"Oh! It's a Dolly Ann House!"

                                                                             with Patty Cooper 

                                                   and Anne Wiltrakis

This picture is from an ad that appeared in Child Life Magazine in December 1930 advertising dollhouses made by the Macris Company of Toledo, Ohio. In December, Anne Wiltrakis contacted me about a dollhouse in her collection; a red strip around the base of the house indicated it was a Dolly Ann house. Finding a Dolly Ann house on this blog, she wondered if I could share any information about Dolly Ann houses. Anne shared pictures of her dollhouse....it was one I had never seen before. 

This is the front of Anne's Dolly Ann house. The front door is behind the middle pillar. 

The right side of Anne's house shows the chimney and the slope of the roof.

On the back side of the house are two windows, and yes the house is wired for lights!

The left side is open for play. Anne has it furnished with Strombecker and Kage dollhouse pieces and a Realy Truly fridge.

I shared the picture with my go to expert Patty Cooper, who immediately started research for  information on Dolly Ann dollhouses. She found the following  information in the February 1929 issue of Playthings magazine.

Searching for more examples of Dolly Ann houses,  Patty discovered the house below in Antique and Collectible Dollhouses and Their Furnishings, a book she co-authored with Dian Zillner.

This house was not identified in the book, but with identical metal windows, chimney stack and the arched door with green stoop found in later models of Dolly Ann houses, it is reasonable to accept that this was an early model of a Dolly Ann house.

Found in the Marshall Field and Co. Christmas catalog in 1929, the description read "Six room doll house, a little Colonial mansion. 22¾" high, painted yellow with green roof and white trim and equipped with  electric light. The front and back sides of the house can be removed so that a child can easily play with rooms. The house is $25."

This ad was found in Dian Zillner's Dollhouse & Furniture Advertising 1880s - 1980s. She noted that even though no trade name was given, it appeared to be an early Macris model, sighting outside decoration, two chimneys, removable front and back panels and metal window frames like those used on a similar Macris house. She also noted the front door pillars, yellow exterior and green roof followed the Macris pattern.

Two more examples of Dolly Ann houses are  in  Patty's and my collections. This is the larger of the two houses. It has six rooms; four small rooms, a living room that runs the width of the house and an upstairs bedroom that runs the depth of the house.

This Dolly Ann is in Patty's collection. It is also wired for electricity.

With the front panel removed, we see that Patty has filled it  with Converse Realy Truly furniture. A family of  Winsor dollies make their home here.

The back of her house shows more of the highly desirable Realy Truly furniture, including the very rare bathroom fixtures.

This is my same model of the large Dolly Ann house.     

The back of the house with the removable partition.

Embellished Strombecker furniture, introduced in 1932, fills the rooms in my large Dolly Ann. Vintage German Caco dollies live here.

The bath, kitchen and dining room as seen from the back of the house.

The larger Dolly Ann has a feature that is not found in the smaller Dolly Ann. Small holes are found in the top of the frame of the metal windows that hold a U-shaped metal rod used to support curtains. Here's an example of that feature.

This is a my smaller Dolly Ann House, with four rooms.

This is not an optical illusion, all the windows and the chimneys are installed crooked.

Patty has two of the smaller Dolly Ann houses. One of them came with the back cover.

Closed.

Partially open.

Fully open.

One of Patty's small Dolly Ann houses furnished with Kage furniture.

Patty's second small Dolly Ann house furnished with Kage and other maker's dollhouse furniture.

My small Dolly Ann furnished mostly with Kage furniture. It seems we both found Kage furniture perfect for our small Dolly Ann houses! 

I've shown five versions of Dolly Ann dollhouses.

If you have found another version of a Dolly Ann dollhouse, please share a picture and I will add it to this post. Contact me at florinebettge@comcast.net.

Thanks to Anne for asking about Dolly Ann houses and to Patty for making this post possible!

Barclay II has arrived and I didn't recognize him!

Back in 2010 I won a small Keystone of Boston dollhouse on Ebay, but sadly it was totally destroyed at the Pittsburgh bulk package sorting plant of the USPS. I named him Barclay and wrote an obituary for him, you can read about it here. My son said the obit was creepy, but I was sad to lose a Keystone dollhouse that was "new" to me. 

Here is Barclay as seen on Ebay.

Barclay II arrived earlier in the year and looked familiar, but I didn't immediately make the connection to the original Barclay. I posted about the new Barclay recently....you can read about Barclay II here.

And is Barclay II sitting on the shelf next to HUD, his "cousin" that was looking forward to meeting him? No, HUD is currently in "palliative care" waiting his turn to be refurbished. 

Oakleaf Doll's House

 This is an Oakleaf dollhouse made in Great Britain by Toy Works, circa 1981. It is sturdily constructed of wood and plastic with great graphics inside and out.

The settee, two chairs, piano and secretary were produced by Toy Works to go in their houses. I thought the small bookcase might be Lisa of Denmark but could not find it in any of the Lisa catalogs. My friend George Mundorf has shared that the bookcase was made by Dol Toi. Thank you George!

The furniture in the kitchen is Oakleaf. I wasn't able to identify the fridge, it is made of plastic and marked Made in England.

 Three dollhouse furniture companies are represented in the dining room. The credenza is Oakleaf, the grandfather clock is 1976 Barton and the table is unidentified. The table came with the credenza and I wrongly assumed it was also made by Oakleaf. I originally planned to make this room the kitchen, but soon discovered the sink cabinet and hutch were too tall to fit in this low ceiling room.

Outside the parent's bedroom, the balcony patio holds a Lundby table and chair set from 1967 and a grill from 1971.

The flowers on the vanity table and wardrobe have faded, but they were designed to complement the wallpaper. The TV is similar to those made by  Lundby and Lisa of Denmark in 1976 that featured a picture instead of a blank screen.

Oakleaf listed the 4 matching red items as "the children's den"....a wardrobe, a toy chest, a bed and a play station. The baby bed is unknown but has a German "flavor". 

While the rest of Oakleaf furniture is made of wood, the bath pieces are made of plastic and resemble closely the bath pieces made by Lundby.

From a brochure of Oakleaf furniture sold for this dollhouse, you can see other items that were available for each room.

Living room

Kitchen, without a fridge.

Dining room, with a table set that closely resembles one sold by Lisa of Denmark in 1974.

Bedroom, here you can see how well the wallpaper and designs on the furniture complement each other. 

Children's den

Bathroom, shown here in the room I am using as a dining room.

Extra pieces produced that were not included with individual room sets, kitchen hutch, piano, clock, secretary and rocking chair.

And because I always like to show the furniture in each room:

Here is the little family that lives in this Oakleaf house. They declined to share their names so they didn't get a silly story written about them....good choice I say. 

The boy is a Bend-a-Family doll made by Miner Industries in the 1960-70s. The mom and dad closely resemble the dolls made by Hückel for Bodo Hennig, but without the skill of the original dolls. The girl doll came with the adult dolls and is probably by the same maker.

This little dollhouse came to me from the UK, and I was happy to give it a new home in the US!