Kate Aitken's dollhouse at the Chippewa Valley Museum is eight feet long, four feet high, and has 21 rooms. There are 86 electric lights in the house, but no one has taken on the formidable task of counting all of the furnishings. The house is redecorated each season, and is "all dolled up" during the holidays.

The charm of a dollhouse is the "little things." Tiny objects have always had special appeal. This dollhouse is a miniature fantasyland -- the more one looks, the more there is to see. It is also an investment of time, patience and skill on the part of Dr. Kate Stewart Aitken of Eau Claire.

Nancy Spak created the original design and construction of the house for Kate. A need for brighter lighting induced Kate to engage Gary Sinclair to reconstruct the entire house. He added eight rooms and installed a 12-volt electrical system consisting of 86 lights. Sinclair used miniature screw-base and straight wire "grain of wheat" bulbs in the lighting system. Jonathan King later added outlets in the main rooms to provide greater flexibility.

Kate's dollhouse is furnished with items she collected, made or received as gifts from friends. She stitched the intricate petit-point rugs, made curtains out of handkerchiefs for the master bedroom and grandparents' room, and used sandwich glass salt cellars for light fixtures. Kate says one needn't spend a fortune furnishing a dollhouse when imagination and ingenuity are free.

In 1986, Kate donated the house and the brass guard rails to the Chippewa Valley Museum as a memorial to her sister Jean Stewart Langenbeck.