Daily Mini Interview: Miniatures from Lilliput Land

Marty Stark of Lilliput Land

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What’s your earliest memory with miniatures? How did Lilliput Land come to be in 1976?

Bateson Sheraton Sideboard BWell, I wasn’t a child when I got involved in miniatures. I’m a crafty guy, I’ve always had a workshop. When I lived on Long Island my space was filled with table saws, radial arm saws, and more. Eventually my mother decided to go into business. She had amassed thirteen dollhouses; it was quite the collection. We had Cape Cod dollhouses, brownstones, and colonials. As a teacher, I would take my free time and work in the store. I worked long hours, and that was the arrangement for 10 years. Once the shop’s rent doubled, we decided to go the show route. Early on, my mom did about 24 shows a year. As she got older, we still did about 12 shows a year and I would do the four biggest with her.

Daily Mini Interview: Miniatures by Hernán Buljevich

Miniatures by Hernán Buljevich

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How did you first get into miniatures?

Angel sierraI started working on miniatures at university as I became interested in scale models as a way of representation. It was then when I realized what my future would be. I began to work with constructive details, and created replicas of existing places that I liked. Over time, I acquired experience and thought that my greatest accomplishment was the way I could pass down the essence of a place and its charmwhether a house, a restaurant, a bar, a historic building, or any kind of space, front door or interior roominto a miniature.

Daily Mini Interview: Studebaker Miniatures by Bill Studebaker

Studebaker Miniatures by Bill Studebaker

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What’s your earlier memory with miniatures?

Barbara and I had just gotten married. I overheard a conversation she had with her sister about the toys they used to play with when they were little. She never had a dollhouse. I thought, “that’s something I could do!” So I started building. I had no idea you could buy anything for a dollhouse, so I made everything from scratch. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe more I worked on it, the more I fell in love with it. For Christmas, I presented my wife Barb with a box full of parts since the dollhouse would not be done in time. A time later, she bought a house kit while she was waiting for me to finish the dollhouse. In 2 years time, she had finished the kit and refurbished another one!