One of the kid's early trademark phrases, which she learned by listening to me call my wife to tell her where we were in our NYC-DC commute, was "Somewhere in New Jersey."
Near as I can tell, that's also where the garage saling experts Wary & Meyer found this excellent doll house, which I assume was made by someone who'd just finished converting his garage into a den in time to watch the Watergate hearings:
...plunked in the middle of the driveway was a ramshackle wood paneling dollhouse that at least looked older than everything else. Upon closer inspection it turned out to be a groovy little oddity completely out of place and literally out of time. The woman told us her father made it for her back in the 70's, and now her own kids are grown and nobody wants it. She said her daughter was going to use it in her police work to recreate crime scenes, but then changed her mind.This is normally where I say, "Now go down to the basement and pry some wood paneling off the rumpus room wall and make your own!" But unless you happen to have a stack of crazy carpet samples and Dynamite! magazines lying around, you won't even be able to come close.
Aha, maybe it was the title that said "New Jersey" to me: Welcome to the Dollhouse [warymeyers]
What a great dolls house! I hope it found a good home - I love old houses with loads of character. If only they had bought it and put it on ebay! (Still no good for me, even if they had, as the shipping would have been prohibitive). Thanks for passing it on, so we can enjoy it vicariously.
Somehow, this made me think of this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/garden/28housewives.html?_r=1&hpw
Now that's what I call vintage LOL
I'm surprised no one wanted to hold on to that. The person who made it must be getting old based on the family tree you described. You would think something hand made with love like that would be a nice keepsake.