"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!

Another Keystone of Boston dollhouse

I haven't discovered the production date for this small 4 room Keystone dollhouse, but most likely it is from the 1937-38 period. Keystone catalogs that have been found do not list/show all the models that were produced. 

An excellent source for Keystone catalogs is found on Derrick Clow's Collecting Keystone blog.

This example from the 1938-39 Keystone catalog, is the same basic dollhouse as mine, but with metal shutters and swing out windows. Keystone catalogs for the years 1936-37 haven't been located; evidently Keystone transitioned from the painted shutters/plastic windows to the metal shutters/swing out windows at that time. 

This house is decorated in German furniture along with American Kage, Tiny Toy and Converse, plus other unknown brands.

This is the home of Dieter and Leisel Schulz and their daughters Ella and Leni.

 

This bedroom set (not including the chair on the right and the baby crib) was made in Germany. The picture below is from Dian Zillner's International Dollhouses & Accessories 1880s-1980s.

The description with the picture reads "German ¾" to 1 foot scale bedroom furniture that includes chairs made exactly like the Red Stain dining room chairs of the same size. Several of the pieces in this set are stamped Germany." My set has been repainted with touches of gold paint added.

 

The kitchen is a mixed lot with a pantry marked Germany, a Converse sink with new faucet, an unknown table and chairs and a stove and fridge from Germany....

 as shown in this picture from Dian Zillner's Antique & Collectible Dollhouses and Their Furnishings.

 

Leni's room has a Kage dressing table, a Tynietoy chair, a sweet little bed possibly homecrafted, a video viewer of Meersburg Germany for a dollhouse and a wardrobe circa 1920;

The couch and chairs are very similar to others I found in Zillner books circa 1900 Germany, the radio is marked Germany, the library table and lamp are 1928 Schoenhut.  Several years ago I stumbled across unfinished Schoenhut lamps on Ebay. I painted this shade pink to bring out the pink flowers in the circular rug. When checking the date for the lamp and library table in Patty Cooper's Schoenhut Dollhouse Furniture 1928-1934,  I discovered it was produced with a pink shade! 

Little Ella is tucked away for the night, 

Leisel is trying to decide if it would be wise to make a pot of coffee this late in the evening.

Leni is checking to see if she has a reflection in her mirror since her friend Klaus told her vampires don't have one.

 Dieter is listening closely to the news on the radio.

Close up pictures of the furniture follow....just because I always do that when I post on this blog.  

The living room furniture arrived with price tags. Evidently they were in an antique shop at one time. I found them on Ebay and I didn't, wouldn't, couldn't pay that for them....but I am glad they came to live in my little Keystone house.