The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry did a little spring cleaning this past week to spruce up a fan favorite artifact.
The team at the iconic museum cleaned Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle this week. It took eight hours to clean the entire castle.
The miniatures in the castle are placed into small containers one room at a time, so they can be dusted and cleaned using small brushes and tweezers. They are also inspected.
The castle is cleaned two or three times a year.
Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle has been on display at the Griffin MSI since 1949.
Moore was a silent film star who was fascinated by dolls and doll houses as a youngster. Later in her life, her father, Charles Morrison, suggested that she create the doll house of her dreams.
The Fairy Castle was the result. It was developed deliberately with no sense of reality to the architecture, the MSI noted. By the time it was completed in 1935, about 100 people had worked on the Fairy Castle — which contained more than 1,500 miniatures and cost nearly $500,000.
In 1935 — two years after the Griffin MSI opened, but well before the Fairy Castle arrived there — Moore’s elaborate doll house went on a national tour. It stopped in most major U.S. cities, with visits to the toy department at Macy’s in New York City, May Co. in Los Angeles, and The Fair in Chicago, formerly at 128 S. State St.
The tour raised more than $650,000 for children’s charities between 1935 and 1939, the Griffin MSI noted.
In 1949, Griffin Museum of Science and Industry director Lenox Lohr persuaded Moore to bring the Fairy Castle to the museum. It is displayed behind glass on the ground floor, with a controlled temperature, humidity, and environment.