VENTURA : Cutting a Mansion Down to Size

Bruce Plumb’s dream house began as a simple room with some hand-tooled furniture.

But then, as if with a will of its own, the miniature house grew to such enormous proportions that Plumb must now rent a delivery truck to haul it whenever he takes it on the road.

This week, the 30-room mini-mansion is on display at Small Wonders, a downtown Ventura shop that sells dollhouses and other miniatures. Six-foot- square in size, the three-story home includes a tower, safari room, a Oriental room with pagoda, an ornate ballroom, a game room complete with pinball machines and a two-inch working television.

What makes the Portland, Ore., man’s creation stand out in the world of miniature hobbyists, however, are the intricate inlaid wooden floors and vaulted wooden ceilings that Plumb painstakingly turned himself using a miniature lathe and shaper.

“I’ve been in the business for 14 years and have been to shows all over the country,” said Larrianne Hilditch, owner of Small Wonders. “But I’ve never seen anything this elaborate before.”

Miniature enthusiast Judith Palmer walked slowly around the house, peering into room after room. A game room with a bar, fireplace, arcade games and a detailed black-and-white geometric-patterned wood floor caught her attention.

“Makes you want to go in and order a bourbon and water,” quipped the Oxnard woman. “And I don’t even drink.”

Plumb, 66, said the secret to creating high-quality miniatures is striving to recreate real life as closely as possible.

“If it’s not as perfect as you can make it, it will shatter the illusion that it’s real,” he said. And Plumb is nothing if not a perfectionist. He spent 180 hours alone just to cut, shape, polish and lay down the inlaid floor in the game room.

The mansion, a mixture of Gothic and Victorian styles, will be on display at Small Wonders through Friday. It will be the main attraction at a two-day show of miniatures beginning Saturday at the Earl Warren Showgrounds in Santa Barbara.

A retired construction superintendent, Plumb concedes that he never intended the miniature project “to be this big or this fancy.” But as he built one room, such as the Gothic-styled formal hall filled with displays of coats of armor, he found himself planning another room. And on and on it went.

He’s still not done. Plumb plans to add another tower, an avant-garde bathroom and an entire new wing for the rear section of the house in the years to come. He enjoys building the house “as a way to relax,” Plumb said.

“I suppose it will end up in a museum somewhere,” he mused. “I don’t enjoy having it--I enjoy building it.”