Hitting the Small Time

For the last four years, one of the Southland’s quirkiest tourist attractions has been languishing in a cupboard of Elizabeth Mott’s Orange County home.

But next month, the pinhead-sized portrait of “The Last Supper,” along with hundreds of other diminutive favorites such as costumed fleas and some of the world’s tiniest working tools, will once again be on public display when the Mott’s Miniatures Museum reopens in Buena Park.

“My mother always said that only through sharing can we truly enjoy our treasures,” said Mott, 67, co-founder of the original museum and daughter of miniatures industry pioneer Allegra Mott. “It’s a thrill for me to think that people are going to be able to see these things again.”

A fixture at Knott’s Berry Farm for 34 years, the miniatures museum lost its lease in 1992. Since then, the vast collection has been wedged into the Mott family’s spare rooms and storage closets awaiting suitable quarters for display.

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With the help of a $75,000 Small Business Administration loan, the family is reopening the museum on La Palma Avenue just a few doors down from its existing miniatures retail store in Buena Park. The opening is scheduled for mid-November to coincide with a collectors trade show in neighboring Anaheim.

“It’s exciting and a little terrifying at the same time,” said Chris Mott, Elizabeth’s 31-year-old son and the third generation of the family to carry on the miniatures trade. “It’s been a long time coming.”

While it is the Disney and Knott names that transformed Orange County into an international tourist destination, the Mott family is no less renowned in the Lilliputian world of miniatures.

The late Allegra Mott parlayed a childhood fascination with Cracker Jack prizes into one of the nation’s first miniatures museums.

The family’s handcrafted, painstakingly detailed scenes of Americana, from a rustic Pilgrim cabin to a suburban ranch complete with a working television, helped transform the casual pastime of whittlers and doll collectors into a stylized, sophisticated genre all its own. More than 300,000 enthusiasts collect miniatures in the United States, where retail sales of Stuart Little-sized furnishings and merchandise now top $100 million annually.

“Without the Mott family, miniatures wouldn’t be where they are today,” said Scott Howard, executive director of the 10,000-member National Assn. of Miniature Enthusiasts, which Allegra Mott co-founded with a handful of collectors in 1972. “They helped establish miniatures as an art form.”

Born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1903, the former Allegra Mitchell had collected several shoe boxes full of Cracker Jack miniatures by the time she was a teenager. Enter DeWitt Mott, a strapping young man who carved his way into Allegra’s heart by whittling furniture and other tiny accessories on which she could display her prizes.

The couple’s hobby evolved into a family obsession. Elizabeth Mott recalls working on elaborate displays into the wee hours with her mother and late sister Barbara, while her father would carve miniatures on the street car while commuting to his day job as an accountant at an insurance company.

Busloads of Des Moines schoolchildren flocked to see the bantam re-creations of America’s past, but Allegra always dreamed of bringing her miniature collection to a wider audience.

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She got her chance when the family relocated to Los Angeles in the late 1940s and began exhibiting their handiwork at major hobby shows. There they met Russell Knott, son of the Knott’s Berry Farm founder Walter Knott, who convinced his father that the miniatures collection would help draw visitors to the budding Orange County theme park.

“You wouldn’t have believed the crowds our exhibit drew at the trade shows,” Elizabeth Mott said. “People had never seen anything like it.”

In addition to its handcrafted displays, the Mott family also incorporated bizarre miniatures from around the world into their museum. Generations of Orange County residents have thrilled to “The Last Supper” painted on the head of pin by a South American artist (who, legend has it, used a single human hair as a brush), the Mexican flea dressed as a matador, and Asian artisans’ elaborate paintings on grains of rice.

Although miniatures can be traced to a number of ancient cultures, the 1958 debut of the Mott’s Miniatures Museum at Knott’s Berry Farm foreshadowed an explosion of American interest in the craft that peaked around the 1970s, according to Irvine-based miniatures maven Robert von Fliss.

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Inspired by themed exhibits such as those at the Mott’s museum, consumers set out to create their own displays, fueling a boom in collectors clubs, magazines, trade shows and retail shops.

“It spread like wildfire,” said von Fliss, founder of the North Orange County Miniature Guild and former owner of a miniature shop in Irvine. “Huge numbers of people were brought into the hobby.”

Although it remains a popular pastime, von Fliss says interest among the masses has flagged as the craft has become increasingly exclusive, sophisticated--and expensive. Casual dabblers have been supplanted by serious collectors striving for precise scale and authenticity. Museum-quality pieces, such as a tiny rug or chair, can cost hundreds, even thousands of dollars.

Satisfying such discriminating tastes has been tough on miniatures retailers such as the Motts, who have watched a number of competitors shut their doors as the moderate-priced end of the business has waned.

The family is using part of the proceeds from the SBA loan to expand its retail operation in an effort to draw more specialized collectors along with the tourist crowd.

The past year has been a particularly tough one. The family moved its Mott’s Miniatures & Dollhouse Shop from another spot in Buena Park to its present location on La Palma Avenue, only to discover the new telephone number and address did not make the 1996 Orange County Pacific Bell yellow pages--the shop’s main vehicle for advertising.

“People thought we had gone out of business,” Chris Mott said. “Sales are down 30% when they should be up 15% in the new location.”

The museum always has served as a drawing card for the retail store, so the family is hoping it will bolster sales. Still, the Motts take satisfaction in putting Allegra and DeWitt’s legacy on view once more.

“This is about three generations of blood and sweat and love of miniatures,” said Chris Mott, who added that the family has rebuffed several offers to sell the collection. “It’s not about money. Never has been.”

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Reopening Soon

Mott’s Miniatures Museum will reopen Nov. 15 after a four-year hiatus. Once a fixture at Knott’s Berry Farm, the collection lost its lease in 1992 but will be back in business with the help of a Small Business Administration loan.

Hours: Daily, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Open most holidays except Christmas; call in advance for holiday schedule.

Admission: Adults, $4.50; children, $2.50 (ages 2-11, with adult); seniors (55 and older) and students (ages 12-17, with adult), $3.25; Group rates available for 15 or more with advance reservations. Ticket window closes half an hour prior to museum closing.

Parking: Free

Information: (714) 527-1843

Address: 7900 La Palma Ave., Buena Park

Opening: Nov. 15

Items on display: The Last Supper hand-painted on the head of a pin, dressed fleas, tiny working tools and musical instruments, Mott family residences reproduced in miniature and a miniature home with tiny, working television set.

Source: Mott’s Miniatures Museum