By Karen Blackledge
DANVILLE — Ann Carol Malcolm’s love of dollhouses began when she was a preschooler.
She remembers having a painted box showing a cut-out room with a door. “My parents bought me a living room set to go in it. I still have it,” said the owner of the Wee Home Shoppe at 279 Mill St., which is observing its 25th anniversary.
She received a big dollhouse when she was 7.
“It was third-handed down to me, and I played with the house with the owner of the house when she was 12 and I was 3,” she said of the handmade wooden dollhouse illuminated by old Christmas lights. That was during the Great Depression. She still has that dollhouse along with other old dollhouses and dollhouse furniture.
“I always liked them,” she said.
In the 1970s, she started going to dollhouse workshops with Ruth Browneller, of Riverside.
Malcolm opened her shop in 1984 in the old theater in Danville and was there for five years until it outgrew the location and she moved to the current site.
The shop is the only complete doll and miniature shop in north central and northeast Pennsylvania, she said. Her business sells many styles of dollhouses, barns and castles in all scales for all ages ranging from kids to collectors.
In observance of the 25th anniversary, she is sponsoring a trim-a-tree contest. She is selling starter tree kits for $3 that include a 6-inch or an 8-inch artificial tree with silver or gold tinsel and six candy canes. Judges will choose winners and award prizes. There will be a kids category and adults category. The trees can be decorated for a desk, a dollhouse or as a gift.
Trees should be returned to the shop by Dec. 12. They will be displayed in the front window for a week.
Malcolm sells dollhouses ranging from Barbie-size down to dollhouses with the smallest piece measuring 1/144th to scale. Standard scale is 1 inch to 1 foot and half-scale is half of that.
Dollhouses can be simple or elaborate — depending upon what the person wants to create.
“My passion is to encourage creativity,” said Malcolm, who has electrified about 100 dollhouses and restored a number of dollhouses.
“I have met some wonderful people and people from all over the world. This is a happy hobby and a happy shop,” she said.
A man from France who lectured at Geisinger bought a dollhouse kit, and he and his wife took it apart so they could put it in their suitcases to take home.
“For about five years, and every time he spoke at Geisinger, they would come in the shop,” she said. They once rented a car at a New York airport and drove to the shop “just to say hello. I was flabbergasted,” she said.
She has regular customers who come from Ohio, Connecticut, Florida and Texas.
Wee Home sells items from all over the world, including tiny furniture for a dollhouse inside a dollhouse, items for train enthusiasts who build their own buildings and landscape supplies for train layouts. She also sells building and finishing supplies such as stone and molding, electrical supplies, decorating supplies such as paint and wallpaper, furniture, dollhouse people, thousands of accessories from pets to pottery and collector miniatures.
She encourages people to make their own shadow boxes or glass domes containing special interest items about an individual’s life. “It makes a wonderful gift for the person who has everything,” she said.
The shop is the home of the Susquehanna Mini-Makers, the area miniature club chartered by the National Association of Miniature Enthusiasts.
Malcolm has copied homes in dollhouse size such as a dollhouse made for a Danville girl when she went off to college and a Riverside house made to half-scale. “I plan to do more of these. I love architecture,” she said.
She and her shop have been featured in magazines through the years. She was chosen among the first panel of national experts in 2004 by Miniature Collector magazine to discuss dollhouses.
“It’s a wonderful hobby, a great plaything for kids and a wonderful and creative hobby for adults and collectors,” she said.
Malcolm also holds workshops for kids and adults. Theater design students from Bucknell and Penn State come to her for supplies and ideas. She takes houses and accessories to shows.
The shop, which can be reached at 275-6538, is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and until 8 p.m. Fridays, weather permitting, during the holidays.
-- E-mail comments to kblackledge@dailyitem.com.
