This town's newest piece of footwear is truly oversized - a Bean Boot that stands 10-and-a-half feet tall and weighs in at 5,500 pounds.
With its opening just over a month away, the L.L. Bean store at Legacy Place received quite an accessory yesterday, as the giant concrete boot was wheeled into town, completing a five-day journey from Tucson, Ariz.
The shoe is a model of the main hunting boot that started the catalog company in 1912. The brown and orange boot, with brown and yellow laces, looks just like the real thing - only much, much larger.
"It was hard to get here," said Jose Molina, who drove the boot atop a flatbed from Arizona. "We have to be careful with low bridges, stuff like that."
Molina, who left Tucson on Friday, said this was the first boot he has driven across the country.
"Many cars, they passed me and they started taking pictures and saying, 'Oh man,' " Molina said.
Complicating things, Molina needed to get an oversized load permit for the boot in Indiana before proceeding further east.
Dedham store manager Carol Van Horne was there yesterday morning for the boot's arrival along with her management team - Greg Dorman, Matthew Palazio, and David Peterson.
Only three of the company's 13 retail stores have a giant boot: those in Freeport, Maine, Pittsburgh, and now Dedham. The Legacy Place Bean Boot is a scaled-down version of the 14-foot sculpture on the company's flagship store campus in Freeport.
The nearest L.L. Bean store to Legacy Place is at Mansfield Crossings.
"We're honored to have the boot," Van Horne said, calling it the company icon. "It's all about the boot. It started (with) Leon Leonwood (Bean) and a hundred pairs that he gave out to customers."
A small crane lifted the boot off the flatbed as the truck moved out of the way. The boot was hoisted around the edge of the central Legacy Place parking lot, turning and backing up a slight incline, before being guided into its resting place at the front corner of the store. Two workers held the shoe on either side as it was lowered to the ground.
L.L. Bean is set to become the first Legacy Place store to open this summer. Van Horne said merchandise will be brought into the store between July 1-17 before its opening on July 24.
"It is our brand. It's who we are," she said of the boot. "And it looks pretty awesome, doesn't it?"
Daily News staff writer Edward B. Colby can be reached at 781-433-8336 or ecolby@cnc.com.
