaron Reynolds of Marietta are two of the many area residents who often skateboard and work at Skatopia. Bird has been coming to Skatopia for the last five years and often spends his weekends on the property. Reynolds has been coming for the last four years, and also frequently spends a few days a week at the park.

During the daytime hours, people at the park skateboard outside, often in the bowl at the top of a nearby hill, Reynolds said. He pointed out that the skateboarding bowl has a bus built into its side. The headlights of the bus can be seen in the bowl, and skateboarders can actually skate right into the old bus. Sometimes, people camp overnight in the bus, and then just skateboard more in the morning, according to Reynolds. The skateboarders refer to the bus as the "Lula Bowl."

One of the next big additions to the park will be a "snake run" down the hill from the bus, Reynolds said. With the snake run, people can skateboard through the bus, or jump over it and land on a concrete ramp that takes them all the way down the hill. A few jumps and twists will be part of the ramp descending the hill.

At night at the park, if the moon is full, the skateboarders continue to use the outside bowl, Reynolds said. Even if it's dark, they can skate at the lighted areas in and around the barns.

Brandon Martin, who is Brewce Martin's son, skateboards at the park and helps out most days, along with his friends, including Ryan Mossburg of Parkersburg. Brandon Martin said that people from all over the nation and world come to the park almost every weekend. Just recently, he said, people from Germany visited Skatopia to skateboard and hang around.

Brewce Martin said he's proud to have Skatopia and proud to share it.

"That's what makes me happy, seeing people being able to have a good time. That's what I get out of it," Martin said. "Also, I get people constantly around pushing me to my limit. I'm on this mission to show people what kind of athlete I really am. I'm going to be 75 and still skateboarding."

Martin and his son are both excellent skateboarders, and they occasionally go on tours to showcase their skills.

"He actually skates like I did when I was his age," Martin said about his son. He said he's happy his son likes skateboarding, and even happier that his son can stay at home and have fun with his friends, just like he did when he was younger.

THE SKATEBOARDING MUSEUM is another big focus of Skatopia, and Martin said he hopes to turn the museum into a non-profit corporation in the future. In 1989, his mother bought a skateboard at a garage sale for Martin, and it turned out to be one of his old skateboards. He said he decided to save the skateboard and soon started searching garage sales and flea markets for more of them.

In four years, he collected around 750 skateboards, and today he has more than 1,200 of them. People are always donating skateboards to the museum, and Martin said he's proud to have so many.

"The skateboard museum is probably worth everything I own put together," Martin said. "It's kind of weird that it's worth so much." His goal for this year is to turn the museum into a non-profit corporation, and then have the skateboard park actually be designated as part of the museum.

Martin has many plans for Skatopia and numerous people visiting the park who want to help out. Whether people are attending the packed events like Bowl Bash X on June 10 and 11, or are just skateboarding on a lazy summer afternoon, it's a pretty safe bet that they're a good time with their friends, helping to improve the park, and enjoying the rush of skateboarding.

This is just like Martin wants it to be.

Link: Athens News