Beth Neal's Dunham's Cocoanut Doll House

  ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

When Beth Neal went looking for more information on her Dunham's Cocoanut Doll House, she found my earlier blog post about them here, and she contacted me. Beth found her dollhouse in her parent's basement. It originally belonged to Beth's great-aunts who lived in Eustis, Florida as children. Beth does not know how her aunts acquired their dollhouse. Did they pool their resources and win if from a local merchant? Was it a form of payment to their father, who owned a jewelry store in Eustis?

Beth graciously sent me pictures of her dollhouse and agreed to allow me to share them here.

As you can see, Beth's dollhouse is in very, very good condition. The lithograph colors are still vibrant and relatively undamaged. Many of these houses have worn or missing lithograph paper, color loss, water damage, or mildew. 

For this post, I would like to take you on a tour of the house. In the next posts, we will look at the individual rooms, furniture, and inhabitants of this little house.

The house itself is a four-room, four-floor construction. Like the other houses I've seen, the edges of the house are painted orange, and I wonder if this was a company color. 

The lithograph sides of the house are also in very good condition, and the windows are clearly defined. 

Right Side

Left Side

The back of the dollhouse reveals that it was made with two pieces of wood. The split in the wood accounts for the tear line in the interior lithograph paper. After looking at pictures of several other Dunham's Cocoanut Doll Houses, this seems to have happened to all of them. 

Back

The Dunham's label on the back warns the recipient that this is the back of a dollhouse and that the crate is meant to be opened from the front. 

Back Label

Both ends of the dollhouse were embossed with the Dunham label. This is the top. It shows its age and a little wear.

Top

The bottom of the dollhouse, however, is vibrant and shows little wear. It must look very much the way it did the day it arrived at the shop where it was displayed. Notice that the word Cocoanut is in orange like the front edges of the house.

Many little girls must have drolled over this house and dreamed of owning it.

Bottom