CANTON, Ohio — Whether they’re functional or just for fun, it’s hard not to smile when you see how elaborate a LEGO set can get.
For some, that love of LEGOs dies out as the teenage years approach, but for Scott Brown, it’s a lifelong passion. Brown started playing with LEGOs when he was just 5 years old and the thrill of the build still draws him in.
“We’ve got sets going back 40 years here,” Brown said as he crouched among his sprawling Lego city center, complete with the Daily Bugle, Ghost Buster’s garage and even a replica of the Hall of Fame Bridge in Canton.
Brown has sets featuring themes from every realm of pop culture. From a complete Harry Potter land to the complete LEGO cast of Friends gathered around a LEGO Central Perk, each scene is more elaborate than the next.
One of his favorites?
“When I was seven or eight years old, I tried to build my own roller coaster. But back then, LEGOS were a bunch of blocks basically and there wasn’t a whole lot you could do,” Brown said.
His LEGO metropolis features a pair of roller coasters. He cranks gears for the lift hill and watches with pride as the cars zip across the plastic tracks.
“I would’ve killed as a kid to have a roller coaster track,” he continued. “You were limited in the kinds of pieces; you didn’t have these kinds of tracks and gears.”
Brown’s downstairs Lego Land has all of the satisfaction of your traditional LEGOs, with just a bit more sophistication. He custom-built a LEGO wall with plexiglass inserts to showcase different sizes and colors of bricks, but it’s also functional.
“We came up with the idea for the wall and really designed the whole basement around this,” Brown said. “I wanted some kind of display piece. That was also functional."
“On the outside, it looks pretty cool. It’s pretty colorful. If I’m on the other side, I need a couple of these pieces I just reach in here and grab them.”
He’s got hundreds more drawers sorted by size, style and color.
“There’s about 1,100 different bins, different kinds of pieces throughout the basement,” He said with a laugh. “It’s a little OCD.”
Brown spends hours downstairs captivated by the click of the brick. Even after all these years, there’s something cathartic about constructing a new set or even recreating one that he’s built in the past.
“For me, it’s a hobby. It kind of gets my mind off work and other stuff we have going on,” Brown said. “ I come down here, a couple hours a night and chill and build some stuff.”
The centerpiece of Brown’s collection is a replica of the RMS Titanic he received as a Christmas gift last year. As a kid, LEGOs were often the featured gift for birthday or Christmas, a tradition that has continued as an adult.
“What do your parents give you? You probably get a tie, a shirt,” Brown said. “I get a Lego set.”
The Lego version of Titanic contains roughly 9,000 pieces and is one of Lego’s largest models ever. It took Brown between 15-18 hours to complete. It doesn’t quite meet the ship’s 800 foot-length, but it more than matches the splendor of the Ship of Glory, specifically in the number of views its construction has received on the social media platform TikTok.
“My teenage daughter filmed it and we put some music on it,” Brown said. “That video now has 38 million views.”
At the insistence of his family, Brown started the TikTok account to showcase his LEGO hobby and share it with others. He’s not got over 225,000 followers on his @hoflego account, that has exploded in popularity recently.
“I’ve got a video of me playing with LEGOs that’s been watched by 38 million people. It’s unbelievable,” he said.
While journalism was his first profession, LEGOs have been life’s lasting passion for Brown. It’s a hobby that he’s shared with his kids over the years, and they fully expect plastic bricks will be a part of their lives forever.
“For as long as I could remember, there's always been LEGOs in the house,” said his son Alex. “That was one of the main ways that I bonded with my dad growing up was we would we had this shared love for Lego.”
Brown wishes more kids these days were like his son. Alex still likes to build when home from college and his dorm room features all of the current LEGO cars on display.
“Most kids are just on their video games all day. You really wish that more kids would do more stuff like this,” Brown said. “Because it does help you realize that ‘hey I don’t have that piece, but maybe I can build this things like this.’”
But when it comes down to it, LEGOs are one of life’s simple passions for Brown. That’s something he says he’ll never outgrow.
“I just want to have fun playing LEGOS,” Brown said. “I hope I’m doing it when I’m 75 too.”
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