The real estate market on the Westside is hot. Multiple offers in this frenzied time drive the prices into the stratosphere for all properties, as Angels Attic founders Jackie McMahan and Eleanor LaVove discovered when they set their sights on a diminutive Mexican mansion. Eager to add the 7 1/2 ft. high and 6 ft. wide house to their collection, the two bought it at auction for a record-breaking $217,000 in June. For years the two women had known about and coveted the house. When LaVove was living in Mexico, she even went in search of the house upon which it was modeled. ‘I rented a driver and went out to see what I could find out,’ LaVove said. ‘ButI didn’t find a thing; everything is built behind walls.’ The small mansion, believed to be is a copy of a house which once stood in Puebla, was discovered in an antique shop in Puebla in the spring of 1977. Although the facade of the house has some Moorish features, it is French in flavor, a reflection of many full-sized mansions in Puebla and Mexico City built over the years after the arrival of the troops of Napoleon III in 1862. In 1922, the house was wired and redecorated, giving the interior some feeling of the 1920s. The Paige automobile in the driveway is, along with a pair of early radio towers, from this period. A friend of McMahon and LaVove who was closing her miniature museum in Washington, D. C., held the auction in June to sell all the contents of the museum, including the Puebla house. ‘We wanted it so badly we were determined to get it,’ LaVove said. ‘The competition was from people we knew, including Mary Harris Francis and Barbara Marshall, cofounders of the Toy and Miniature Museum in Kansas City. Mary bid against us, but quit when she saw that we really wanted it, and another phone bid didn’t go as high as we did.’ Fully furnished, the house contains a drawing room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, bath, music room, and chapel. A section of the removable facade covers each of these. The interiors are furnished primarily with fruitwood tables and chairs. Of particular note is the carved master bedroom suite done in the European style set against French-style panel wallpaper in pale pistachio green and ivory. Typical of the ’90s, the house has German marble elaborate beadwork fringe. The house is generously accessorized with milk glass, soft metal and porcelain decorative art objects. The imaginative roof garden with aviary, gazebo, various bird houses and four-awninged art gallery lends tremendous animation to the facade as does the working exterior enclosed elevator that passes up through the three-story filigree stairwell. The house comes complete with six dolls dating from 1890-1920. ‘I think it’s a wonderful house and great fun. It’s very big for a little house,’ LaVove said. She and McMahon each kindled their passion for dolls and dollhouses as children.’While they have donated their collections to the museum, each stubbornly retains one favorite doll house at home. The museum, which opened 21 years ago in the distinctive blue Queen Anne-style home on Colorado, is the only repository for doll houses on the West Coast. It consists of seven rooms filled with not only doll houses and doll house furniture, but also mini collections of antique children’s toys, such as stoves, baby carriages, china and tea sets as well as antique dolls and porcelain doll heads. It was originally created to benefit autistic children and now has expanded to assist all children and seniors in need. The Puebla house has already moved into the pink gallery at Angels Attic where visitors can see it from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. Contact: 394-8331.
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