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Some lucky Wellsford child will likely find the doll house of their wildest dreams under the family Christmas tree this festive season.
The house was built by Colin Childs, 82, who has been creating scale models of ships, wagons and houses since the age of six.
The house is currently being raffled at the Wellsford Hospice Shop.
Colin, a former carpenter and boat builder, says he loves working with timber.
“I don’t want to be sitting down watching television. I would rather be out there fooling about with the tools,” he says.
Colin normally makes models to order and his prices start at $1000.
He says he had a lot of people interested in acquiring the doll house and, not wishing to show favouritism to any individual, decided to donate it to Warkworth Wellsford Hospice to use as a fundraiser.
He says the hospice shop is doing something good for the community and provides the perfect venue for the doll’s house to be seen.
The house took about three months to build and is based on the “Tee House” – a popular house design of the 1880s, which are especially common in Christchurch.
“It made a fantastic house. I can’t understand why they don’t build them these days. The common sense of the olden day people is worth having,” Colin says.
Colin says interest in his models grew when he was building boats. He would often construct scale models of his boats, which often proved as attractive to his clients as the boats themselves.
The last boat Colin built was a 60-foot schooner, but since retiring he’s been content to work on smaller scale projects.
Raffle tickets for the doll house are $2 each or three for $5. The raffle will be drawn on December 7.
