Signature: Kelli Thompson Stevens

When at last its doors open in City Park a few years from now, the Knock Knock Children’s Museum should be the only arts center in the area where certain kids will be able to walk in and tell their parents: “That was my idea!” Board chair Kelli Stevens, the visionary for the project, consulted her daughters.

Stevens worked several years for the Children’s Museum of Houston, and in 2003 approached the Baton Rouge Area Foundation about volunteering with whomever was working to establish a children’s museum in Baton Rouge. Turned out there wasn’t anyone. “They said, ‘You know, you’re just the person to do it!’” Stevens recalls. “And I bought that— hook, line and sinker.”

The museum’s name comes from knock-knock jokes, which are usually a play on words. It’s fitting, then, that the museum is all about children playing with words.

This spring Haizlip Studio delivered the comprehensive designs for Knock Knock, a sprawling megaplex of learning and creative arts overlooking City Park. The museum is designed for children under 8, but Stevens says educating toddlers is most crucial. “The buzz word right now is ‘work force development,’ but learning doesn’t start in kindergarten,” she says.

Knock Knock will include indoor and outdoor tree houses, a mock riverboat, airplane, café, building company, veterinarian hospital and other simulators that let kids learn grown-up jobs. An indoor climbing tree will be wheelchair-accessible and a used car will serve as a canvas that kids can paint on in Knock Knock’s Art House.

Age: 40

Title: Board chair, Knock Knock Children’s Museum

Hometown: Baton Rouge

The museum garnered $5 million in state capital outlay last year. Knock Knock needs $15 million for construction, and this summer Stevens is taking

Haizlip’s designs to potential investors.

“It’s not going to be five years, it’ll be closer to three,” she says. “It’s taking time because we want it to be the best, and we want it to be sustainable. Nobody wants to work this hard and build something this fabulous and have it close.”

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