Edition: U.S. / Global

Private Zoo's Creatures Great, Small And Exotic

Published: December 1, 1996

Like a modern-day Noah, Henry Wallace has ranged far afield to fill his modern-day menagerie.

Henry's Ark takes an alphabet-soup approach to animal collection. And, as in the Old Testament story, Mr. Wallace works hard to preserve his varied species.

Even though he has not found two members of every breed, he covers nearly all the letters of the English language in his collection. It starts with antelopes, bison, camels, donkeys, emus, fallow deer, goats and hogs and winds up with nilgai cows, an ostrich, peacocks, quail, reindeer, swans, turkeys, Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, water buffalo, yaks and zebu.

More than 100 animals and birds roam this private zoo, part of a 600-acre farm on Rose Island Road in one of Louisville's most affluent suburbs. Mr. Wallace, an heir to his mother's pharmaceuticals fortune and a former correspondent for Time magazine and several American newspapers, opened the pens to the public four years ago.

Henry's Ark attracts about 25,000 visitors annually from all over the world. When school groups visit, Mr. Wallace takes them on safaris in a 40-seat trolley.

He spent about $300,000 buying the animals and building their homes. Until recently, he spent $75,000 a year catering to the critters.

Last summer, the farm began seeking donations. At 81, Mr. Wallace knows he will not be around forever to subsidize his nonprofit organization. He hopes to make the ark self-supporting before bequeathing it to his six children and eight grandchildren.

From August through October, visitors contributed about $10,000 in cash, ''plus a foreign coin of undetermined value and one ruby-looking ring.'' If he can get some grants and keep earning money from sales of extra animals, who would inbreed if they stayed, Mr. Wallace said the farm could become self-supporting.

''Very few people are going to open a place like this and not charge anything for it,'' he said. ''It makes no sense. I do it anyway.''

Except for a few skittish or ornery critters, most of Mr. Wallace's pets have the run of the place and mingle freely with people. It is not unusual to see a pygmy goat lounging on the hood of a car, an elk licking a visitor's ear or a reindeer nibbling an open pack of saltines in a baby stroller. At this home on the range, the deer and the antelope really do play.

Mr. Wallace had kept animals on the family farm for years -- mostly cows, ponies and llamas -- but it was not until a decade ago that he started seeking more unusual creatures. He bought most of the beasts at auctions of exotic animals.

A civil rights advocate and sympathizer with Fidel Castro who regularly expresses his views in the letters section of The Courier-Journal, Mr. Wallace was known for years around these parts as Rose Island Red. His liberal leanings have attracted plenty of attention over the years, including hate mail, stoplight showdowns and a bomb that exploded in his mailbox. The metal sign identifying the place as Moncada Farms -- named after the Cuban army barracks that Castro attacked unsuccessfully in 1953 to start the Communist revolution -- is riddled with bullet holes.

Mr. Wallace said Henry's Ark had brought him a measure of respectability in his community. A short gnome-like man who drives a beat-up pickup truck filled with assorted dogs, Mr. Wallace is often mistaken for a farmhand. Along with the ark's full-time director, Penny Schaefer, he cares for the animals almost every day of the year in a job that includes both risks and rewards: he has been caught in the crossfire of two llamas engaged in a spitting contest, fed rejected newborns with baby bottles and helped a camel give birth while the 1,500-pound bull tried to mate with her.

''You learn to climb the fence without any hands,'' Ms. Schaefer said about some of their life-threatening encounters with the beasts. ''Henry's been 'treed' quite a few times.''

Map of Kentucky showing the location of Henry's Ark.