Theme parks, overshadowed by mega-amusement parks, struggle to make a comeback.

Story by Tricia Vita / Jan. 9, 2004

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Eighteen years after Maryland's Enchanted Forest theme park closed, weeds and neglect are overtaking its storybook characters. (Meredith Peruzzi)

"How much longer, Dad? How much farther, Dad?" Rachelina Bonacci remembers asking as her family drove toward the Enchanted Forest, a storybook-theme park in Ellicott City, Md., outside Washington, D.C. "Then you'd see the King welcoming you, and you knew you were there!" recalls Bonacci, 33, whose memories of the Enchanted Forest are shared by legions of kids who visited from 1954 to 1986, when the park closed.

Today, a larger-than-life statue of Ole King Cole remains as a roadside icon that ushers visitors into the Enchanted Forest Shopping Center that was built on the 20-acre park in the 1990s. But the king's minions haven't fared as well: the Ugly Duckling, Gingerbread Men and other storybook characters, made in the 1950s of papier mache and coated with a material called Celastic, are crumbling to ruin behind a fence marked "No Trespassing."

Dan Goodsell

Bonacci, who is the director of the area's tourism council, isn't the only one who would like to see what remains of the park preserved. The community, including the Harrison family, who built and ran the park for 32 years, say the strip-mall developer broke his pledge to keep the Enchanted Forest alive.

Along with Story Land in Glen, N.H., a thriving family-owned enterprise, and Storytown USA in Lake George, N.Y., now part of Six Flags Great Escape, the Enchanted Forest is among the few children's theme parks that have reached the half-century mark. As John Margolies notes in his book about roadside architecture, Fun Along the Road, "Like spontaneous combustion, theme parks based upon fairy-tale characters seemed to sprout up nearly simultaneously in several places across the United States in about 1954, predating Disneyland by a year or two." Now, however, large-scale amusement parks have overshadowed their fading predecessors.

The Enchanted Forest's castle (Meredith Peruzzi)

Last August, the long-neglected Enchanted Forest got a boost when the Howard County Historical Society's photo exhibition of the park proved to be one of the most popular attractions at the county fair. "We had a lot of requests for information about the park over the years," says society director Michael Walczak, who teamed up with Bonacci to bring a virtual tour of the Enchanted Forest to the Visit Howard County Web site later this year.

Last month, members of a task force working on Howard County's Route 40 enhancement study began discussing the idea of reopening the park, now behind a strip mall with a Blockbuster, Petco, and 12 other businesses. "There's a lot of shopping in the corridor, but there's not a lot of entertainment-type uses either for children or adults," says Steven Johns, a planning supervisor for the county. "We're thinking what we can do to meet those needs, and the Enchanted Forest might play a role. In fact, at our kick-off meeting we had a little poster from the Enchanted Forest hanging up on the wall."

The county's burgeoning interest in revitalizing the park is a fairytale-come-true for Rick Lepski, who co-founded a citizens' group called Friends of the Enchanted Forest in 1999. The group raised $380,000 in pledges to reopen the park but disbanded after falling short of their goal of $1.2 million, the minimum price tag put on the project by a theme-park consultant. "I still get calls from people asking, 'Why did you give up?' When the county was less than enthusiastic, people lost interest," explains Lepski, who recalls meeting with the owner of the shopping center, who simply wanted to know, "How much money can I make?"

A strip mall crowds the Enchanted Forest. (Meredith Peruzzi)

According to Lepski and Johns, issues such as traffic, lack of parking, and the fact that much of the remaining park is a wetlands area may prevent a full-scale reopening. However, the same points have contributed to the Enchanted Forest's survival by hampering further development of the property.

With a new county administration and a new owner, Kimco Realty Corporation of New Hyde Park, N.Y., in place, Lepski says it's time to launch a scaled-down restoration effort. "This is the history of our county. Let's just make it a little park that kids could walk through, and put in some benches. I think the parks department could do that."

Kristin Hill, an architectural historian hired by the county with a grant from the Maryland Historical Trust to update its listings on the state's inventory of historic properties, was asked by several concerned citizens to consider the Enchanted Forest. "We can list it on the inventory without getting permission or interior access by using the extensive photographs, maps, and brochures collected by the historical society, but if we don't know for sure what shape it is in, then it is hard to make a determination of significance as it stands today," says Hill, who contacted Kimco to visit the site but hasn't heard back from them yet.

At the same time, an Internet discussion group on the Enchanted Forest started by park enthusiast Meredith Peruzzi in September is abuzz with ideas. One member suggests a land swap that would relocate moveable pieces of the park to county-owned land, "where they can enjoy restoration and a second life." Another member points to Children's Fairyland, a public-owned park in Oakland, Ca., as a model.

Kids in a 54-year-old theme park in Oakland, Calif., (Children's Fairyland)

Created in 1950 by a group of philanthropists, Children's Fairyland was America's first three-dimensional storybook theme park. Featuring talking storybooks and 30 sets depicting everything from a little Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to the Old Lady in the Shoe, the run-down, city-owned park has been rejuvenated by a nonprofit that took over in 1994.

"The fact that we're a nonprofit allowed us to get $3 million in bond money to do renovations and create a new amphitheater," says park director CJ Hirschfield, who orchestrates a whirlwind of programs and fundraising activities that allow the park to keep ticket prices at $6.

"People love Fairyland, and they don't want to see it go away," Hirschfield says. "I have many people come through who say, 'We used to have a place like this in my hometown, but it's no longer there.'"

Tricia Vita is a New York-based writer with a special interest in the outdoor amusement industry. Her Web site is www.triciavita.com.

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