Dollhouses at Shelburne Museum in Vermont

[kathi17]

We went to the Shelburne Museum today,  and saw a lot of antique dollhouses,  an amazing miniature circus,  and an amazing 1/12 scale miniature circus parade  that is 525 feet long. I took lots of pictures. Will upload when I get home. 

[CraftyMtnMom]

If you check my albums, you will find one where I visited the Shelburne Museum a few years back. I hope your pictures came out better than mine. I wasn't happy that mine didn't come out all that well. I really look forward to seeing your pictures.

Did you see the building that had the room boxes? I was in heaven and loving all the mini's, in all the buildings where they had them. My DD wouldn't stay in the rooms in the building where the dolls were. She said the dolls creeped her out, though she did keep finding and pointing out dollhouses and mini's for me. Did you see the dollhouse at the bottom of the stairs? Oh, and the one at the top of the stairs? Both are off the upstairs rooms that have the dollhouses. DD found them for me in a effort to find an exit for herself so she wouldn't need to go back past some of the dolls.

I have plans to eventually return and use the 2 days pass, just so I can enjoy the mini's and spend more time with them. Are you returning tomorrow? We had not known the pass was for 2 consecutive days, but when they told us I wished I had known so I could have made plans to be up there all weekend.

[kathi17]

Hi Vicki, I just got home an hour or so ago. My pictures aren't wonderful, but they aren't that bad. A lot of them are blurry because I was taking them with my cellphone. I tried to take enough pictures so I had everything, but of course, I had to sort of hurry so I wasn't holding other people up who were also looking at them. I've got a ton of them!!! Anyway, considering how many people I had to keep moving for, I thought they were pretty decent on the whole.

Apparently there are over 100 houses in the museum's collection, but they can only display so many at a time. Tonight I started cropping and resizing the one that has churchlike windows, (The one at the top of the stairs), but it's going to take me forever to get through them all. I think, since there are so many, I will upload them to Pinterest first, and put a link in my signature. Then I will be able to select the best ones for an album here.

I also have quite a few photos of that amazing circus and a few of the circus parade. If you missed it, you have to go back!!! It's in a building next to the carousel, not far from the round barn. We could only be there for one day, so we did a lot of hurrying, because of course we spent a lot of time on the boat.

I'll check your albums out!

For anyone who hasn't been there, there is the most amazing miniature circus imaginable at the Shelburne Museum. I'll post pictures and info soon. In the same building is a 1" scale circus parade with really amazing animal cages, and people marching and things, and it stretches for 525 feet!!!

Plus there are tons of really gorgeous antique dolls, and those moving toys and dolls, and a film showing them all working. It's definitely worth seeing!!!

[kathi17]

Wow, Vicki, they must change them out every once in a while, because you have photos of some of the ones I saw, but you also have some that weren't there yesterday!

edit: they let me use a flash for the photos when I told them I was going to show them off here!!!

edit again: I will be uploading them here: https://www.pinterest.com/kathi17a/dollhouses-at-the-shelburne-museum/

I've got a few up now.

[havanaholly]

Kathi, I'm interested to see the photos of the circus, as Alice Zinn did circus animals, people, etc, for the owner of Miniature Memories in Folly Beach, SC; and when Joan passed away a few years ago I wondered if someone kept her circus or what happened to it.

[kathi17]

That sounds familiar Holly. I'll try to find out if the circus was hers.

Nope, they weren't hers, although hers are just as beautiful.

Here's a wiki link to the circus building at the museum:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circus_Building

[havanaholly]

Thanks, Kathi.  I see I need to get back to Miniature Memories (if it's still there).

[CraftyMtnMom]

I am so glad you enjoyed the Museum. I wasn't aware that they changed the dollhouses out. Good to know. Gives me excuses for returning... and then returning again. LOL

The Circus has been there for years and years and years. I remember the first time I saw it was back when I was in school. Our class took a field-trip up there. I was fascinated, but class field trips are organized and rushed. Every time I return to the Shelburne (and I have chaperoned quite a few class trips for my kids over the years), I have to go see the circus and ride the merry-go-round/carousel (if they have it turned on). The boat is huge and beautifully restored, but not something I have to see right away. The plan is to make a whole weekend of it at some point, allowing for me to take time to absorb & enjoy all I can of the dollhouses and mini's.

They wouldn't allow us to use a flash, so, you are lucky. I'm jealous!

Thanks for sharing this with us again. It's always wonderful to get different and fresh perspectives on things.

[kathi17]

I wish we could have stayed longer too. There was so much we didn't get a chance to see. We knew we would only get a chance to see part of the museum because it is so huge, so we went to see the things we wanted to see the most first.

My husband builds model steamboats, so the main reason for going was to see the Ti, and we spent a long time on the boat. (Right after the round barn). I wanted to see the lighthouse and dollhouses the most, so right after the Ti, we went to the lighthouse, then the dollhouses. When we came out of the dollhouses, we had those terrible thunderstorms, so had to wait a while, because it was pretty scary outside. By that time, it was getting late, so we went to lunch, then went to the circus building. (Right after my husband went in to look at the rifles on the way. we don't have guns, but he wanted to see them anyway). By the time we got through with the circus, it was almost closing time.

We stayed at the Quality Inn in Colchester because there were no rooms available in Shelburne, and it was terrible. $200 per night for a little tiny dirty room with someone else's hair all over the shower. (They wouldn't come in and clean the shower). We have Choice priviledges, but they wouldn't give us a better room. We had sheets that wouldn't stay on the mattress. We asked to have the bottom sheet changed for the second night so we wouldn't be sleeping directly on the mattress the second night, but they wouldn't change it. Plus, the door to our room had something wrong with it, so it was almost impossible to open it. You had to fiddle with it for a long time to get it open. Maybe I should notify the state of Vermont, because in case of fire, that is a real safety issue, and they refused to do anything about it. They also refused to refund our money if we just left and stayed somewhere else. I was looking at reviews, and saw that we weren't the only ones who had a hairy shower and sheets that wouldn't stay on the mattress.

Anyway, I am so glad the museum was so wonderful that it made the horrible hotel worth it!

I'll try to get more photos on my Pinterest tonight. Our gift shop is open now, so I need to get ready for work!

[blueirishmoon]

Eek! Kathi, I feel sorry for you. Reminds me of the time my Mom and I went on a trip to see some glass factories. See, we took a class from the community college here and the instructor takes the students on a factory trip every fall, as that's when they have their annual sales. They usually do it in 2 days. We went up to Youghiogheny in SW PA, then back down to Wissmach in WV. This was pretty much a death march trip! Drove all the way up to PA the first day, looked at the factory, drove back down to WV, into the evening sun, and as we're getting closer, we're passing all these power plants, no lights. Well, my Mom is not the best traveler, and was getting very antsy by then, because she kept saying every two seconds, "Don't lose them!" alternating with "Don't get so close!" I just kept saying "Yes, Mom", and she was petrified a deer was going to come running in front of the car, since that happened to my cousin when he was driving through WV. Then she lets loose with a good one, "This is just like Chernobyl!" Well, we stayed overnight at this horrible little motel in WV, and it was a real trial even getting into the room! We wound up going back to the office THREE times before we finally got a working key. I was about ready to sleep in the backseat of my car, but this was in October, so it would have been a mite chilly. Well, we finally get in there, and I'm thinking, shower, whiskey, tv and sleep. All that was ok, but we could tell it had been a smoking room. Smell didn't seem too strong at first, but when I woke up the next morning, I was hoarse, very congested, and everything in my suitcase smelled like cigarettes. Needless to say, if we did it again, I would break it into a 3 day trip, and we'd get alternate lodgings in WV, although the pickings are very slim in that part of the state (near the Ohio river).

[kathi17]

Our hotel was no where near as bad as yours Cynthia, and we had a wonderful time at the museum, so that made it all worth while. :-)

My phone decided to go flaky on the way home though, and the GPS said we were in Greenland!!! Yeah, the big island in the middle of the ocean!!! We just kept following roads that went east. We went through some beautiful scenery on the way though, so I didn't really mind that, even though my husband was antsy.

I didn't want to do a master reset on the phone because I had all those pictures on there, so I kept turning my phone off then restarting it again, and finally it coughed up it's hairball, and started working again, and we made it home.

The worst hotel we never stayed in was in South Carolina, somewhere outside of Charleston. We were really tired, and saw some really cute, nicely maintained little mom and pop type cottages. I think they were called enchanted cottages or something like that. They were neatly painted white with green trim. We stopped there, and I went into the office. There was a disreputable looking man behind bullet proof glass with a little money passthrough under the glass, (the kind you see in parking garages). The inside of the office was badly painted in lime green and turquoise, with buddha statues and naked lady pictures all around it. The guy asked if he could help me, and I said my husband and I were looking for a room. He said: "you have a husband???" Apparently it was one of those places you rent by the hour!!!! He had recently bought the place from a nice couple who used to own it.

Needless to say, we didn't stay there!!!