FORLIVING
For dollhouse builders, it’s the little things
Duo’s latest creation
will help raise funds

CHRIS KELLY Helmi Konderock (l)and Irmgard Thompson made a seashore dollhouse, which the Monmouth Beach Cultural Center is going to raffle off as a fund-raiser.

for M.B. Cultural Center

By sherry conohan

Staff Writer

Using materials like an empty film canister and an eggshell, two women have built and furnished a seashore cottage dollhouse as a fund-raiser for the Monmouth Beach Cultural Center.

Irmgard Thompson of Rumson and Helmi Konderock of Monmouth Beach have created dollhouses for years as a hobby. Both are members of the Jersey Inchkins, an organization of dollhouse makers which takes its name from the scale most frequently used in building dollhouses. An inchkin is 1 inch equaling 1 foot.

The seashore cottage dollhouse, complete with a working lighthouse and rowboat out front, will be raffled off later this month sometime around Memorial Day. Chances cost $1 each and may be purchased at the cultural center, 128 Ocean Ave., which is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.

Richard L. Keller, volunteer director of the cultural center, said the dollhouse is a great addition for the facility, which is a former lifesaving station, and a wonderful fund-raiser.

"I know it’s going to make somebody very, very happy, whoever wins its," he said.

"And this has what every house in Monmouth Beach and Sea Bright needs — a rowboat in the front yard," he added.

In keeping with the seashore theme, the dollhouse has Adirondack chairs in the living room, ladderback chairs with a fish across the top of each in the kitchen and bedroom, a miniature ship’s wheel in the bedroom and a ship on the mantle of the fireplace in the living room. The empty film canister became a table in the living room and the eggshell became food on a plate on the kitchen table.

The front yard is a beach made of real sand surrounded by a low wall of rocks with flowers, a watering can and a birdbath.

A sailboat and lighthouse have been painted on the roof, while sea gulls adorn the shutters.

Thompson said she began making dollhouses after her daughter, Irene Linzayer of Morris Plains, took up the hobby about 40 years ago while in college.

Thompson, 84, said her daughter learned, while studying sociology at St. Lawrence College, that dollhouses are psychologically good for children.

"If they’re going to take out any aggressions, they will take it out on the people in the dollhouse," Thompson explained.

"But she didn’t go overboard, like her mother," Thompson added with a laugh.

Konderock said she got drawn into dollhouse making through her friendship with Thompson. The 35-year-old friendship was born of a mutual interest in dogs.

"We bred dogs together," Konderock said. "My husband owned a long-haired Chihuahua with her, which they showed."

They also bred Scottish deerhounds, one of which Konderock and her husband still own.

It was Konderock who got Thompson involved with the cultural center. That involvement began with Thompson making reversible cloth tote bags out of patriotic prints for the cultural center to sell.

Thompson, who also quilts, said she has never sold one of her dollhouses. She said she gives them away to family and friends, offers them to charitable organizations to sell as fund-raisers and keeps the rest. She said she has 40 or 50 now.

"I have dollhouses in every room of the house — except the bathroom," she said. "I also have a shed that’s filled [with them]. And I’m going to get shed No. 2."

Thompson said she has created a 1750 era Colonial home, a Victorian mansion, a Shenandoah house, a Mexican house, a brownstone and a modern house.

"The modern house was very, very difficult to do," she said. "It has a computer unit and someone who plays golf, and a hot tub."

She said she is now planning to build an Arizona house with cacti.

"It’s still in the thinking stage," she said.

"I just wish I had a bigger place to display them. If only I had a room like this," Thompson said, her arm sweeping around the larger of two display rooms for exhibits at the cultural center.

Thompson said she made a Barbie dollhouse for her great-granddaughter, Robin Linzayer, 7, which, at 3 feet, was taller than the little girl herself.

She also made a Walton family dollhouse for her other great-granddaughter, Cara Cecere, 9.

When asked which of the dollhouses she made was her favorite, Thompson demurred, as a mother might when asked which child were her favorite.

Thompson said she would rely on the choice of her grandchildren — the winter house, which includes a Christmas tree and a Nativity scene. Whenever she asks them what their favorite is, she said, "they run over and point to that one."

Thompson’s dollhouses for charity have helped Rumson senior citizens; Habcore, an organization that helps the homeless; the cultural center; and Project Linus, which is holding its raffle in June.

Habcore held a mother-daughter fund-raising luncheon at the Oyster Point Hotel in Red Bank at which 12 of Thompson’s dollhouses were put on display.

Thompson said she made her first dollhouse out of three grape crates she spied at the grocery store and took home.

"Then I went out and bought some wood and made a seven-story hotel," she said.

"And yes," she added, "I still have it."

She built another dollhouse out of an asparagus crate.

"I stood it on end and put a roof on it," she said.

"You can make it out of anything," she added. "I’m always sawing and hammering on something. It keeps me out of mischief."

Konderock said dollhouses are not just for children, but are often used as accessories in the home.

"The majority [of dollhouse makers] in our club don’t have children — it’s for them," Thompson said.

"It’s a hobby," Konderock said. "People keep and pass them down in their family."

Thompson and Konderock stressed that the basis for dollhouses can be found in common objects in the home.

"You mustn’t throw out everything," Konderock said. "Look at it twice…I stained the ship’s wheel and flagpole with shoe polish."

Konderock said she prowls all kinds of flea markets for dollhouse furnishings. She said she went to the Collingswood Auction, Wall, looking for something for a lamp in the seashore cottage and came away with the ladderback chairs instead.

Thompson said making dollhouses can be an expensive hobby, but she makes do with her "OPCs" (other peoples clothes) that she buys secondhand for herself and then invests what she doesn’t spend on clothes in dollhouses.

"Look how old I am and I’m still playing with dollhouses," Thompson said with a laugh.

"We had a lot of fun doing it," she added. "It’s very interesting. Once I decide what it’s for, I get very excited."