BRATTLEBORO — Melany Kahn was hosting a local dollhouse club last spring when she first eyed the 3-foot-tall model Victorian “painted lady” in need of a facelift.
“I didn’t see its warts,” Kahn recalled of torn clapboards and tarnished copper. “I just saw its possibilities.”
As a half-dozen club members repaired and restored the aging micro-manse, a stray comment about displaying it downtown snowballed into something bigger.
“Wouldn’t it be amazing,” Kahn remembered hearing, “if every store had one in its window?’”
Cue the inaugural Festival of Miniatures, set to debut this December with nearly 90 dollhouses, dioramas and toy trains — even a working “Mouse Metro” escalator — on display through a partnership with the Downtown Brattleboro Alliance.
Local merchants spent much of 2024 battling headlines about business closures, bank consolidations and boosted police presence. Festival organizers, aiming to change the narrative, hope thinking small will pay off big.
“Small is cute and sweet and whimsical and charming — and also accessible and affordable,” Kahn said in an interview. “The idea is not to just stand outside and look, it’s an invitation in.”
That’s why the Shoe Tree now features handknit animals nestled in literal shoebox apartments. Why Morning Glorious Vintage has dolls in retro couture. Why Mitchell Giddings Fine Arts has the newly restored model Victorian filled with 100 locally crafted small-scale furnishings.
“Most artists went above and beyond,” said Kahn, pointing to tiny touches fashioned by area potters, weavers and glassblowers.
The festival, running through December, will officially launch during the town’s first-Friday-of-the-month Gallery Walk. Alongside storefronts, the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center will host toy trains, the Latchis Gallery will feature a “Museum of Things Tiny and Found” and the Boys & Girls Club will offer a Dec. 20 display of “Spirit Houses” decorated by 13 area schools.
Organizers won’t say if the festival will return until they record and review public response.
“There are metrics we can measure,” Kahn said of spectator and sales figures.
There’s also the small stuff not easily seen.
“Shopkeepers are working very, very hard to make our downtown thrive, and that’s what has kept me so invested and involved,” Kahn said. “To me, supporting this feels really good, really important.”
And, amid so many miniatures, really big.
