 "The salon with the postage-size reproduction of the \"Pinkie\"")
This extravagant home has a weaponry room, a dovecote, a wizard's tower, and an appraised value of more than $2,000 per square inch - all good hints that it's not a traditional abode but a 9-foot-tall miniature called the Astolat Dollhouse Castle. Built by the artist Elaine Diehl around 1980 and decorated with 10,000 teeny-tiny items, the $8.5 million dollhouse is the world's most expensive and will be on display till December 8 at the Shops at Columbus Circle, in Manhattan's Time Warner Center.
It took 13 years for Diehl, a celebrated miniature artist, to build the dollhouse, which has an appraised worth of $8.5 million. That works out to about $288,000 per square foot - a number that could make the luxurious apartments at the Time Warner Center, which can run about $5,000 per square foot, feel like servants' quarters.
The dollhouse takes its name after the castle in The Lady of Shallot, a 19th-century ballad by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Suits of armour abound, which is a neat feature and the secret to the castle's overall worth. The dollhouse's lofty appraisal is based on its valuation as a work of art and on the price tags associated with the thousands of tiny objects collected therein. A silver flatware set, for instance, is said to be worth $5,000.
the luxurious finishes visible with the hinges open
Some of the finer touches include hand-stitched tapestries, vases in real lapis lazuli, and replica 18th-century oil paintings - such as the postage-size reproduction of Thomas Lawrence's "Pinkie", displayed on the wall of the salon. Come have a cocktail and sit for a spell.
The library contains tiny books with tiny letters that can be read under a magnifying glass. The book collection includes a Bible considered one of the world's smallest. A drop-leaf secretary bookshelf is valued at up to $2,500; a miniature Hebrew Torah was worth up to $2,500 at the time of purchase.
