WEST CHESTER TWP. — It was dark, and puddles formed on the floor because of a leaky roof. There was no air conditioning.
The building used to house furniture;now it was empty.
Don Oeters had put blue painter's tape down on the concrete. That would become the train tracks, he told anyone who would listen.
His daughter remembers a ladder with a blue tarp over it. That would become a waterfall, Oeters insisted.
He gave tours of the warehouse, purchased for $2.25 million in 2005, to drum up interest inhis new business venture. His daughter visited several times.
Even she wasn't sold.
"I couldn't see it," said Michelle Oeters.
That empty warehouse is now EnterTRAINment Junction, a 25,000-square-foot immersive model train display.
It'sthe largest of its kind in the world, where day turns to night as 90 trains pass through different time periods, mountains and, yes, even a waterfall.
EnterTRAINment Junction draws about 125,000 visitors a year – from all 50 states and 37 different countries – who pay up to $13.95 for a ticket.
Humble beginnings don't slow ambition
Talk to Steve Carr, one of about 125 volunteers Oeters recruited before opening in 2008, and he will extend a hand showing knuckles scratched from sliding two miles of train tracks into place.
"At the beginning, a bunch of people thought Don was an idiot," said Carr.
That's nothing new.
The year was 1983.Recently married, Oetersbought a house in Loveland. At the same time, hewanted to buy Watson's, the pool and spa company he started working for as a student at the University of Cincinnati.
He only had $30,000 to his name, and he kept getting the same question, especially from his in-laws:
"Are you nervous?"
Oeters didn't come from money, and neither of his parents went to college. His mom was a bookkeeper, his dad a meatpacker.
As a teenager,he became the youngest managerat a candy shop across the street from his high school. Then, the company folded and he needed unemployment checks to stay at UC.
One year out of college, working as a salesman at Watson's, he made $16,000 a year – more than either of his parents ever had.
He would need more than that to take over Watson's.
Oeters and his business partner, Jim Kathmann, who also started at a low-level position there, couldn't get a loan. That didn't stop them.
Snubbed by the banks, Kathmann and Oeters negotiated a deal directly with Bill Watson, the company's founder.
Essentially, Watson took the bank's place and they paidhim monthly.
For Oeters, a man who made a career out of good business deals, this one was exceptionally bad. If Oeters and Kathmann missed a payment, they had to relinquish ownership of the company.
A little more than a year after taking over, the two went back to the banks and got enough money to complete the buyout.
This isOetersthe dreamer – an idea man whose daughter once thought he was a writer because he carried a notepad and pencil with him everywhere.
"He's always been able to envision things other people can't," Michelle Oeters said.
Twelve years after that, Kathmann and Oeters built a superstore in Evendale.It was one of thelargest leisure product showrooms in the country.
Too big for some.
Erik Mueller, Kathmann's son,remembers a conversation with Bill Watsonabout the audacious 150,000-square-foot store before he died.
"I thought they were going to run it into the ground," Watson said, according to Mueller.
Instead, they doubled its business in the first three years after the new building.
The journey from dream to reality
When first reached for this story, Kathmann couldn't talk because he was playing golf. That's the difference between the two businessmen.
Oeters would get home from Watson's and work on the idea for EnterTRAINment Junction. Why? So he could retire and go straight back to work.
"He never stops," said Crystal Hensley, his administrative assistant at Watson's. "He is always dreaming something bigger and better. Nothing is impossible for him."
The 64-year-old still works six days a week, even though he doesn't have to. Those who know him say he's wired that way.
Michelle Oeters remembers to a family vacation that included a stop at the Great Wall of China. While she admired its beauty, her father texted employees about ideas for EnterTRAINment Junction's gift shop.
As a student at UC, Oetersjoined a club that brainstormed entrepreneurial ideas. He recalls one, in particular, that he did nothing with: the chip clip.
In his office one afternoon in May, Oeters holds up a similar product. The teal clip is embroidered with a wolf and howls at the click of a button.
He smiles.
Then, he turns around and pulls out a binder he made for EnterTRAINment Junction. Inside the clear front sleeve are seven sayings from Chinese fortune cookies he collected while working on the idea.
"Keep true to the dreams of your youth," reads one.
Oeters is a train junkie and has been since his father ran one around their Christmas tree as a child. But more than trains, Oeters is addicted to ideas and the roller-caoster journey from dream to reality.
Just look underneath his desk, where there is a drawer full of manila folders. They're financial estimates and proposals for new businesses.
On top of his desk is a business card andmarketing packet from the Liberty Center. It's from a meeting Oeters had two weeks earlier about potentially becoming a tenant.
"I said, 'When you start paying me to be there, I'll do it.'" Oeters recalled. "That didn't go over well."
But the materials still sit on his desk because he can't keep the ideas from flooding his head.
"He is 24/7, looking for opportunities. It's a passion," said Larry Koehl, the layout manager at EnterTRAINment Junction who has known Oeters for decades.
"My passion is trains. His is business. I guess that’s why he has the money and the rest of us don’t."
Hidden treasures and hidden meanings
Judy VanAs doesn't like trains.
She volunteers at EnterTRAINment Junction anyway, working on the figurines and hard-to-find details inside the train landscapes. VanAs once placed a butcher and fish salesman in the very back of a section modeled after Findlay Market.
The duo are impossible to see.
"But I know it's there," she said.
These kinds of hidden treasures are scattered around EnterTRAINment Junction. Koehl prefers guests to find them on their own.
When walking through the display with The Enquirer, however,Oetersis eager. He presses large red buttons that trigger sounds of thunder and railroad whistles with a childlike glee.
Then, he points to a bridge above a river, where a woman used a bungee cord to jumpoff.
It's a replica of his daughter, but it might as well be a metaphor for his life.
"Don insists on pointing these things out to people," Koehl said. "He can’t stand it if people don’t see it."
