‘Really tiny’ house for sale. Victorian dollhouse being auctioned for charity – Twin Cities

As quickly as Linda Besk noticed the dollhouse at a Washington County Historic Society fundraiser, she knew it was underpriced.

The yellow Victorian farmhouse with inexperienced trim was promoting for $350; Besk says it’s price at the least 10 occasions that.

“It’s immaculately constructed, and it’s totally furnished,” she mentioned, throughout a current tour of the miniature home. “The inside is embellished to perfection. Look, the home windows are double-hung, they usually open.”

The dollhouse had been given to the Historic Society for its fundraiser by pals of its creator, the late LaVonne Derousseau, a retired schoolteacher who spent a whole bunch of hours setting up it.

Derousseau, of Oakdale, died in July from problems associated to pancreatic most cancers. She was 77.

Besk, a longtime supporter of the Historic Society, mentioned she advised Govt Director Brent Peterson that the dollhouse was priced “too low-cost.”

“I mentioned, ‘Brent, you’ll be able to’t promote that for $350,’ ” she mentioned. “He mentioned, ‘Nicely, if it’s so low-cost, then you definitely purchase it.’ … I went house, bought my checkbook, got here again and wrote him a test.”

Besk, a Realtor for RM Realty, determined to public sale off the dollhouse for an additional charity she helps: Hope Home of the St. Croix River Valley, an grownup foster-care house in Stillwater for individuals dwelling with HIV/AIDS.

It’s listed for sale on the online auction and sales site eBay; bidding ends on Tuesday.

Within the meantime, individuals can view the dollhouse via the window of RM Realty at 124 N. Predominant St., Stillwater. It’s lit at night time and spins on a revolving platform.

“I come down each night time and activate the lights, and I come again each morning and switch them off once more,” Besk mentioned. “There’s a QR code posted within the window, so individuals can bid on it as they stand there admiring it.”

When it got here time to arrange the dollhouse within the window final week, Besk referred to as on her 10-year-old granddaughter, Evelyn Kozlowksi, to do the honors. Evelyn is the daughter of Stillwater Mayor Ted Kozlowski, Besk’s son.

“Evie Rose is basically detail-oriented, and he or she’s bought these tiny little fingers,” Besk mentioned. “She was in a position to put this complete factor again collectively, and he or she didn’t need any assist. It needed to be her approach.”

One among Evelyn’s interior-design selections was to go away objects strewn across the attic, Besk mentioned.

“She threw a bunch of stuff within the attic, and I mentioned, ‘Don’t you wish to form of straighten that up a bit bit?’ ” Besk mentioned. “She mentioned, ‘It’s an attic, Grandma.’ ”

Besk made two additions to the home’s design: a tiny out of doors Christmas tree and a miniature RM Realty signal within the dollhouse’s entrance yard.

“You’ve heard of tiny homes? This can be a actually tiny home,” she mentioned. “Regardless of the market will bear.”

For dollhouse hunters, Besk has created this itemizing: “A farmhouse-style Victorian, three bedrooms, one bathtub, main-floor laundry, surrounded by beautiful gardens.”

It even has its personal cast-iron washer with a bathtub that opens and a mangle that pivots; it retails for $66, she mentioned. “After I first bought this, I knew sufficient about miniatures that I knew it was dear, however I had no thought,” she mentioned. “The washer was the very first thing I seemed up. There’s a store on-line, and you’ll find something.” She estimates that the home has about $1,500 price of furnishings inside.

“I nonetheless suppose it wants a canine or a cat,” mentioned her husband, Bob Turrentine.

“Honey, I’ll present you the place you should buy one,” Besk mentioned. “It’ll value you about 50 bucks.”

Derousseau, a gifted seamstress, sewed all of the tiny curtains, pillows, quilts, tea towels and lace doilies in the home. “She even made the sheets hanging on the clothesline,” Besk mentioned. “My girlfriend Amber was up the opposite night time, and he or she put two little bottles of champagne within the basket by the mattress. She mentioned, ‘If I needed to sew like that, I’d want champagne.’”

Derousseau spent three winters setting up the dollhouse and its Lilliputian panorama, mentioned Sandra Witte, her greatest good friend and longtime housemate. It’s one in every of three she accomplished; she additionally fully renovated a fourth and half-finished a fifth, Witte mentioned.

Derousseau, who taught at Eagle Level Elementary College in Oakdale for 30 years, began engaged on dollhouses as a wintertime interest after she retired in 1999.

“She would work for 2, three, generally six hours a day,” Witte mentioned. “Her first one began as a package, however you’d by no means understand it was a package when she bought performed as a result of she’d add rooms, she’d add spindles.”

Derousseau labored with “miniature drills, toothpicks, tweezers, you identify it,” Witte mentioned. “She had all these woodworking instruments. She even purchased a jigsaw.”

Derousseau delighted in leaving a shock in every dollhouse. “She would put issues in cabinets that you just wouldn’t even see — canned items, dishes, you identify it,” Witte mentioned. “She liked doing that.”

To make the flower backyard, Derousseau, an avid gardener, drilled tiny holes in a bit of wooden, dabbed drops of glue inside and thoroughly “planted” miniature flowers in every gap; the design mimicked the gardens outdoors their townhome in Oakdale, Witte mentioned.