Angel’s Attic
Santa Monica
November 27, 2015
We were looking for something new to see, so searched through a museum guide book we had purchased recently in the gift shop at the Page Museum: Museum Companion to Los Angeles, by Borislav Stanic. This book is a wonderful resource, listing many small museums in the area we were completely unaware of before.
We settled on the Angels Attic, a small museum in Santa Monica. It occupies an old two-story Victorian house on Colorado Avenue. The collection includes an impressive array of antique doll houses, and also a number of dolls and other antique toys. The items on display are just a portion of the collection assembled by Jackie McMahan, heiress to the McMahan furniture fortune, who started the museum in the 1970’s together with her friend Eleanor LaVove. We were the only visitors there, and the curator gave us a tour, explaining the background and features of many of the pieces on display. In addition to the antique pieces, there are two intricate modern pieces commissioned for the museum: a miniature of the palace at Versailles, and a miniature house in the shape of a boot. (The latter made us think of the rhyme “there was an old lady who lived in a shoe”.) The miniatures were not limited simply to houses; for instance, that was also a miniature butcher shop and a French farm. The doll displays illustrated nicely developments over time, with 18th century dolls very different in style from the Victorian ones.
The wheelchair lift, located in the rear, was not working the day we visited, possibly a victim of the next door neighbor’s electrical work. The curator insisted on helping us lift Margaret, in the wheelchair, up the steps, and we were able to see the entire ground floor of the museum.
Admission is $8 for adults, $7 for seniors; payment is by check or cash, not credit card. There are a couple of public parking lots in the area and a few metered spaces on the street, but no museum parking lot.
We ate lunch at Fritto Misto, an Italian restaurant just half a block from the museum. The food was excellent. Bob had lasagna, and Meredith had black and white spaghettini. Margaret had the soup and pasta salad combo, and enjoyed her clam chowder very much.