To celebrate International LEGO Day on January 2021, DENLUG decided to remember what made them fall in love with LEGO by sharing stories of the set(s) that started it all!!  Hope you enjoy them!

Zach P.
The LEGO set that made me a life-long fan of LEGO has to be set 6074 Black Falcon’s Fortress – my first LEGO set. As a wee lad of 4, it had everything – ominous grey walls (with a splash of color!), knights on horses (two horses!), and function (you could convert its full castle to a sort of fold-out play set).
I still have it built after 32 years. Black Falcon Fortress – always in my heart (#NeverForget)
Details:
Year Released: 1986
Pieces: 430
Minifigs: 6
MSRP: $35
You can view Zach’s custom LEGO creations on his Flickr page at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/zachpharr/
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Nikki MD
As a kid, I didn’t have LEGO sets. I had a green base plate with loose LEGO that I would make floorscapes to play house with my minifigs in and of course played with friends and family’s LEGO.
It wasn’t until I was an adult again and found a LEGO ideas set that awed and inspired me! I was the first person in line at Colorado Mills LEGO store to get this particular set when it came out and it was a lot of fun to build! As a Microbiologist and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine the LEGO Ideas Research Institute #21110, the first women research set ever made, was just the beginning!!
The other 2 sets that played a part in me getting the “LEGO Bug” was #75827, Firehouse Headquarters, LEGO® Ghostbusters™ and #75952, Newts’ Case of Magical Beasts. Ghostbusters was always one of my favorite movies growing up, the set was so intricate and detailed and my mom and I had a blast building it! The Fantastic Beast set, was so fantastic bringing me deep into the realm of LEGO Harry Potter, and now collecting retired and new sets of all sorts of themes. I joined DENLUG after attending a Brickfest Convention and have been hooked ever since! Thank you LEGO!!
Moto (Michael K.)

One year I didn’t get what I wanted for Christmas, and it wound up shaping my life in the best possible way.

I don’t remember what toy I really wanted that year.

I do remember that my brother and I would wake up very early and wait by the top of the stairs to go downstairs for Christmas. My parents would not wrap up our “major present” for the year, instead setting them up and staging them carefully as play sets by the tree for immediate playing. We would not be allowed to peek, so we would dare each other to get in trouble and look around the corner of the stairs to get a glimpse of what was under the tree. Dares were exchanged, and maybe we’d take one step very quietly with whispers.

After this game, my parents opened their door and we all got downstairs. I am sure it was like releasing the hounds – where two boys would fly down the stairs and the groggy parents would follow.

This year there was a strange box waiting under the tree.

It had a number. There were these funny blocks with posts. They snapped together. There were these instructions with steps numbered and really cool isometric drawings.

The name was really weird too: LEGO

I would up loving it, more than any other toy.

This grew to more sets. A police station. Then everyday life type of sets, then the Apollo Moon Lander. Later on there would be even better space sets: the Galaxy Explorer, A space base, and other ships. The figures in the space sets were tiny, and the helmets split in front near the chin. Then there were the Expert Builder series with gears, and it was renamed Technic. Then there were these Robotix toys that Lego eventually bought and named Mindstorm. But by that time I had moved on from toys. The Millennials would grow up with a software world in their genes – for us computers were a utility.

My brother once said that Gen X could be defined as “those people who saw the first Star Wars movie in the theatre.” That is a good definition. I would also say we were the first classic LEGO generation, and the first to grow up with personal computers. These three things I think helped shape my life in engineering and art design.

All of these sets had me building, and to this day I like to think I am a builder.

All because I didn’t get what I wanted for Christmas.

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Todd P.
One year for Christmas I got my first “big” LEGO set, 6970 Beta-1 Command Base.  It was the perfect classic space set for me.  It had a bunch of spaceman minifigs, two lunar baseplates, and so many cool parts: a flag, satellite dishes, a huge transparent yellow window, and my favorite, a big printed brick viewscreen.  I used all of them over and over again.
My favorite part from childhood was an 8×16 brick.  Mine was green.  It was my largest piece, larger than any of the plates I had at the time.  It became the foundation of so many things.  It helped me build houses, forts, trucks, tanks, airplanes, blimps, spaceships, sailboats, and more.
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Kathy M.
I only recently started loving LEGO when my daughter Nikki MD got into LEGO and I fell in love with the retired LEGO Elves sets. My favorite LEGO Elves set is #41196, The Elvenstar Tree Bat Attack. It is so detailed and I love the colors. I joined DENLUG with my daughter after attending a Brickfest convention and have been enjoying it ever since!
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Andy H.
So, my all time favorite LEGO set is the 6441 Deep Reef Refuge, from the classic Divers theme in 1997. As a kid I loved this set, and the whole divers theme, loved seeing them all in the catalog despite only having a couple smaller sets myself. The idea of seeing all the life under the sea was just so exciting, especially with 6441’s underwater research station. I really believe this played a role in me pursuing a scuba certification as an adult – and yes, the undersea world is as fun and beautiful as I had imagined! And then, 6441 was one of the first sets I acquired as an adult getting back into collecting LEGO.
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For railfan videos, check out his other channel, AJ Rail: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx3KxVcrJJP1PYJ6h6AAHbA
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Jeanette H.
It was the summer of 1978 and I was pursuing my creative outlet of building things with toothpicks and glue. I got a lot of building done as I was waiting for my friend Steve to get back from a two week family trip to visit his mom’s relatives in Germany. When he got back he called me up and said I had to come over and see this new toy he discovered. It turned out to be Lego set 375 the yellow castle. It consumed the rest of summer. For Christmas that year I got my first Lego sets: 483 Alpha 1- Rocket Base and 487 Space Cruiser. A week later for my Birthday I received sets 600 Police car, 602 Fire Chief’s car, 603 Motorbike and 606 Ambulance. Toothpicks and glue fell by the wayside as my new hobby was taking shape. I put the sets together and didn’t take them apart and just used Basic sets to create things to go with them. It would be a couple years later when I received set 1592 Townsquare-Castle Scene that my future of building with little plastic bricks would solidify. I could not quite figure out what this set was supposed to be. After I built it I left it together for a few days then decided to take it apart and use the pieces to build my first ever MOC – a castle. Wish I had a picture of it, but I remember being very proud of that build and it stayed together for quite some time until my mom knocked it off a small table it was sitting on while vacuuming. Ah well, by then a new build idea was taking shape.
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Ken H (Marlowe Bricks)
I didn’t have many LEGO sets growing up, but the two bigger ones were the 6380 Emergency Treatment Center released in 1987 and the 6396 International Jetport released in 1990. These two sets, along with road plates and a number of smaller sets, occupied the family living room table nearly every weekend. My LEGO collection offered immense enjoyment to me during my childhood and I feel taught me valuable building skills I use today. I was very excited when my mom said she still had my LEGO bin and I got the chance to rebuild all of my childhood sets as an adult.
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Dan K.
I had some random Lego bricks as a kid, but I don’t recall having any sets. And we definitely didn’t have a LOT of Lego to play with. I remember visiting a friend in fifth or sixth grade and he had a giant bin of loose Lego and we spent an afternoon in his basement building, and I that was probably the day I fell in love with Lego. So much possibility with that giant bin of bricks and plates…
That was the early ’80s. My next experience with Lego was a decade later. I discovered the Lego Castle sets and even though I was “too old” to be playing with toys, I had to buy a few of the smaller Castle sets just to display. I loved knights, wizards, dragons and castles as a child/teen — I loved the little Lego versions of it all. That was admittedly just a “build and display” situation, though. I wasn’t playing with the sets, and I certainly wasn’t collecting general bricks and plates and other Lego pieces to do any free-building or creative expression.
Fast forward TWO decades later, and I’m a father of two little boys. I bought them Lego when they were old enough. Probably sets that they weren’t quite old enough for yet. And that’s when I really rediscovered that lost love. I pulled out my old Lego Castle sets that I had safely stored away, all of the instruction books, and I rebuilt them with my kids. And then realized how much Lego had advanced since my earlier experiences with it. And I have another activity to do with my kids, another personal creative outlet and medium to explore, and a new addiction. But it’s totally under control. Totally.
Castle sets I had in the early ‘90s:
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David R.
When I was about 5 years old, I was sick and my mom took me to the doctor. After we were finished, she took me to a toy store to get me something to raise my spirits. I got a Lego ambulance and that was my start.
I have recently recreated it and the is a good chance some of the original parts have been used.
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Jeremy M.
My favorite set of all time: Motorized Excavator, 8042, ca. 2012. All 6 functions of real excavators elegantly engineered. Looked great, too. Built model had tons of play value. Still get a kick out of playing with my modified version.
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Heather T.
I didn’t have LEGO growing up.  My mom refused to have all the tiny pieces everywhere.  But I loved playing with friends’ LEGO.  Thus no sets, all free building.
Most people have that one set from being a kid that was THE set that epitomized their childhood and LEGO for them.  We started collecting when my step son turned 3 in 1996.  I think a police motorcycle was the first set but it quickly snowballed after that and it was more about amassing a collection so we could build a city together then specific sets (until Star Wars hit in 1999).
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Jerry B.
As an adult, my first set was the LEGO City Cargo Train 7939. I have always loved trains and was excited to setup my own train display at home.
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Brianna M.
I fell in love with LEGO by building all the classic space sets.!!💕💕💕
Check out her Instagram for her amazing and large Avengers Tower and ISS (preview can be seen here)!!
Dave O.
My set would be the #497 Galaxy Explorer.  Man!  I loved that thing!   I think I have to parts to build at least 25 of them today!!
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Scott E.
I would say all the Kingdom/Castle sets had me hooked when I was young. The pirates sets had me mixing it up and as an adult the Harry Potter stuff has kept me in the LEGO community!
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Reed Y.
When I was a kid it was fun to build. When the 80s space sets came out I built my own space ships and played with them. When I found LEGO again in the early 2000s I fell in love with building MOCs and displaying some custom stuff along with city vehicles at COWLUG shows. I started building HOPE castle after seeing a couple castle at Brickworld Chicago 2012 (Annette talked me into going). After seeing world of lights at the show I figured a clear castle would light up pretty good. Lucky for me the 1×1 and 1×2 clear plates were on the PAB wall and were readily available to be reordered. As the castle grew and needed more plates I made sure that the PAB wall at Park Meadows always had the plates on the wall when I was buying. I think the clear plate was on the wall the whole time it was available to order.
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Noah K.
As a kid, my room was filled with another building toy system that shall not be named. When I had a kid, we bought her Duplos and I found myself playing with them before she even could. My wife saw that and got me 21066 The White House for Christmas. I was instantly hooked and now there is a room in our house dedicated to Lego.
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Shannon L.
It wasn’t a set that made me fall in love with LEGO. I was at Walter Reed, and my cognitive process was really messed up from being hurt in combat and I had to relearn a lot, using loose LEGO and a couple instruction booklets.
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Tanya K. 
I was always a free builder, my first set was a Shell race car from way back in the day, then, I fell in love with M-Tron and Trains. 😃
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Annette K.
 I got started in Lego in the 60s when girls were supposed to play with dolls (not me) and boys did all the fun stuff.  Someone gave my brother American bricks and some other building set that had arches and stairs,  and I used it to build mazes for my pet turtles.  American Brick went away, and Lego became more readily available.  In the 70s, as an adult, Lego had a promotion in Hawaii with Shell service stations and after that, I was hooked.  My Mom and my ex (husband) were always on my case about putting my toys away so LEGO was easy…if it broke, you rebuilt it.  Other than the Shell promotions, I bought an early brickyard, possibly set 580, which at the time, was a large set.  I (and my ex) were kidless so the neighborhood kids would come over just for the LEGO (at that time, I only had one cardboard box of it).  When my daughter was born, because of the portability, I used to bring small amounts along on road trips and airplanes (she thankfully never ate them).  The first major set we got for her was a pirate set, which she wanted, at the age of almost 4.  My ex struggled with it for over 1/2 day and got it built while I did my cooked, did chores and housework.  He said never again, however after that, all my daughter wanted for gifts were LEGO, much to the disgust of my ex since he considered plastic to be inferior to metal and wood for toys.  After 25+ years and Lego being as mainstream as it is, my daughter is still a little wary of talking to her Dad about Lego even though she is known globally in the LEGO community.  I, on the other hand, totally embrace her involvement in the LEGO community, even though we are aware there is a “dark” side.
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Brian M.
I love LEGO because of how imaginative it can be. Making small worlds for the minifigs is way too much fun. I saw some brickfilmers on early youtube (2007-ish) and started messing around with making my own videos. Been making brickfilms and stop motion on and off since then.
Another big love of mine are the old LEGO games, LEGO Racers and LEGO Island specifically!!