The Next Exit: Trolling for an eclectic time

It holds the Guinness World Record for the largest troll doll collection. Owner Sherry Groom estimates a current count of more than 40,000 figures inspired by the Norse folk creatures, known for their characteristic upward whisp of colorful, touchable hair and their associated tales that share universal truths such as cooperation and the Golden Rule.

“We love helping people create memories and I sneak in morals of the story during the tours,” says Groom, who opened The Troll Hole Museum & Gift Shop in 2016. That same year, she and her husband, Jay, acquired a strip of blighted buildings in downtown Alliance, Ohio, with plans to reimagine three blocks on East Main Street.

Jay told her she needed “a hook” to draw visitors. He mentioned, “You have a huge pile of trolls. Maybe you could get a Guinness record.”

Groom is a folk artist who gravitates toward sculpture and mixed media assemblage. She’s also a psychiatric nurse who owns a 16-bed group home. Now the couple also operates The Troll Hole Museum & Gift Shop along with adjacent businesses, Mad Dogs & Crazy Cats cafe and Wisecracks Comedy Escape Room.

“It’s an eclectic place, and that’s the goal,” Groom says of The Troll Hole. “It’s full of bright, shiny, colorful stuff that catches your eye and is fun to play with.”

Q. What did it take to accomplish a Guinness World Record for the largest troll doll collection?

A. Each troll has to be different in at least one way. At the time, a young woman and teen in England held the record with 6,600 trolls. Once I started the effort, I got a ton of publicity and unknown people reached out to me and started even sending me their trolls. We hired a curator to help us set up a system to log each troll. I’m business minded, so I found trolls at a bargain. One collector had 10,000 items and I bought them sight unseen. Another who made custom trolls was going out of business and they had 11,000 in their stock, so I bought those. It keeps growing.

Q. How can visitors make the most of their time at the museum and shop?

A. The Troll Hole includes two floors plus a basement and the gift shop is about 1,700 square feet. We have 14 different themed rooms, including a Troll Hole of Fame with a football troll team playing off the Football Hall of Fame in nearby Canton, and a Rock and Troll Hall of Fame after the Rock Hall in Cleveland. There is a DreamWorks room, a troll hunter cabin, a grotto, and a space that highlights the economic impact of trolls. There are also hidden corridors and we offer tours. We keep a map of the nation and the world on the wall and people put pins in it. They deliberately plan trips and fly here from all over, including Australia and California.

Q. What unique trolls can guests find in the Troll Hole gift shop?

A. I sell Scandinavian trolls imported from contacts in Sweden and Iceland, and we also offer vintage trolls along with DreamWorks trolls since those movies introduced a whole new generation of kids who like the characters Poppy and Branch.

Q. Aside from trolls, what other souvenirs can visitors take home?

A. Our gift shop is expansive and stocked with a variety of products, including custom vintage T-shirts with our logo. We offer several different designs, including a Troll Bowl stadium with trolls playing football, a Run with the Trolls T-shirt because we sponsor a race, and Trolls Uniting the World in honor of the Alliance of Trolls Convention we organize.

Our shop also offers a selection of troll-focused art and a wide range of souvenirs including magnets, holiday ornaments, mugs, purses, hats, T-shirts and postcards bearing our logo or various troll themes. I do my own folk art as well, so I make trolls out of black walnuts and create little keepsakes.

We also offer jewelry such as molded charms of trolls. Because trolls like bright, shiny objects, we sell crystals, polished rocks and fossils.

The shop also includes a selection of rusty metal Mexican garden art like a big rooster and other items that are not necessarily troll-related like wind chimes and custom artsy umbrellas. As expected, it’s an eclectic mix.