World-famous dollhouse shop finds a welcome new home in Fall River
FALL RIVER — “I play with dollhouses all day,” Nathaniel Ellis said, looking around his specialty store, a third-floor unit in the Tower Mill that in the last four months has become home to the world’s largest vintage dollhouse refurbisher and retailer.
Stepping into Flip This Dollhouse at 657 Quarry St. gives one the impression of looking out over suburbia just after the plane takes off. Upon closer inspection, the fourth wall of these homes are usually non-existent to reveal a doll’s world — porcelain bathtubs large enough to cradle a bar of soap; hand-woven rugs the size of a sheet of paper; full kitchens that could fit in a shoebox.
A particularly regal Victorian-style dollhouse that Ellis calls “the elephant in the room” gave U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss pause when he passed by it on a July 29 tour of Flip This Dollhouse.
Auchincloss said he’s making a circuit of all 35 Massachusetts cities and towns in his district. “Entrepreneurs give me energy,” he said, citing his advocacy for small businesses in the Commonwealth.
For over an hour, Auchincloss learned from Ellis what exactly goes into making “a thriving dollhouse enterprise,” as he called it, from touring the workshop, speaking with volunteer and vintage dollhouse refurbisher Bob Seguir, and talking about the dollhouse at home that his kids now tinker with.
In Ellis’s words, hobbies like ship- or plane-building and train-collecting are analogous to the dollhouse business, as they charm enthusiasts by toying with normal proportions. The smaller, more detailed, and lifelike something is, the better. But even he is surprised at the growth he’s seen since he picked up his business from southern New Bedford’s Kilburn Mill and moved it to Fall River.
It takes a small village: Miniature has maximum appeal in Fall River
Ellis said he’s seen more footsteps in his store this week alone than he did at any point when located in New Bedford. He said he sells between three and 10 dollhouses a month, citing his industry as a seasonal business. He said during cooler months around Christmastime, it seems 20 to 30 dollhouses leave his shop.
He’s shipped dollhouses for thousands of dollars, but some local buyers will arrange their own transportation — sometimes renting a van and making the trek to the SouthCoast themselves.
In the dollhouse market, prices are usually dictated by labor. A rare dollhouse with working lights and stained glass windows that required 1,000 hours of craftmanship, focal binoculars, and a steady hand with a pair of tweezers can command a price in the tens of thousands, while a more conventional buy could run a buyer a few hundred dollars.
Ellis said he’s sold over 400 dollhouses in the last 16 of running a business. He keeps about 100 on hand year-round.
“I never throw out a dollhouse,” he said.
Ellis, a former interior designer, said he's always been “fascinated” by dollhouses. He said the images included in his portfolio that landed him a job as an interior designer were actually stills of a dollhouse he refurbished and decorated. “They told me I had an eye for it,” he said.
When kids turn their noses up to child’s play, adults step in
Nearly three quarters of Ellis’s clientele are adults, he told Auchincloss, who asked whether kids’ curiosity ever got the better of them when they visit Ellis’s store. Ellis said he delights when all age-groups interact with the dollhouses, but fewer kids are drawn to tactile play.
It’s the adults, he said, who are buying dollhouses for themselves, either chasing a feeling of nostalgia since having one as a child, or they’re first-timers who are attracted to the hobby.
“There’s some backlash,” Ellis said, but market rebounds with younger generations could be a false alarm. Nothing, Ellis said, rivals the dollhouse boom in the 1980s that cooled in the '90s and 2000’s. In 2026, “I never thought it would get this big,” he said.
Ellis’s work captured the attention of the big screen — and Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift is one of Ellis' customers. A burning dollhouse, featured in footage playing in the background on stage of the Eras Tour while Swift performed a "1989" segment including her percussive-turned-pop song “Bad Blood,” was one of Ellis’s dollhouses.
Gladys Russell, a fictional character in the HBO series "The Gilded Age" which was filmed in Newport, Rhode Island's Elms Mansion, is shown in the first season playing with one of Ellis’s dollhouses.
Ellis’s dollhouses were used in ABC Network's true crime documentary Fatal Flaw," which featured real-life murder investigations when crime scenes needed reconstructing in miniature.
At the helm of a “highly visual” business, Ellis is no stranger to giving his passion screentime on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. One video, a walk-through his shop, he said, garnered 1.2 million views on TikTok.
He said his focus is directed at the future. As he settles in at his Fall River location, he said he’s seeing a dynamic difference in the reception he’s getting as a destination boutique.
To Ellis, the fanfare over dollhouses hardly compares to his own passion in meshing work with play. “They’re so special to me,” he said.
By: Emily Scherny
Source: Fall River Herald