As the door closes on one local business, another is reaching out to open it back up, in an effort of bringing new life to the picturesque building where it was located.

The business that recently said good-bye to the blue house at the corner of Franklin and Van Buren streets was Madeline’s French Country Shop, owned by Vicki and David LaFon.

The local, 53-year-old toy store, The Toy Chest, is currently renovating the space to best fit their style, and according to owner Hilary Key, they plan to move over on May 22, then have the store “ugly open” the following day.

“That means that the computers will be set up, but there might be boxes everywhere,” Key said last week.

She said the “ugly” phase will probably last through the week, but they plan to be in “good shape” by that weekend for Memorial Day.

The Toy Chest reached the milestone of being open for 50 years in 2020.

Key said they planned to make a big deal out of it then, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, they ended up being closed a lot that year.

Key said that with the big move, they want to revisit the 50 year accomplishment.

“We’re the oldest toy store in Indiana,” Key said. “And now we’re moving into a really old building — it feels fitting.”

All coming together

According to Key, at the beginning of the year, she decided that she was going to “shout from the rooftops” that the toy store had to move.

“Because, what I’m doing currently is just not sustainable for my personal well-being,” Key said. “I don’t have an office or a stockroom, I have to move between places for meetings, I have to physically bring in stock from two offsite locations every single day.”

Key said the store’s volume has increased significantly since 2020. While that is a good thing for the business, and Key is grateful for that, she said that with that increase came a lot of extra pressure.

“So I started telling anyone who wanted to listen that I had to move,” she said. “But … I didn’t want to move somewhere that didn’t really seem worth it, and ideally, to somewhere that we would have the potential to own someday, which is not the case for a lot of buildings in town — they’ve recently sold, or they’re going to the next generation — and all those things came together with this house.”

Her efforts to spread the word about her search for a new location paid off. Key said she had two people reach out to her and suggest she get the landlord’s information for the house when they saw Madeline’s was closing.

Key took their advice and called right away.

“It has all come together,” Key said.

“She and I have worked famously together. She’s been a real joy to work with and it feels almost like it was meant to be.”

Key said they got access to the building April 1, and their original goal, which she said she knew was “ridiculous” in the beginning, was to get all the work done in April, so that they could move sometime in May.

“But then the timing of the floors getting finished doubled,” Key said. “And you can’t do much without floors.”

The delay is not too upsetting, however, because Key said taking the proper amount of time to do right by the historic building is worth it.

“I’m definitely building out the toy store of my dreams,” Key said. “But, also, this is a very old house that we’re trying to really do right by, and really put a lot of love into her. So, we’re firming up some things as we go, and we’re not making the cheapest or fastest decisions, because we want to honor the house.”

Keeping the charm

According to Key, the best space for a retail store is one that is shaped like a big box.

“So, on the one hand, there are some ideal things I could have gained moving somewhere else, like a little more square footage, a better layout,” she said. “However — the current space is kind of quirky, it’s all crammed in, and people like that. So, (with the new building) we’re not losing that charm.”

Key said that the new location does not provide the store itself with more square footage, because the upstairs of the building will be used for office and storage. But, Key said they are gaining wall space, which they plan to fully utilize.

“I’m running a high shelf around the entire store, pretty much,” she said. “And it will be things like a big plush or a doll house setup — things that you would have asked to get down, but will also look nice on display.”

The storage area upstairs will be used for things that sell quickly, which will make trips to out-of-town storage areas less frequent. Key said she is looking forward to that change.

“Right now, my garage has never seen a car,” she said.

Rather, Key said it has industrial racks lining it that are filled with toys.

Key’s story

Key originally bought the store in 2014. She said that she worked with the previous owners in preparation for owning it.

“In a roundabout way, I had figured out that I wanted to be in the toy industry,” she said. “So I went in to this store to learn the industry, not planning to stay forever.”

The previous owners, Key said, had the store for sale for three years at that point. But, no one who had been interested had specifically wanted to be in the toy industry.

“They just wanted to take over a profitable business, or thought it would be fun,” Key said. “And so they just didn’t feel confident, they said, that some of the previous interested people were going to be invested enough to get through tough things, like a pandemic, or when there was construction on (State Road) 135. And so, that was how it happened, I wanted to be in the industry and they wanted to sell the store, and they took a gamble on a 24-year-old.”

Now, almost 10 years later, Key said it feels really good to be able to move into the new space, and be able to fully make it their own.

“I’ve had a lot of success since taking over the store,” she said. “It’s been a rollercoaster, and it’s been a lot of personal investment of my time and energy.”

The increase in the store’s volume around the time of the pandemic was challenging for Key to get through, and things did not feel sustainable because of the limited space the previous location offered the store.

“I just didn’t have the capability to scale, or to have scaled where we were,” she said. “So the solutions that I needed or existed just weren’t options, and now they’re going to be options.”