Roswell's Barrington Hall celebrates Christmas in miniature

Great things come in small packages, and this has never been more true than at Roswell's Barrington Hall as it celebrates "Christmas in Miniature."

More than 75 miniatures – dollhouses, holiday scenes and room boxes, all hand-crafted – decorate the 1842 mansion built by the founder of the city, Roswell King, and his son, Barrington King.

The inspiration came from a couple of sources. The house received a miniature of Barrington Hall as a donation from Arthur Tompkins, the husband of one of the King descendants. Through their contact with Nancy Van Horn, a sales manager at Houseworks Limited, a manufacturer of miniature components, Barrington staff received the loan of dozens of exhibits from the Miniature Club of Atlanta.

Barrington Volunteer Coordinator Sandy Passman has a miniature home of her own that she put on display. It is that of her grandmother's domain.

"I think people enjoy miniatures because it is a chance to own something, at least in miniature, that they otherwise would likely never have," Passman said.

Her grandmother collected furniture over the years and loved to show off the house off, Passman said.

The house has become a real family project. Passman has added siding, windows, doors, chimneys and walls. An aunt and uncle put the shingles on it and her father wired it and made inserts to resize the windows.

"It is amazing the amount of detail people put into these miniatures. When you look at the pictures on the wall, you see a portrait done to scale," Passman said.

Meticulous large-scale dollhouses and recreated room boxes are featured throughout the house.

This is the fourth Christmas tour of Barrington Hall since the city acquired it and the surrounding 7 acres. In addition to the many furnishings and family possessions original to the antebellum home, it has the only antebellum public garden in greater Atlanta.
- www.northfulton.com

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