Step Inside Arkansas’ Ozark Ball Museum, a Wonderfully Weird Collection Hidden Inside a Home

Tucked into a quiet neighborhood in Fayetteville, the Ozark Ball Museum is one of those places that sounds improbable until you’re standing in the middle of it. Surrounded by thousands of balls, shelves stretched floor to ceiling, and two hosts who are just as fascinating as the collection itself, it quickly becomes a heck of a lot more interesting.

The museum sits inside the home of Kelly and Donna Mulhollan, longtime folk musicians who have spent nearly four decades touring as Still on the Hill. Slowed down by the pandemic and spending more time at home, the couple realized that what was once a running joke—their “retirement plan” of a ball museum—had quietly become something real.

“It is a little bit odd to have a ball museum in your house, especially in your living room,” Kelly says with a laugh. But ‘odd’ works here. The collection began over 30 years ago, long before the couple met, and grew organically through thrift-store finds, flea markets, and gifts. For years, they had a $5 cap per ball, a rule that kept the collection playful.

Today, the museum is curated into categories: sports balls, children’s balls, snowballs, even eyeballs. But the heart of the experience lies in what the Mulhollans call “story balls.” All gifts, these balls are infused with personal history: a perfect sphere made from years of collected cat hair; a ball painstakingly crafted from 500 foil gum wrappers by Donna’s late mother; a family heirloom baseball that once broke Kelly’s grandmother’s wrist at a 1964 St. Louis Cardinals game.

Tours are by appointment only and intentionally intimate. Visitors gather in the living room for what the Mulhollans call a seated tour, where balls are passed hand to hand, stories unfold, and the couple often sings a song or two. The museum is kid-friendly by design, with a hands-on toddler section and a gumball machine that rewards neighborhood kids who arrive not with spare change, but with facts learned at school.

Then comes the surprise.

After the balls, visitors are ushered into a back bedroom—home to an equally impressive but lesser-known Ozark folk instrument collection. “A lot of people don’t even know we’re musicians,” Kelly says. “This part is like icing on the cake.”

The instrument room functions as a living Ozarks folk art museum, filled with unusual, rudimentary fiddles, guitars, and banjos handcrafted by local makers, including the legendary Ed Stilley. The Mulhollans don’t just display the instruments—they play them, weaving music with stories about the people who made them and the culture they came from. “We’ve been called ‘ambassadors of the Ozarks,’ and maybe that’s true. We feel a great need to share this,” Kelly says. “It’s history.”

Despite its growing reputation as a must-see Fayetteville oddity, the museum remains intentionally accessible. There’s no set admission fee; just a literal donation ball (of course) on the table. Visitors give what they can, if they can.

That’s what lingers most after visiting—not only the whimsy of the collection, but the generosity behind it. In inviting strangers into their home, the Mulhollans created something rare: a place where curiosity, creativity, and storytelling all meld together into one unforgettable experience.