His big dream started very small
Masterpiece of illusion draws fan base of 40,000 for dedicated miniaturist
Chris Toledo has gone to painstaking lengths to build the home of his dreams.
He drew the patterns for his 1920s Spanish Mediterranean house — Casa California — for every one of its eight stained glass windows. He shaped delicate scroll railings for the Juliet balconies. He laid nearly 6,000 barrel tiles on his rooftop.
Thousands — including architects and interior designers — have followed his efforts online for the past two years.
But it’s a masterpiece of illusion: The guest room is just the length of a pencil. The stone fountains are no taller than Q-Tips. The fireplace fits in the palm of a hand.
The whole house is less than six-feet wide.
A life-size version would cost millions, so his model is the closest 32-year-old Toledo, who lives with his fiancé, Matthew Mathiasen, in a rented apartment, has come to owning a house in L.A.
He’s wanted to build something like Casa California since he was 8 years old, after seeing a magazine for miniaturists: Nutshell News. When Christmas came, he asked his parents for a kit to make a miniature two-storey log cabin. Next came a Victorian, followed by a farmhouse.
“We were convinced he’d be an architect,” said his mother, Liliana Eschoyez.
Instead, he grew up to work in fashion, photography and later in his current field, graphic design. Four years ago, after a long pause, he returned to building the little houses.
Toledo’s plan was to build a two-storey, two-bedroom Spanish villa, a vision he’d formed from watching handyman Bob Villa restore a Spanish home on TV and spending hours driving around ogling grand estates in Hancock Park and South Pasadena.
“I imagined I was a wealthy person in the 1920s … who moved to Los Angeles to build a home for my family. This would be my castle,” he said.
Everything his father taught him about carpentry, painting and metal work came in handy.
To make six different types of terracotta and ceramic tiles, he tried nearly 20 methods — including flattening clay on a pasta machine. He ended up handpainting each tile and laser etching the grout lines.
“If something wasn’t just right,” Toledo said, “I’d literally tear it down and build the whole thing over again.”
The costs added up, into the hundreds, then thousands.
Then Toledo began posting images on Instagram — a sneak peek of his freshly tiled staircase, a close-up of his handpainted ceiling beams. In every image, he included a little clue to show the scale: a quarter leaning on the fountain.
The comments began to roll in: “Everything is so real! I imagine it on a hill above Montecito,” one follower said.
One person went so far as to call him “the Michelangelo of miniatures.”
His fan base grew to nearly 40,000. “The kid is astonishing- ly talented,” said Bradley Meinke, the head of the Cat’s Meow Miniature Society. “If he sticks with it, he’s going to be in the upper echelon of the miniature world.”
The upper echelon, Toledo learned, includes those who make the sort of intricate edifices Kay Browning began acquiring in the 1970s and displays in her museum in Maysville, Ky. Browning recently came across Casa California’s blackand-white-tiled bathroom online, and said it was mindful of her Greek Revival childhood home. She commissioned Toledo to build that childhood bathroom; they have yet to discuss a price.
Browning’s miniature world includes buildings that have sold for more than $200,000.
Now, Toledo and Mathiasen, who long to own a piece of Los Angeles where entry-level properties are $600,000 (U.S.), realize that miniature Casa California may be their best bet. “It’s fine art,” said Mathiasen, who works as a fashion sales manager. “It can be worth a lot.”