2013 Designer Dollhouse Showcase: Mansions in miniature

The contemporary beach house, like all of the other dollhouses, was designed by Richard Manion Architecture. Beneath the floating staircase: a scale model of the Mies van der Rohe classic 1930 Barcelona daybed, complete with Hermès and Prada shopping bags.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Chris Barrett designed the ground level, fashioned as a contemporary music room. The second-level garage, designed by Ron Woodson and Jaime Rummerfield, houses a vintage car and surfboards.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Scale-model electric guitar and vintage vinyl records, including …  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

… some David Bowie, of course. Working on a 1:12 scale, a 12-inch vinyl record is a mere 1 inch long in the world of dollhouses.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

The floating staircase rises up the contemporary beach dollhouse to the top level, also designed by Ron Woodson and Jaime Rummerfield. Walls and floors simulate onyx. Woodson also painted a shrunken black and white abstract in the manner of Abstract Expressionist Franz Kline.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

In the bottom level of his contemporary beach dollhouse, designer Jeffrey Allan Marks used replicas of his new all-weather wicker furniture collection for Palecek.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

The exterior of a contemporary beach dollhouse has a low-water garden made partly of air plants and designed by Stephen Block of Inner Gardens.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

The rock and air plant garden includes a living wall made of reindeer moss and lichen.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

The red dining room, a tradition in many a stately home, gets a Mod update by Lonni Paul, pictured here. She calls the dollhouse Villa Fornasetti, named for the itty-bitty Fornasetti plates she found on Etsy. For seating, Paul painted replicas of Philippe Starck’s transparent plastic Ghost chairs. “Red is good for the appetite,” she said.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Lonni Paul’s work in the dollhouse reflects a two-year stint in Milan, where, “in these centuries-old homes they had fabulous modern décor.” Her living room includes blue velvet sofas and a pair of tables made from wooden napkin rings.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Lonni Paul designed her dollhouse with Adam Hunter, pictured here peering through French doors into a lounge clad in Trove wallpaper. The carpet is a Paul Smith design for the Rug Company. The custom sofa is Holly Hunt. Hunter’s design for a sculptural lighting fixture was fabricated by Bespoke in Los Angeles. “It took months,” he said of the project. “My clients kept saying, ‘Stop playing with your dollhouse!’”   (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Adam Hunter described his top-floor boudoir as “not fantasy or whimsical,” but rather “what I might do for a young hip couple in Brentwood.” It has a canopy bed by custom furniture maker Roman Raygoza, curtains made from Missoni fabric and a traditional dollhouse bergere chair that he lacquered white and wrapped in gray leather.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Another peek at Lonni Paul’s dining room, with the tiny Fornasetti plates set on a see-through table Paul designed and had fabricated by California Acrylic.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

“It is a little over the top,” designer Mark Cutler said of the pink stucco mansion he created with Cari Berg. “We wanted to do a contemporary take on an Italian villa.”  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

The bottom floor takes its inspiration from the Beverly Hills Hotel, including the hotel’s famous Martinique banana leaf wallpaper reproduced in 1:12 scale for the atrium and, in this room …  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

… a custom-carved limestone fireplace, over which Cutler hung a Warhol-style portrait of his muse, Barbie, on a wall lined with gift wrap.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Cari Berg works on the top floor of the Italianate dollhouse, where among her touches were …  (Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times)

… craft beads turned into dollhouse-sized perfume bottles and other accessories for a vanity tray. “I wanted it to be really girly,” Berg said. “I even found miniature shoes and handbags for the closet.”  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Everything – pillows, books, plants – was to be built at 1:12 scale.  (Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times)

Landscape designer Patricia Benner created a classic Beverly Hills Mediterranean exterior with reflecting pool and boxwood hedges.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Even the outdoor lighting looks plausibly real until its true scale is revealed.  (Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times)

Natasha Baradaran looks through the three-story Modern house she decorated with Waldo Fernandez. Baradaran added a teak deck on the lower level to create an outdoor dining and lounging space.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

One of Fernandez’s rooms features Hermès wallpaper and custom furniture crafted by Paris Renfroe Design.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Natasha Baradaran used striped wallpaper to achieve a bold look for this room. Small-scale furniture came from a variety of websites, including Minimodernistas.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Doron Silverman, owner of the custom furniture company Bespoke in Los Angeles, attaches the entryway with magnets to the facade of a Georgian home complete with dormer windows and a faux slate shingled roof. He estimated the wholesale cost of this dollhouse at $10,000, unfurnished.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Come on in: Etched front doors swing open toward the entryway of the Italianate dollhouse. All 10 designer dollhouses, including a brownstone created by fashion designer Monique Lhuillier, will be sold at a silent auction April 17 at the Kaleidoscope Ball. Bidding is expected to start at $20,000 for each house. Unsold houses and duplicate furnishings will be sold on One Kings Lane in mid-May, with all proceeds pledged to the UCLA Children’s Discovery and Innovation Institute.

To peek inside some real human houses, check out our Homes of the Times. And to keep tabs on the L.A. scene, bookmark our L.A. at Home blog.  (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)