A House Fit for a Queen

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Queen Mary's Doll Residence is arguably the most magnificent display of beauty, detail, and creativity of any dollhouse in history. King George V of the United Kingdom presented this home to Queen Mary in 1924 as a gift from the folks of England to reveal to future generations how royalty lived during the early twentieth century.

Princess Marie Louise was the 1st to broach the concept of developing such a masterpiece with Sir Edwin Lutyens, 1 of England's leading architects of the time. Taken by the notion, Lutyens right away set forth on designing a house that would be fit for a queen, no expenses spared. He wanted to create a totally furnished miniature home that was accurate to items identified in Windsor Castle, down to the finest detail.

Built at 1:12 scale and standing almost 3 and a half feet high, the forty room doll house began to take shape. Lutyens employed artists and artisans to function on the interior. To give an thought of the detail and care given to these rooms, they built a front foyer total with a swirling staircase to the second floor, a library with walnut bookcases, a servant's pantry equipped with all modern conveniences of the day, and a Queen's bedroom with a 4-poster bed, the night sky painted on the ceiling.

These small touches alone would be sufficient to make the Queen Mary's Doll Home 1 of the most impressive miniatures ever created. Sir Lutyens had plans that were a great deal more ambitious.

He insisted it necessary that almost everything inside the house be fully functional. He hired electricians to make just about every light and chandelier work, plumbers to make every single toilet flush and tap run, and crafters to have the two elevators stop at just about every floor. He even went so far as to have a 1-twelfth scale gramophone built to function as a normal one when played.

Sir Lutyens had talented furniture makers of the day make smaller replicas of the furniture identified in Windsor Castle. He had all cupboards stocked with canned goods that bore logos of common brands identified in the actual Queen's kitchen. He had linens, curtains, clothes, nursery toys, and rugs designed to scale. The basement wine cellar contained miniature bottles of wine with genuine labels filled with a thimble's worth of the actual advertised wine. The lavatory even had its own roll of toilet paper.

Over 1 hundred and seventy writers, from Poet Laureate Robert Bridges to Rudyard Kipling, had been commissioned to write miniature books for the Library. Nicely-identified artists supplied watercolours and art for the Queen Mary's Doll Home.

As the project ballooned, Sir Lutyens chaired a Dolls' Home Committee to oversee all these artists, writers, and companies eager to lend there services to his vision.

No detail was forgotten. There was Royal Doulton and Wedgewood China, a Singer sewing machine in the linen room, utensils, ornaments, napkins, stamp albums, and a little snail crawling on a leaf in the garden.
By the finish of the project, almost fifteen hundred people today were involved in the creation of the dollhouse. Queen Mary took amazing joy when she saw her gift, and ruled this house shared with everyone so that many people could possibly see and appreciate the ingenuity of the English consumers.

It created its very first appearance in 1924 at the British Empire Exhibition, attracting two million visitors prior to it was relocated to Windsor Castle. There the dollhouse remains at this time for any individual to see and enjoy.