Dressed in blue work pants and a plaid, flannel shirt, 67-year-old Bill Clark doesn’t look elfin, yet he has tendencies that suggest he could fit in with a group of toy making little people.

Clark is a full-grown man, of course, but he’s sans a long white beard and he doesn’t have a red suit. All of this to say, that although he can be found inside a workshop building toys, Clark is not Santa Claus.

He does, however, take delight in giving away toys now and again. And he does this with a great, big smile on his face.

“People that do stuff for me, I give them away,” says Clark of his handmade toys.

But he also sells them. He sells them to people who approach him, and most recently he began selling them through the Museum of the Albemarle Shop, where artisan and shop co-owner Lisa Winslow says his handmade cars, trucks, tractors and trains are a big hit.

Clark and his wife of 46 years, Carol, are newcomers to Elizabeth City. They arrived here after Bill Clark was visiting his daughter in Chesapeake, Va.

Carol Clark says her husband called from their daughter’s house and announced they would be moving down this way. She says her husband was done with their up-state New York winters, the cold, the excessive snow and all of the work that went with the frozen white stuff.

“I don’t mind not driving in it either,” says Clark of his up-state New York winters.

The couple found a modest house in a subdivision, and Bill Clark erected the largest shop city code would allow him.

Inside that shop are the tools of a carpenter. There is a table saw, and vice grips, and chisels and sanders and wood, lots of wood.

On the table saw is a row of cut pine shapes. They’re all identical and all will soon become one of Clark’s trains.

“I can’t sit in the house,” says Clark. “I’m always making toys of some sort.”

And it’s true. Clark is always making toys. It’s a fact that is evidenced by all of the toys in his shop, in his house cupboards, shop cupboards, on his tabletops and bookshelves.

Inside his house, aside from the durable pine cars, trains, tractors and trucks, there are larger, “adult toys,” as he calls them.

These are beautifully crafted and stained replicas of early 20th century cars and trucks and tractors. They are more collector pieces than toys, of course, and they’re sold for a couple of hundred dollars, easy.

As a toymaker, Clark is world class. He’s making toys that not only look great, but are also designed to last well beyond a child’s interested in them.

“Kids will play with it, but 20 years from now it’s still there,” says Clark.

He brags that they’ll withstand the sort of abuse a child can dish out, and they’re also something that will spark imagination.

“My 9-year old granddaughter will come over and play with them for hours,” he says.

Clark has always worked with wood. Before he retired from a regular paycheck, he was a master cabinetmaker, who had not only worked for others, but also operated his own shop in up-state New York.

He and his wife lived on five acres there. She says their current home in the small subdivision is the first time they have lived in such confined quarters. Neither of them minds it, though. In fact, their house is cozy, primarily because it’s filled with handmade furniture, created by Bill Clark.

Clark is a natural artisan who takes to the creation of things with ease. The furniture in his house, the toys he creates, they’re all an extension of the man. They represent a love of skill, craft and quality.

Clark says he learned woodworking from his father, a union carpenter who spent his life working for large companies. After becoming a carpenter himself, Bill Clark one day attended a craft show held in a church near his home. That’s where he saw a collection of handmade toys.

“I said, ‘I can make those as good as they can,’” recalls Clark.

Having the tools and material available to him, Clark went to work. He began to create a lot of toys, and he began to sell a lot of toys by entering shows himself. Clark’s eyes sparkle when he speaks of the creative process. He says he can look at a piece of wood and it comes alive with ideas. He says he works from some patterns, but he enjoys creating new designs.

Mindful of the material that goes into a quality toy, Clark says the plastic toys mass-produced these days are not worthwhile. He says they lack creativity and they lack durability.

He says he’s not much into computers, either. He’d rather be shaping a piece of wood in hopes that a child will one day hunker down on the floor to play with it. Inside his shop, Clark pulls out a large box full of toys. Inside are the cars, tractors, trucks and trains he is so fond of creating in his small shop. The toys will make their way to the Salvation Army, where they can be included in the charitable organization’s Angel Tree program, helping make Christmas a little better for kids who otherwise might not have Christmas this year.

Clark says he makes so many toys that he just wants to make certain this box gets to local kids who need them most. And the box of toys does get there, and while it didn’t arrive there via sleigh and reindeer, and Clark’s belly doesn’t shake like jelly, the spirit of the jolly old elf clearly resides within him.