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Donn Kreofsky’s work is child’s play. Surrounded by
wind-up robots, model cars, Erector Sets, marbles, monkey sock dolls, and a 30-foot
carousel, Kreofsky tends to L.A.R.K. Toys, his one-of-a-kind toy store and toy
making business in Kellogg, Minn. (pop. 439).
“Tlie minute people come in the door, their smile gets a little larger," says Kreofsky,
57. ''Tlie staff and I feed off that."
Kreofsky's 32,000-square-foot store boasts an inventory- of 192,000 toys, some of
which he designed.
Toy-making led to a career change for Kreofsky’ in 1983 after he designed wooden
pull toys for his sons Chadd, David and Andrew. The hand-stained, homemade
quality of his frogs, grasshoppers, turtles and dinosaurs proved so popular that he left
his job as a college art professor to create L.A.R.K. Toys. "L.A.R.K. was easier to say
than Kreofsky ,” he explains. "It means Lost Arts Restored by Kreofsky."
His wooden creations soon were carried by 2.5CX) stores across the country’.
Inspired by his toys' success, he opened his own retail shop in 1986. Over the years,
he slowly enlarged the complex to include a bookstore, case, old-fashioned candy
store and individual stores featuring Germanßussian nesting dolls, science toys and
reproductions of toys that once were popular with baby boomers. “I kept adding stores
to crcare a better environment and a fun place for children and adults," he says.
"We’ve been coming here for 20 years," says Emily Erickson of Red Wing, Minn,
(pop. 16,116), visiting L.A.R.K. with her toddler grandson. "I still have the wooden
carousel music box and hand puppet I bought my daughter here."
The store also display’s Kreofsky's personal antique toy collection that features such
toys as Tiddlywinks, Tinker Toys, rocking horses and Tonka trucks.
Kreofsky's collection started in 1967 when he found a box of his childhood
toys. “My mother brought plastic toys from the dime store to Mayo Clinic when I
had polio." Kreofsky’ says. "I’d play with Confederate and Union soldiers, cowboys
and Indians on the hospital bed.”
His toy collection now includes 25,000 items, dating back to 1900. Russian
nesting dolls, wiggling hula girls, medieval knights, and a 4-foot Barbie doll are
some of the items that fill a dozen display cases lining L.A.R.K.'s halls.
"If it’s nicely made and makes me laugh, I keep it," Kreofsky says. "Very’ few
serious collectors would allow tens of thousands of people to see their collection. But
I collect things for people to look at. I want everybody to see them."
"It’s like going home to our childhood.” says Rhonda Segersterom, 48, a customer
from Staim, Wis. (pop 1 ,(X) 1).
As for the toys he sells. Kreofsky likes to evaluate each one on his living room floor.
I play with them and think how a child would play with them," he says. "If I don't
have any fun, well pull them off the shelves.”
You won't find the latest video games and electronic gadgets at L.A.R.K. Toys.
All the items sold in the store are hands-on and imagination-specific. In the Magic
2? %.
Donn Kreofsky turned a hobby into a full-time business with LA.R.K. Toys in Kellogg, Minn.
Troll Shop, kids run Thomas the Train sets, slip into make-believe costumes and create
stories with hand puppets.
“It has to do with play value,” Kreofsky says. "Kids sit in front of the computer
when they should be playing in the dirt and using their imaginations. Few of our toys
are passive."
Kreofsky's favorite toy is his carousel. Nine years in the making, its 19 hand-carved
and hand-painted animals were designed by Kreofsky- "Boys like the python seat on the
dragon,” he says. “Women and girls always go for the giraffe."
Each year the toy store draws 360,000 shoppers—tourists, school groups, business
students and toy collectors—who love the world that Kreofsky has created. His staff
loves it, too.
"How can you not like playing with toys and getting paid?” says Mary’
Eversman, 52, one of 35 L.A.R.K. employees. "With Donn, there's always
something new."
"There's not a day I don’t wake up ready to go to work," Kreofsky says with a smile.
"It's fun." Xt”
Vicki Cox is a uriter in Lebanon. Ala
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