HOUSTON – Once -- or twice -- upon a time in Texas, a fairy castle came to town.
Built for a famous actress named Colleen Moore, the castle was a gorgeous dream home that spared no expense on the details. The only big difference was that the actress’ vision was a small one. A lavish abode, but precious in its minute furnishings.
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Moore, who starred in movies like “The Scarlet Letter,” “Why Be Good?” and “The Power and the Glory,” assembled a legion of her industry colleagues to help craft the miniature home “of fantastic proportions.” She shared it during the Great Depression, touring the country to raise funds for children’s charities.
The touring castle on its stops in the Lone Star State made quite the impression, as remembered in “Remembering Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle” in dollhouse Miniatures magazine from Dec. 2001.
Jo Ann Juliano, of Smithville, Texas, wrote this about visiting the fairy castle on its stop in Houston:
“In 1937 or 1938, my aunt invited my cousin and me to come to Houston to visit. As a surprise, she took us to downtown Houston, where she’d learned that one of the stores was displaying Colleen Moore’s marvelous castle. I already loved tiny things, read fairy tales, and desperately longed to find my very own Thumbelina!
“Colleen Moore’s dollhouse was easily the highlight of my young life. I love the splendor of it all. I still think about the diamond chandeliers and the use of gold and other precious metals and stones. I still have my little booklet with pictures of the house.
“It was only a matter of time until I was able to build my own dollhouse. After that, I made a more fanciful one, then went on to create roomboxes of Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, and Cinderella. My favorite thing now is to dress and wing 5″ porcelain dolls as fairies. In my heart, I’m still that little girl who gazed with such fascination at Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle!”
Betty R. Scott, of Nederland, Texas also visited the castle in Port Arthur, Texas, around 1946:
“I fell in love with Colleen Moore’s Dollhouse around 1946 when I was 9. It came to my hometown, Port Arthur, Texas, where no civic building of an appropriate size existed. To accommodate the dollhouse, a local auto dealer emptied his showroom. Hundreds of little girls and their mothers lined up to see this wondrous treasure. I still have the souvenir program. The experience inspired me to start collecting and I still have my dollhouse and all its furnishings circa 1947.
“I have visited the dollhouse at the museum of Chicago and via the internet and I remember my first tour as if it had just happened.
“There are other wonderful dollhouses in the world, but none as magical as Colleen Moore’s.”
And is it no wonder that the fairy castle made such an impression? Take a look through the photos provided by the museum and see the stunning interiors.
The touring castle went to the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago in 1949, and remains there to this day. You can visit it and get tickets here. See more photos of the castle here. And then there’s this -- an amazing video showing the conservation efforts to restore the fairy castle in 2014. It’s a must-see.