THE LAND OF OZ - Cindy Keller lives in The Land of Oz near a crooked house that has a pair of witch's legs sticking out from under it.

She tells people that she has the best back yard in the world, with magnificent mountaintop sunrises, sunsets and a ski slope. There is also a scarecrow's house, a witch's castle and a yellow brick road.

Keller's official title is property manager and broker for Emerald Mountain, a 450-acre development of homes and resort rentals. But she's locally famous as keeper of the Oz-theme amusement park that closed in 1980 after a 10-year run.

The park tried to re-create the world of the 1939 movie and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz book by L. Frank Baum.

The Land of Oz is open to the public two days out of the year, and Keller is the hostess and mayor of Munchkin Land. "It's amazing to me how many people remember Oz and how important it was to them," she said. It's a magical setting nestled amid boulders and gnarled beech trees at the top of Beech Mountain ski resort.

The sun was shining Saturday morning, but fog and rain suddenly blew in like cool witch's breath. More than 5,000 people attended the weekend party.

Morrison Jade Berrier, 5, dressed as Dorothy, met Dorothy at the restored fountain at the entrance to the old park.

"I had to come and see Dorothy," said Morrison, who lives in Dobson with her parents, Billy and Jayme Berrier. "I have Wizard of Oz birthday parties."

The Dorothy she met was Ashley Mixon, 25, of Knoxville, Tenn. She's a Lees-McRae College graduate who had a minor in dance and has appeared for six years at Oz. Her day job is at the Knoxville Zoo, where she works with lions and tigers, but no bears, oh my. Her face seemed to be sore from a day's worth of smiling, but she loves it.

"I do it for all these cute kids and they love me and think I'm Dorothy," she said. "It's a big self-esteem boost. 'You want my autograph?' Great!"

Keller, in her big felt hat and painted-on mustache, welcomed people to a faux Kansas, and explained the theme park's history to those who asked.

The Land of Oz was designed by Jack Pentes for Carolina Caribbean Corp. and headed by Grover Robbins Jr., the founder of Tweetsie Railroad. Robbins was also instrumental in developing the area's ski industry.

The Land of Oz was created as a place that would be special for children and bring people to the Beech Mountain ski slopes in the summer.

Thousands of Carolinas children of the 1970s remember the white-knuckle grip on the ski lift that seemed impossibly high without any snow under it as they rose up to The Land of Oz. (They used gondolas in the earlier years.)

The Land of Oz attracted more than 400,000 visitors in 1970, its first year, and became North Carolina's leading tourist attraction almost overnight, according to a display at Boone's Appalachian Cultural Museum.

Robbins developed bone cancer and died six months before Oz opened. His legacy lived on in Tweetsie, Hound Ears resort, Beech Mountain, Land Harbor and other places.

A changing resort economy, financial problems, insurance costs and other factors led to the closing of The Land of Oz amusement park in 1980.

Robbins' memorial is in The Land of Oz. Keller says she thinks of it as a place where he can soar at the top of the mountain, and took special care of the marker for this weekend.

"We cleaned it all off and put flowers on it," Keller said.

After it closed, The Land of Oz sat abandoned for 10 years. Vandals and souvenir hunters carted off pieces. "People would come to the top of the hill that was unattended and basically loot and pillage," Keller said. Vandals burned the Emerald City. Leaves covered the yellow brick road. Harsh winters atop the mountain took their toll. Munchkin Land disappeared beneath moss and tangle.

By then the property had reverted to the Hufty family, which had leased it to the park developers.

That left the family with a run-down amusement park stuck in the middle of land where they wanted to put houses. They turned it into a positive for the 450-acre Emerald Mountain housing development that was started in 1990, with a concept of creating a neighborhood linked to The Land of Oz.

Someone gave Keller a souvenir map of the theme park.

"We took our map like a treasure hunt and started digging and playing and finding all sorts of things," she said.

They unearthed the yellow brick road, more than 40,000 bricks of it.

Oz is an eight-acre garden now.

Though the Autumn at Oz party is the only two days a year the park is open to the public, there are more and more Oz garden parties these days.

People rent the old park for birthdays. It's been the site of a couple of Oz weddings. A group of child psychologists used it for a retreat. Schools have used it for field trips.

People can stay overnight in Dorothy Gale's house, in rooms that include rich brown beadboard wainscoting as part of its Victorian decor.

This weekend, Uncle Henry and Aunt Em welcomed visitors, but there was a terrible tornado. People hurried down steps into the dark cellar as winds blew, lights flashed and the inside of a tornado was projected on the wall.

They emerged to the crooked house, built sideways onto the mountain. Tables and beds were thrown against the wall. It made people walk funny, but they got out OK.

"I feel more safer now," said Austin Holmes, 6, of Hickory as he walked down the steps to the yellow brick road.

Noah Anderson of Greensboro, who visited the house on Saturday when he was 3, before turning 4 yesterday, noticed the legs poking out.

"How did the witch get under the house?" he said.

Another Dorothy, Jana Prather, a 19-year-old voice student at Appalachian State University, pointed Noah in the right direction. "Follow the yellow brick road, OK," she said.

The yellow bricks are weathered, making it seem all the more like a real place in a magic storyland. Witches, both bad and good, a Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow waited along the way, hugging the children and smiling. Except for that one bad witch, who said something about sleeping on the skins of little children.

Noah, the son of Darryl and Joy Anderson, noticed a big Lion along the road. "I'm not scared of that big guy," he said, and exchanged a high-five with a very nice Lion.

"Don't tell her where I am," the Lion said of the witch. A flying monkey said he likes children. "They're so good and tasty," he said.

Visitors got autographs from Meinhardt Raabe, the actor who played the Munchkin coroner in the movie.

He's 89, but lifted his coroner's hat to show that he still has a head of hair. He good-naturedly honored a woman's request to sing the song that pronounced the death of the Wicked Witch of the East: "As Coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined her. And she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead." In the movies, the official pronouncement sets the Munchkins off on a reprise of "Ding dong, the witch is dead," this time with certainty. It got applause at The Land of Oz.

The Oz park itself is still owned by the Hufty family, but they often share it.

The party is designed to put on the park's best face and to raise money for upkeep and maintenance.

Keller sounds hurt when she talks about how people sometimes complain that The Land of Oz isn't what it used to be. She knows it's not, and doesn't expect that it ever will be. Insurance costs, maintenance requirements and nearby homes make it unlikely that it will ever reopen as an amusement park.

But volunteers have done a tremendous amount of work to make it what it is now, she said.

They rebuilt the witch's castle. They rewired the crooked house and rebuilt its foundation. They renovated the scarecrow's house.

They plan to replace the Judy Garland memorial gazebo in the spring.