O.C. FAMILY : The Road to Tiny Town

The Beatles, Sonny and Cher, the Six Million Dollar Man, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Batman and Robin and Dr. Doolittle are among the countless celebrity and character dolls collected by Doll and Toy museum founder Bea DeArmond.

One of the rarest items in the collection is an 18th century Noah’s ark set of about three dozen tiny elephants, bears, lions, tigers and other animals.

It was accomplished collector DeArmond and her husband, Jay, who in 1955 decided to convert an old chicken farm on then-Stanton Avenue into Hobby City, a center where families could explore hobbies or start collections.

Operating under the motto of “a hobby family is a happy family,” the couple cleared the land, built three small specialty stores and went into business selling hobby supplies and collectibles.

The center became so popular that in 1967 the family installed a train ride. That ride was the inspiration for their grandson Allan Ansdell Jr., who took his family’s dream one step further and built Adventure City.

As a youngster, Ansdell, now 32, worked at Hobby City driving the train. While he was its conductor, Hobby City guests suggested more rides; he decided to go to his family with a plan to expand.

“At first we planned on just adding a few more rides, but then it just kind of snowballed,” he said.

“In order to add three rides we would have to put in new electrical service, sewer lines, concrete work, and landscaping. After all that it just wasn’t practical to stop at three rides.

“So we decided to just go ahead and take it the rest of the way,” Ansdell said.

His original concept was to create a small, inexpensive theme park that was just for kids. It would have a city environment theme with rides appealing to children.

In 1987 he began researching the industry. He had a feasibility study done and began rounding up financing, a process that took nearly six years.

“We went to a lot of different people, but most said it was just too risky. But we had the vision, so we kept pushing forward,” Ansdell said.

A large chunk of the financing came when his parents invested the proceeds from the sale of their oceanfront home in Seal Beach.

Through a combination of a city redevelopment loan and a bank loan guaranteed by the state, they were able to scrape up the remaining money to launch the project.

Groundbreaking was in January 1994, and the park opened in August.

“During our first year, we were concerned that people would come and say, ‘Yeah, that was great,’ then forget about us. But our attendance has grown steadily every year,” Ansdell said.

In July, Adventure City added the Treetop Racers roller coaster, and, Ansdell said, a water ride is on the drawing board.