Long-Shut Enchanted Forest Still Casts Spell

"It was just a marvelous experience when we were growing up," said Baltimore County resident Nan Sherman, who visited the park yearly and then took her nieces and nephews. "It was everything you read about in a storybook."

In its heyday, the Enchanted Forest drew more than 300,000 visitors annually from spring until fall. In 1987, the Harrison family sold the Enchanted Forest to a Towson developer, who closed it in 1989 and tore down part of it for a shopping center. JHP Development Inc. opened and then closed a scaled-down version of the Enchanted Forest in the early 1990s.

The park's white, castlelike entrance still stands in one corner of the Enchanted Forest Shopping Center, but the concrete moat is dry, the turrets are rusting and a dragon above the locked iron gate has a broken, sagging tail. The remaining six or seven acres of the Enchanted Forest are fenced off, its fading attractions among the trees behind the shopping center.

Five years ago, residents tried to reopen the park, but their fundraising fell far short. But a grass-roots effort has emerged, fueled by a recent historical photo exhibit of the park, far-flung fans meeting online and a county planning study of Route 40.

Kimco Realty Corp., which bought the Enchanted Forest Shopping Center and park last year, has been reticent about its intentions for the park.

"There are no easy solutions for the Forest," Kevin Allen, Kimco's regional director of retail and office property, wrote in an e-mail to The Washington Post. "We will continue to evaluate options as we better understand some of the issues."

Burchardt, who is a real estate agent in an office in the Enchanted Forest Shopping Center, hoped to tap the surge of park nostalgia for a charity auction and asked Allen for a park item. Allen offered the coach, which sat outside the fenced parkland.

Burchardt and her husband, Doug, at first despaired of repairing the coach. But then Burchardt talked to automotive fiberglass expert Jim France.

"I knew that pumpkin," said France, who lives in Ellicott City. "I rode in that pumpkin long ago. I knew it was repairable instantly."

At the June 3 charity auction for community and emergency assistance, Proffitt and Shephard admired the restored coach that they, too, had ridden in as children, and they had the winning bid.

"It was on a whim," Proffitt said. "We saw the opportunity. We thought it would be pretty cool to have."

They wanted to display the coach in Fourth of July parades, an idea that appealed to Burchardt because the coach would remain in the area. When that didn't materialize, the new owners decided to list it on eBay to see what people would bid. It would be a "shocker," Proffitt said, if someone paid their asking price. As of Friday, the coach had drawn no bids.

"I wish I had $6,000 now," said Metzger, who has talked to county officials about preserving the Enchanted Forest. "Who knows where it's going to go?"