The self-guided tour starts in a magnificent rotunda where visitors can read about the museum’s founder, Pat Arnell, who received her first set of miniatures in the 1930s.
The miniatures enthusiast didn’t seriously start collecting them until 1979 and since has accumulated one of the finest collections in the country, making her well-known in the miniature community, which includes local, national and international organizations.
Arnell’s museum is said to be the first built in the United States specifically to showcase miniatures.
The Mini-Time Machine is separated into three galleries – Exploring the World, History Gallery and the Enchanted Realm. Each has a different theme.
“People should plan on spending a couple of hours here,” said Lisa Hastreiter-Lamb, the museum’s associate director and director of education.
A grand tree beckons you to the Enchanted Realm gallery. It’s the only one where sounds transport museum guests to far off places where fairies, wizards, pocket dragons, witches, frog princes, mermaids and unicorns reside.
The castle’s every nook and cranny tells a different story. Arnell commissioned the castle from a couple in 1998 and more than 40 other artisans contributed to the work.
The Yellow Rose of Texas house is in the Exploring the World gallery. The mansion is the work of Brooke Tucker, a popular artist in the miniature world and the daughter of the late actor Forrest Tucker.
Another highlight in the Exploring the World gallery is Chateau Meno, an elaborate 14-room palace in the Rococo style of French architecture purchased by Arnell in 2006. It had been owned by a Georgia woman who constructed the chateau in her basement over 30 years.
Arnell obtained the collection’s oldest room box at an auction in January and fittingly, it’s found in the History Gallery. The 1742 Nuremberg Kitchen was produced in great detail by artisans in Germany.
“It’s amazing something like this has lasted so long,” Arnell said. “It has all the original furnishings.”
Another kitchen in the gallery, called the Nuremberg Turn-of-the-Century Kitchen, was manufactured by a German toy company in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The kitchen is operational and features a working meat grinder, which is better suited for oatmeal than meat, and an oven that can heat up mixtures with candles.
Arnell and her husband, Walter, opened the Mini-Time Machine Museum of Miniatures last Sept. 1 to showcase her vast collection of antique and contemporary miniatures.
More than 26,000 people have walked through its three galleries since the approximately 16,000-square-foot museum opened.
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Information from: Arizona Daily Star, http://www.azstarnet.com
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WS-06-27-10 1441EDT
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