WYOMISSING, Pa. (AP) - Jan Fidler Knudsen finds great joy in small things, and her hobby has allowed her to carry on her family’s history.
It began between 1915 and 1917 when her grandfather J. Otto Neuroth, “Grosspop,” an interior decorator, handcrafted a dollhouse for his daughter, Knudsen’s mother, Margretta Neuroth Fidler.
“It stands as a tribute to my German grandfather’s craftsmanship and inventiveness,” said Knudsen, 66, of Wyomissing. “Embellishing, rearranging and adding holiday decorations gives me pleasure by continuing a connection to my mother.”
Knudsen, who played with the dollhouse as a child, acquired it later in life when her mother was downsizing her home in 1980.
“I stored it in my attic for years until I had the time and money to have it restored,” she said.
The dollhouse survived a flood in the 1970s, suffering some water damage, and had wear and tear due to periods of heavy play over the years.
When Knudsen was 60, the time was right to bring the dollhouse out of storage.
“There is a woman in Lancaster, Cari Roche, who was willing to work on it,” Knudsen said. “She made repairs and creatively replaced missing parts.”
Knudsen’s mother didn’t live to see the house restored to its original condition, but Knudsen said she would have been delighted to see it brought back to life.
“It looks almost exactly like it did in 1939,” Knudsen said.
It then became the plaything of her older sister, Robin Fidler Brancato.
The gray, three-bedroom Colonial Revival style home has bay windows, a sun porch with a balcony on top, French doors that go out to the balcony, a living room, dining room and kitchen.
“All of that stuff was original to it,” she said.
Knudsen said the dollhouse coincidentally looks very similar to the home she has lived in for the past 36 years. She displays the dollhouse in her sunroom.
Having the dollhouse has fed her love of collecting, which spans into other areas of interest.
“I have a lot of dolls and toys,” she said. “That has always been my interest, and the miniature stuff was just another aspect of that.”
On occasion, friends and relatives have given her miniature items as gifts to add to the dollhouse. Like a real, life-size home, working on the dollhouse is ongoing because there is always work to be done. She uses a paintbrush to dust it.
“There are always things to change, improve and add to,” she said.
The latest project she looks forward to tackling involves the miniature artwork hanging on the walls of the dollhouse that are prints of paintings made by her grandfather.
“I photographed the paintings, and then I reduced them so that the art is a duplicate,” she said. “I still have more of those I haven’t finished hanging, so that is something I want to do.”
While she has added wooden furniture and other embellishments to the dollhouse over the years, some of which she purchased online, some of the original primitive-style furniture still stands.
Her grandfather made the furniture for the original house, she said.
Knudsen sometimes goes to dollhouse miniature shows where she finds items to purchase, recently attending the Dollhouse Miniature Show and Sale in Lancaster.
“There is one in the Philadelphia area, and that has really good stuff,” she said. “It used to be there were wonderful dollhouse shops all over the place.”
Jaime Knudsen Devine, the youngest of Knudsen’s three children, has contributed to the dollhouse by making several hand-painted accessories.
She painted a set of Polish pottery dishes that are displayed on the hutch in the kitchen. They are replicas of Knudsen’s life-size dish collection. She also made a collection of miniature books that she intricately painted.
“I love that she has taken the time she has put into the creativity of it,” Knudsen said.
During the holiday season, Knudsen enjoys spending an hour putting up all of the decorations she has collected to make the dollhouse look festive.
“That’s the most fun part, and other seasons, too, as long as I have the time,” she said.
When friends visit, she loves showing them the house looking its best.
“At Christmastime I make people come in and look at it,” Knudsen said.
While Knudsen has one grandchild, a boy, the dollhouse is not intended for children at the moment.
“I do this for myself right now,” Knudsen said. “It’s an adult thing to play around with. It has brought me a lot of enjoyment.”
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Information from: Reading Eagle, https://www.readingeagle.com/
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