A House Fit for a Queen By Veronica Scott

Mary Queen of the doll house is possibly the most magnificent display of beauty, detail and creativity of the dolls in history. King George V of the United Kingdom presented the house to the Queen Mary in 1924 as a gift from the people of England to show future generations how royalty lived during the early twentieth century.

Princess Marie Louise was the first to address the idea of creating a masterpiece by Sir Edwin Lutyens, one of the best architects in England at the time. Taken by the idea, enunciated immediately Lutyens to design a house that would fit for a queen, is spared no expense. I wanted to create a fully furnished house in miniature, which is required for items found in Windsor Castle, to the smallest detail.

Built at 1:12 scale and standing about three and a half feet tall, the doll house room forty began to take shape. Lutyens employed artists and craftsmen to work on the inside. To give an idea of the detail and attention to these rooms, built a front foyer with a staircase to the second floor, whirlpool, library with books of walnut, a servant of the pantry equipped with all modern conveniences of the day and Queen's bedroom with a four poster bed, the sky painted on the ceiling.

These little touches would only be enough for the Queen Mary for a doll house miniatures of most impressive ever created. Sir Lutyens had plans are more ambitious.

He insisted that it needs to be at home to be fully functional. He hired electricians to do all the work and light chandelier, plumbers to make every toilet flush and press run, artisans and the two elevators that stop at every floor. Even ended up having a scale of one twelfth of gramophone built to function as normal when playing.

Sir Lutyens had the talent of furniture on which small replicas of the furniture found in Windsor Castle. Had all the cupboards stocked with canned goods bearing the logos of popular brands are in the real queen of the kitchen. There were bed sheets, curtains, clothes, nursery toys, carpets and built to scale. The basement wine cellar contained miniature bottles of wine labels with a thimble full of real value to the advertising of wine. The bathroom even had his own roll of toilet paper.

More than one hundred and seventy writers, Poet Laureate Robert Bridges to Rudyard Kipling, were commissioned to write books in miniature of the Library. Known watercolor artist and art offered to the Queen Mary doll house.

As the balloon project, Sir Lutyens chaired a Dolls' House Committee to oversee all these artists, writers, and companies wishing to provide services to its vision there.

No detail was forgotten. There were Royal Doulton and Wedgewood China, a Singer sewing machine in the room of clothes, utensils, decorations, napkins, albums, stamps, and a little snail crawling on a leaf in the garden.
At the end of the project, almost fifteen hundred people participated in creating the dolls. Queen Mary was a great joy when he saw his gift, and ruled the house shared with everyone so that people can see and appreciate the genius of the English people.

He made his first appearance in 1924 in the British Empire Exhibition, which attracts two million visitors before it was moved to Windsor Castle. There now remains the wrist for anyone to see and enjoy.