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Vintage vantage
Historic Barnhisel House hosts dollhouse display
By LINDA M. LINONIS
girard
Dollhouses continue to charm people even though they’re low-tech and a vestige of gentler days of childhood.
There’s just something about the craftsmanship, ingenuity of detail and life created in miniature that’s fascinating.
Visitors to the Barnhisel House will have the chance to admire six dollhouses of various eras during the historic house’s Christmas weekends that start today and continue into December. The Girard Historical Society operates the house and is sponsoring the holiday events.
Carley O’Neill, a society member, said one of the dollhouses was crafted by her father, Harold Cooper, for her mother, Rose, in 1983. She explained her father had made other dollhouses and, finally, her mother said she would like to have one.
What a model he made. Cooper patterned it after a Connecticut farmhouse circa 1770.
“They were New England buffs and traveled there every fall,” O’Neill said.
The dollhouse took 18 months to build and features three stories. It measures 34 inches long, 31 inches wide and 36 inches high.
The attic provides a place for the “hired man” to sleep, and the chimney has a nook where hams are being smoked.
On the first floor, the pantry shelves are lined with Bennington brownware.
“The real thing is very collectible,” said O’Neill.
The kitchen replicates a “crane” that swings in and out of the fireplace for cooking purposes.
On the second floor, there’s a music room and other bedrooms.
O’Neill said her mother made the window treatments, rugs and bed coverings.
Another society member, Joannie Twaddle, provided a Victorian-style dollhouse complete with window boxes and a chimney sweep. O’Neill observed that “there’s a lot going on” at the plastic dollhouse that includes miniature Christmas trees that light up.
Another dollhouse, modeled after a turn-of-the-century home, was made by George Curl in 1990 for his granddaughter, Lauren Curl. It features an inviting front porch decorated for Christmas.
A dollhouse on coasters, so it could be rolled around, was made in 1934 by Darrell Coleman for his daughter, Pauline Coleman Beamer. It measures 30 inches high, 26 inches wide and 21 inches deep. Green window frames stand out on the yellow house. This dollhouse was donated to the society’s permanent collection.
Interesting fixtures inside the dollhouse are an old-fashioned toilet with flushing mechanism located above, wooden-encased bathtub and wood stove.
There’s a "Barbie” house, where the doll icon and her longtime boyfriend, Ken, relax and listen to records by Vic Damone, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole played on a big console.
For the weekend events, society members will be costumed in clothing reminiscent of the 1840s and the later Victorian era.
The house holds a place in Girard history. Henry and Eva Anna Barnhisel bought 318 acres in the Connecticut Western Reserve of Ohio in 1813 and settled there. A son, Henry, acquired the land after his father’s death. In 1833, he married Susan Townsend, daughter of a Youngstown businessman, and built what is now the Barnhisel House in 1840.