Since President Richard Nixon’s administration, Kelly’s Hobby Shop has played host to astronauts and schoolkids, famed athletes and amateur craftsmen.

The tiny shop in Old Town Tustin helped inspire generations of kids to pursue careers in engineering, aerospace and construction. It has been a gathering place for hobbyists to talk about their latest projects and about life. And it staged a quiet, steady battle to keep alive the dying art of building things by hand.

Model builders say it’s the last shop of its kind in Orange County, offering hard-to-find parts and invaluable insight from owner Greg Kelly, who stands ready with a story about every item hanging from the ceiling, crowding the shelves and narrowing the already-tight aisles.

In mid-August, the shop will close its doors after 43 years.

It’ll be tough to say goodbye, Kelly acknowledges. But he has to follow his heart, which once led him to open a hobby shop and is now leading him across the country to embark on the most important project of his 63 years.

It helps that, since word of the shop’s closing started to spread, Kelly has welcomed a steady stream of former customers, longtime friends and even Mayor Chuck Puckett – all eager to pay their respects to Kelly’s Hobby Shop.

“I am very humbled to know how much my shop meant to them,” Kelly said. “I know this has always been a real benefit to the community.”

A BUSINESS FROM A HOBBY

As one of 12 kids growing up in Long Beach, Kelly wasn’t particularly handy.

His dad and older brother built models, including a plane they’d hide on top of the refrigerator so he couldn’t damage it. But Kelly built only two simple models himself: an RB-66 Douglas jet, like the ones being built at the plant a couple miles from his home, and a small car.

While he was building the car, his ear started itching, so he used part of the axle to scratch it. A piece fell in and didn’t come out, and Kelly didn’t tell a soul.

When he was in his early 20s, Kelly went to the doctor for a bad cold. The doctor took out his scope and looked in Kelly’s ear.

“He said, ‘You have something in there.’ I said, ‘I know.’ Then he took a squeeze syringe with warm water and the little part came out in his hand. The doctor handed it to me. It was perfectly preserved after all the years, since it was plastic,” Kelly recalled.

Kelly went to private schools where everyone was set on becoming a doctor or lawyer. He got a job making parts for oil rigs and computers in factories in Santa Ana and Irvine. It was his first experience working with his hands, and he was hooked.

In 1971, Kelly’s family built the collection of storefronts that still occupy a stretch of land it owns on El Camino Real near Main Street in Old Town Tustin. His mother, Mary, opened Kelly’s Cards and Gifts that November. A brother opened a tuxedo and cigar shop, a sister opened a hair salon and he opened the hobby shop in February 1972. He was 20 years old.

To stock up for the opening, Kelly went to a warehouse in Alhambra with $325 to spend. He asked for plastic kits. The worker asked if he wanted some balsa wood.

“I said, ‘What’s balsa?’ He said, ‘Let me get someone else to help you,’” Kelly recalled with a laugh.

Since that day, Kelly said he has been learning from customers who were often more naturally talented at modeling than he was.

“I had to work years and years to learn how to do this,” he said. “It became like therapy for me. You turn everything else out and focus on this one thing for hours.”

Kelly’s dad, Thomas, who was a systems analyst for McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell International, was initially confused by his son’s chosen profession.

“He’d say, ‘Why are you wasting your time building that little thing? Why don’t you build a real boat?’” Kelly recalled.

Before long, his dad was bringing friends to Kelly’s shop, proudly showing off the models and the business his son had built.

SHARING THE CRAFT

From the start, the hobby shop was as much a school as it was a business.

“I kind of always treated this like an educational institution,” Kelly said.

He frequently visited local classrooms and even taught a rocket class at Columbus Tustin Middle School some 30 years ago, helping kids launch their projects from the playground.

In his store, Kelly offered classes for ages 6-11. His most popular course was on building model F-14 Tomcats after “Top Gun” came out. One still hangs from the shop ceiling. The “Titanic” class was also popular, with a sample ship. Kelly’s model of the elaborate staircase is still on display.

Kelly’s sister Jane Luppi remembers how her brother encouraged customers to enter their wares in the OC Fair, where he has won many awards of his own over the years. And he’d help local schoolkids build their California missions, teaching them about the history of each landmark as they worked.

“What was great about it was that it was like a hobby shop when I was a kid back in the ’50s,” said John Powers, a longtime Tustin resident who discovered the shop 25 years ago and has shopped there ever since. “It had everything – magic tricks, paints, models, books. … It was a throwback.”

Blue Angels pilots and their fans would stop after their annual gatherings. Astronaut Robert Lee “Hoot” Gibson came by one day with his young son. So did NFL Hall of Fame player Jackie Slater with his son, Matthew.

Once, double bronze medalist Olympic high jumper Dwight Stones and his wife wandered into the shop.

“He was wearing shorts and his legs looked like hydraulics,” Kelly recalled.

Kelly described how he pointed to a model railroad above Stones’ head and asked him if he could jump over it.

“He extended his right arm as if it was calibrated and reached up and said, ‘Sure, it is 7 feet, 6 inches,’” Kelly said. “After he left, I took my tape measure and sure enough it was 7 feet, 6 inches.”

It’s been a great run, Kelly said. But both of his parents died in the past five years, leaving the land to him and his siblings.

Kelly isn’t in a position to buy his siblings out, he said, and he’s not interested in having the shop converted into something more contemporary. So he doesn’t have a firm date yet but plans to close Kelly’s Hobby Shop around mid-August.

THE NEXT BIG PROJECT

Like any good hobbyist, Kelly is always eyeing his next project. And he’s got a big one in mind to kick off his golden years.

“I’m marrying my high school sweetheart,” Kelly said.

Kelly, who never married, was at his 45th reunion from Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana last year. He said a quick but intentional hello to classmate Dana Dahl Valencia, a court reporter who flew in from her home in Minnesota for the occasion.

A short time later, Kelly was having back troubles. The school put him on its prayer list, and Valencia sent him a get-well card.

In October, Kelly and Valencia will marry in Palm Springs. Then Kelly will move back to St. Paul, Minn., with his bride, who already has cleared out the guest room to give Kelly space to continue building models.

Valencia’s 11-year-old grandson enjoys models and she said he can’t wait to have more time with his soon-to-be grandpa.

“He’s a very special man,” Valencia said. “It’s been a blessing to find him.”

During the past few weeks, customers have been coming back to reminisce and collect items they’d left on display in the shop for decades.

Kelly also has been giving away many of his favorite models. His detailed recreation of the Watts Towers went to the art center near the Los Angeles landmark. His model of Tustin’s historic blimp hangars now sits in the Tustin Area Museum, and Valencia claimed the Titanic stairs. But his models of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s House of the Seven Gables are still up for grabs.

When his doors close, Kelly’s Cards and Gifts will be integrated into his siblings’ hair salon and tobacco shop at the back of the property.

“I don’t have the guts to shut that down,” Kelly said, flashing his frequent grin.

And while Kelly’s Hobby Shop will be gone, he hopes its legacy will continue inspiring others to learn the same handiwork, patience and respect for craftsmanship he stumbled onto as a 20-year-old entrepreneur.

“You can learn to do this,” he said. “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”

Contact the writer: 714-796-7963 or BStaggs@OCRegister.com