Woman builds Bakersfield out of Legos in fair display
| Thursday, Oct 01 2009 04:28 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Oct 01 2009 04:28 PM
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Casey Christie / The Californian Tiffeny Nervig said she slowly built her Lego Cityscape over about a four-year period. It is now on display at the Kern County Fair through Sunday. She will be a guest Lego judge in a competition at the fair.
How many Legos does it take to build two pirate ships, the Berry Petroleum building, a ski lodge, windmill, a mini In-N-Out restaurant and two motorized trains?
About 50,000, according to Tiffeny Nervig, who built all those items and more for her display in the KCF Hobby Pavilion at the Kern County Fair.
Nervig, 28, is part of a group of eight families that travels together through California displaying their Lego creations at fairs and museums.
Nervig said young children especially enjoy the Lego displays.
"They light up when they see it," she said.
The No. 1 question Nervig is asked: How long did this take to build?
The Berry Petroleum Building, which was built especially for the Kern County Fair, took a little more than a week.
Most items the Bakersfield resident builds take longer than that, usually about two weeks. The pirate cove display took a month for Nervig and her husband, Chadd, to assemble.
Nervig has built with Legos since she was a child, but her career of building and displaying large-scale models started when she joined an adult Lego club in Anaheim when she was 18.
She has shown her creations for eight years, and some of the pieces in the fair display are four years old. Most of the buildings are custom made, but a few of the items in the display at the fair are from Lego plans.
Just how much space do all those Legos take up?
"Some people have a living room, a family room. We have a Lego room," Nervig said.
The Lego room houses approximately 300,000 Legos that Nervig estimates she has collected over the years. She buys all her own Legos.
As for how much they cost: "That's something we don't like to think about," she said.
She considers her collection priceless.
