Northland Puzzleman Louis Toorenburg: How a Rāwene puzzle shop survived 50 years

Louis Toorenburg with a Japanese puzzle box, one of the latest additions to his Puzzle Museum in Rāwene. Photo / Peter de Graaf - RNZ

By Peter de Graaf - RNZ

A quirky shop run by Northland’s Puzzleman is itself something of a puzzle.

How does a small business, selling a niche product in an out-of-the-way town of a few hundred souls, survive for half a century - especially in these tough economic times?

Louis “Puzzleman” Toorenburg has a simple answer.

“Because it’s fun. And because people love a challenge,” he says.

Toorenburg started making puzzles 53 years ago and ended up in Rāwene, a small town nestled on a peninsula in the Hokianga Harbour, in 1975.

He chanced on a tiny vacant shop on Clendon Esplanade, a few strides from the ferry ramp, and rented it for the princely sum of $6 a week.

He even lived under the counter for a while - which must have been a tight fit, given the Puzzleman’s stature - after the home he was living in rent-free was sold.

Toorenburg later ran various incarnations of his puzzle shop at an Ōpononi youth hostel, a craft co-op on the edge of Waipoua Forest and a maze complex in Waiotemarama Gorge, before dodgy knees and a state pension brought him full circle back to his original premises about nine years ago.

Toorenburg says his interest in puzzles started as a toddler growing up in the Netherlands.

“I was 2 years old when somebody gave me some puzzles. I liked doing puzzles, and that just grew into a passion. I was 19 when I started making my wooden jigsaw puzzles, which I still do today.”

Louis “Puzzleman” Toorenburg with the Nintendo Challenge Dice, the puzzle that sparked his obsession. Photo / Peter de Graaf - RNZ

The family moved to Australia where he landed an IT job with the government - until an ultimatum from his bosses when he was aged 21.

“The public service wouldn’t let me make a second income, they told me I had to stop making puzzles. So I thought about it, and I said, ‘Okay, bye bye’. I handed in my notice and bought an old truck, did it up like a mobile home workshop and lived in the back.”

Toorenburg came to New Zealand for what was supposed to be a three-month holiday, got as far as Rāwene, and never left.

In those early years the office next to his shop was rented by a small-town lawyer called David Lange, later to become New Zealand’s sixth Labour prime minister.

“I don’t think he had many Hokianga clients, but he did come in here sometimes. He was different back then. He wore a black suit, little narrow black tie, white shirt. He had big black glasses, his hair came around his face, and he was overweight. He was a funny chap.”

Five years ago, Lange’s former office came up for rent again, so Toorenburg seized the chance to expand his shop and open a puzzle museum.

The most complicated puzzle box in Louis Toorenburg’s collection requires 72 moves, in the correct sequence, to open. Photo / Peter de Graaf - RNZ

His business occupies the ground floor of a historic building known as The Wedge, a reference to its distinctive shape, so the museum is literally at the thin edge of the wedge.

Just a fraction of Toorenburg’s collection of 5000-plus puzzles is crammed into the museum’s display cabinets.

That includes Rubik’s cubes, masterfully crafted puzzle boxes requiring up to 72 moves to open, and “impossible objects” which should not exist.

There are also personal treasures such as childhood puzzles from the Netherlands and the 1970s Nintendo Challenge Cube that turned Toorenburg’s interest into a lifelong obsession.

The museum also houses his collection of antique cigarette dispensers. His favourite is a wooden donkey which ejects cigarettes from its anus when its ears are pulled.

These days Toorenburg is one of Rāwene’s best known identities, unmissable for his stature, large white beard, and tireless advocacy for South Hokianga.

He’s also a well-known figure in global puzzle-making circles, and has represented New Zealand at 14 international conferences known as Puzzle Parties.

The Puzzle Museum includes puzzles from all over the world, including this one from Mongolia. Photo / Peter de Graaf - RNZ

One of the most entertaining features of the Puzzleman’s business, and one that hasn’t changed in 50 years, is his routine with new customers.

Anyone who walks through the door is given a puzzle to solve - chosen from a box of about 50 at the Puzzleman’s feet - and plenty of good-natured ribbing when, almost inevitably, the customer is stumped.

“Some people refuse. ‘I don’t do puzzles’, they say. Then I think, ‘Well, why are you in this shop?’ But you’ve got to engage them. By giving them puzzles to do, it sparks their interest. Sometimes I’ve got six or eight or more people doing puzzles in the shop. They don’t know each other when they come in, but they do when they leave.”

Toorenburg says he’s not worried if people leave without buying anything.

“I don’t care. I enjoy the interaction, like I enjoy torturing these poor people [with puzzles], and they seem to enjoy it. Occasionally, I misread the people, but that’s not very often. Most people leave laughing.”

The Puzzleman’s museum and shop, called Simply Fun, are open seven days a week on Clendon Esplanade, just along the waterfront from the Rāwene ferry landing.