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Oak Ridge, New Jersey: Fairy Tale Forest Entrance

Classic children's theme park, built by Paul Woehle Sr and opened in 1957. Closed in 2005, currently under restoration. Parts of the park are planned to reopen in Summer 2020.

Address:
2 Grove St., Oak Ridge, NJ
Directions:
At the corner of Oak Ridge Rd and Grove St. Also listed as in West Milford.
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Visitor Tips and News About Fairy Tale Forest Entrance

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Fairy Tale Forest

According to local news reports, Fairy Tale Forest will reopen to the public later in 2018.

[Adventure Girls NJ, 07/09/2018]

The kiddie theme park first opened in 1957 and closed in 2005.

Fairy Tale Forest.

Fairy Tale Forest Entrance

The renovations to the entrance of the old Fairy Tale Forest property were completed.

[Rich Frejomil, 07/10/2017]

Big Old Shoe.

Large Old Shoe

This is apparently some advertisement for a self storage company. It's on the corner of Oak Ridge Road and Grove Street. It looks like they are just building it out now with castle turrets and a fairy tale scene. A bit unusual to run across in rural New Jersey.

[Phrank Phester, 08/27/2012]

The big shoe that you saw is actually part of an old attraction, Fairy Tale Forest, which formerly occupied the property. It was hand-built by German immigrant Paul Woehle, and was open from 1957 until 2005. The property was then sold to a self-storage company, and now all that remains is the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe shoe and some battlements from Rapunzel's castle.

Fairy Tale Forest

A BBQ restaurant has opened up in the main building here, but everything on the exterior is the same.

[Kerrie, 02/16/2011]

The restaurant, "Hot Diggity's At Fairy Tale," closed in late 2011.

Fairy Tale Forest - Closed

After a long drive with our three-year old, buoyed by expectations created by our (now obviously) out-of-date guide book, we arrived at the disappointingly closed Fairy Tale Forest. From the front it still appeared to have been as quirky and enchanting as we had hoped, but from the rear it was as sad and pathetic a picture as could be possible: clear cut forest, lines of tan and brown self-storage barracks, muddy bulldozer tracks ending in a jumbled assortment of disheveled story book characters.

Some of the attractions still stand on the other side of a new fence but we didn't get a chance to even look from the storage parking lot because a man drove up in a mint green vintage auto and started to harass us for just being there. He claimed to be an employee and perhaps scaring away fairy tale onlookers was his primary job. But the degree of his anger was unsettling and led me to think there was more behind the story than I could guess. He was not willing to share any information, despite my best efforts to communicate through his animosity, and he certainly did not create the environment we were hoping to provide for our daughter. So we drove off in an extreme state of disappointment. Through the rear-view mirror I looked at the cheap metal sign at the entrance of the self-storage facility. They had attached an image of a pink shoe copied from the fairy tale shoe house at the entrance of the park and named the place "Shoe Box Storage."

[Tim Kerner, 07/14/2005]

Fairy Tale forest has been closed for a while. Take this one off your vacation lists...


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