Alastair Pleasanton, whose family owns the Ace Hardware on Boynton Beach Boulevard, is putting his art education to work. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Patrick Sherry
After 200 hours of painting a vibrant underwater scene on the side of his family’s hardware store, Alastair Pleasanton was told the partly finished mural might have to be covered up.
Work on the mural came to a halt in October, when a Boynton Beach code enforcement officer notified the owners of Ace Hardware, at 510 E. Boynton Beach Blvd., that they needed a permit and approval by the city to paint the mural. If they continued to paint, the months of work already put in would have to be painted over if it wasn’t approved.
Valerie Pleasanton, Alastair’s grandmother and store owner, said she found the process of getting the permit frustrating, but the family contacted city officials to try to get approval from the city’s Art Advisory Board.
“I took a chance and said, let’s try anyway, because there’s only so much time that we can have to paint, and I really wanted it done before the end of [2025],” she said. “Our schedule has slipped enough that that’s not going to happen, but a lot of it is done.”
In December, the two presented the art board with their design of a colorful marine environment featuring the city’s signature sailfish and bright aquatic wildlife across the large east side of the building.
“I wanted to do a piece of artwork that tied community identity together with my family’s history,” Alastair Pleasanton said at the meeting.
The board unanimously approved the mural with the condition of removing some background fish at the top of the design to leave more open space. Since then, the artist has been working steadily on finishing the mural. He thinks that it will take 100 hours to finish, by the end of the summer at the latest.
“It’s definitely long, and it’s tedious, but it’s worthwhile,” Alastair said. “I get a lot of people who stop, make positive commentary, and who are happy to see it going up.”
Valerie Pleasanton wanted to have a mural painted on the wall to make the store more visible and stop people from tagging it. Before Alastair painted the mural, during the holiday season the owners used to cover the wall using Christmas trees and a tent. After city officials started requiring a permit to sell Christmas trees, the store had the wall empty throughout the year.
“Once you put a mural up on the wall, it’s like they respect that another painter has done some work there … and they don’t tag your wall anymore,” Valerie Pleasanton said.
The family opened the hardware store in the early 1970s, and it’s one of the oldest family-owned businesses in the city. Alastair Pleasanton, 22, has worked at the store since he was 14, sometimes adding his artistic flair to promote the business. Over the years, he created the store’s logo, reworked its marketing, and painted the dumpster to discourage taggers.
Alastair attended Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts and is now studying studio art at Florida Atlantic University. He said it was rewarding to create such a large art piece for a business he has been a part of for so long.
“I really can’t think of anywhere else where an [administrative] assistant would be allowed to sit and paint for eight hours,” he said. “It’s very rewarding to me; it’s a sign of how far I’ve managed to come with the business and everything.”
He hopes the coat of character that brightens the wall will add an artistic highlight to the developing downtown area.
“I think it’s going to be awesome,” Valerie Pleasanton said. “We have had so much community support and positive comments from people, either just driving by or our customers who are in the store.”
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