‘Steampunk Village’ made this Wichita neighborhood famous. Now, it’s being auctioned.
Gary Pendergrass has spent much of his retirement in his workshop, fueling a late-in-life artistic streak by turning odds and ends he picked up at garage sales into Steampunk-style folk art sculptures.
His work is well-known to people who live near or have occasion to travel along the 3800 block of West 17th Street, where an eye-catching outdoor display of his art has become unofficially known as Steampunk Village.
But now, Pendergrass is almost 80. He started making art when he retired from his career as a home remodeler 12 years ago, and his hobby has run its course. Though he stays busy tinkering, he’s not making art anymore.
Plus, he’s trying to clear out the house at 3831 W. 17th St., which sits across the street from his own home of 40 years and is where his shop and his big outdoor display reside. Pendergrass bought the second property in the early 2000s because it had a garage he wanted to use as a workspace. He remodeled the attached home and has been renting it out. Renters have to agree to co-exist with the towering sculptures that are placed inside — and are attached to —the house’s fence.
So Pendergrass hired McCurdy Real Estate & Auction in Wichita to help his art pieces find new homes. McCurdy will be auctioning the items online from Tuesday, May 13, through May 22 and will allow people to preview the items from noon to 5 p.m. on May 20.
Megan McCurdy Niedens, who is serving as the auction manager, said that the sale includes 335 lots. Some of them are sculptures. Some of them trinkets that Pendergrass collected over the years for use in his pieces — things like tubs of mason jars or bins of buttons.
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The items that will be sold include all the outdoor pieces on and behind the fence at the Steampunk Village as well as the many pieces Pendergrass has on display inside his house. Photos and descriptions of the pieces for sale are posted on the auction website: McCurdy.com/SteamPunkVillage
This week, Pendergrass said that he made the decision to start clearing out his collection fairly recently.
“I woke up a month or two ago having realized that that phase of my life was over,” Pendergass said. “I’m not doing the same things anymore, and my body is telling me how old I am. I’m counting the years down now.”
When the auction is over, Pendergrass said, the property that for more than a dozen years has attracted visitors and admirers will “blend back into the neighborhood,” and he’s okay with that. Not only is it time for him to move on, he said, but he’s ready to put the task of maintaining the outdoor pieces, which get worn down by the weather, behind him.
“I’ll have good memories of it,” he said of the sculpture village. “I don’t think I’m going to mourn it.”
Artistic awakening
Pendergrass said he’s always felt an artistic inclination, but for most of his life, nothing inspired him to explore that inclination.
Not long after he retired, though, he ran into the concept of Steampunk — a science-fiction sub genre that blends 19th-century Victorian and futuristic aesthetics.
He still remembers the first Steampunk image that caught his attention, he said. It was an advertisement for a savings and loan that featured an image of Abraham Lincoln with a bionic arm.
“It was inspiring,” he said. “I thought, ‘Boy, I really like that,’ but I didn’t know what it was.”
Later, he said, he came across local hat shop Hatman Jack’s display at a lawn and garden show at Century II. The display included a futuristic hat that was made out of gears. He asked owner Jack Kellogg about the piece.
“He said, ‘That’s Steampunk. Look it up on the internet,’” Pendergrass said.
Steampunk appealed not only to his artistic side but also to his skill set, Pendergrass said. His years in home remodeling made him an expert on fasteners and fastening things together.
A lifelong garage saler, Pendergrass started looking for things that he could use in art pieces. He began picking up random bits of wood, sheet metal, Styrofoam, plastic and nuts and bolts.
“I looked for anything that appealed to me,” he said. “My mantra was, ‘If you like it, get it.’ Don’t worry about what you’re going to do with it. Just get it, put it in a pile or put it on display until it captures your imagination. Then go with it.”
Pendergrass said that his wife, Donna, was a bit skeptical about his new hobby at first, but as he began to create more and more intricate pieces, she understood what he was doing.
His first pieces weren’t made for outdoor display, he said, but eventually, he ran out of room inside. Plus, he wanted to make bigger works.
He started displaying them on the fence of the property he owned across the street, and people started to notice. As the display grew to eventually include a massive metal wizard whose eyes and torch light up, a 20-foot-tall Statue of Liberty replica, a rooftop dragon, a futuristic Old West marshal and a towering metal flamingo, so did Pendergrass’s reputation as a grass-roots folk artist.
He sold a few pieces over the years, and he also was invited to display some pieces at CityArts then at Tessera Fine Art Gallery. In 2017, he was invited to display 25 pieces of art at the Grassroots Art Center in Lucas, home of the famed Garden of Eden — a tourist attraction featuring the peculiar sculptures of grassroots artist S.P. Dinsmoor.
People also became obsessed with the display on 17th Street, and if Pendergrass noticed people stopping, he’d often offer a spontaneous tour and even invite them to see his indoor pieces.
“There’s a certain small percentage of people who love it,” Pendergrass said, referring to Steampunk. “And if I recognized that in the people or if I saw that their children were being inspired, then I would offer them a little tour.”
Pieces of history
Pendergrass said his neighbors never complained about the display or the people it attracted. He’s not sure if they’ll be happy or sad to see it disappear.
He’s philosophical about the sale. Pendergrass said he often thinks about attractions he loved in Wichita that eventually disappeared, places like Kiddieland and Joyland.
He remembers being upset at each closing, but his young mind didn’t understand that all things deteriorate, and unless there’s someone willing to maintain them, they’ll inevitably go away.
“I mourned each one of those,” he said. “...Back then, I couldn’t have understood why they were closed, but now I do.”
Pendergrass said he also remembers how much he wished he had pieces of his favorite places once they were gone — items like Joyland’s carousel or Louie the Clown.
The auction, he said, will get pieces of the Steampunk Village into the hands of locals who want to remember it.
“These are pieces that are part of the history of the town, of your memory,” he said. “You will always remember it.”
McCurdy Niedens said that some of the best pieces in the collection — some that have more movement and animation — are inside the house.
She’s loved going through it and can’t wait to see how the pieces sell.
“To me, it’s the creativity that he has and the using different pieces you would never think about putting together,” she said. “I’m a little bit mind blown by how cool it is and how unique these pieces are. It’ll be really interesting to see how the public reacts.”
Steampunk Village online auction
When: Bidding opens at noon on Tuesday, May 13, and wraps up on May 22. There are no minimum bids.
Where: McCurdy.com/SteamPunkVillage
Inspect it in person: Before bidding ends, McCurdy Real Estate & Auction will conduct an in-person “preview.” It will be from noon to 5 p.m. May 20 at 3831 W. 17th St.
This story was originally published May 6, 2025 at 1:41 PM.
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