FARMINGTON — Hydrangeas perch in front of the Elkins' home, Linda Elkins' favorite.
On the second-story deck, two lounge chairs await the residents, along with bottles of Diet Coke and chocolate chip cookies.
Lights twinkle within, just a hint of the warmth that seems to wait inside.
But the house doesn't fit humans. Instead, it's filled with the memories and dreams of one family.
Larry Elkins started building the home several years ago after the sudden death of his wife, Linda.
Dollhouse construction was not his idea, however. When Linda retired, she suggested, "We're going to have a hobby. I want you to build me a house."
"That really sunk into me. I thought, 'You know, that probably would be a fun thing to do,'" Elkins recalled Wednesday as he talked to the Deseret News in his Farmington home.
They then started building one together. But after she died of a heart attack nine years ago, he destroyed it.
During their 44 years of marriage, Elkins loved doing things for his wife, like surprising her with dinner, Elkins said.
He discovered that feeling didn't go away after her death. So he started over, building her dream home.
Elkins realized, "I don't need to stop doing things for her."
"Now if she has a smile, if I brought a smile to her face, I'm happy. But this doesn't mean anything to her, other than I hope she knows there are still things I want to do for her. That's all."
The project took at least 1,100 hours — time Elkins spent poring over every tiny detail — and an estimated $4,000 dollars.
"Because everything I had to, I had to do what I thought she and I would love to do together," he explained.
Every piece has a meaning.
"In the porch up here, you see the cookies and Diet Coke. We loved our cookies and Diet Coke," Elkins said. His wife also loved fountains and waterscapes, and so he built one using rocks he found at the Monte Cristo mountain range.
Every room has a purpose.
There's a bedroom with two tiny beds for twins, a boy and girl, he said, just like two of the couple's grandchildren.
In the living room, the couch is "so close to what we had when she died," Elkins said.
"And she loved to crochet. She must have made at least (300) or 400 receiving blankets for people," he said, pulling a tiny white crocheted blanket out of the tiny living room, just like the last one she made.
"She would sit, do her work and I would do my crossword as we watched TV," he recalled.
Their relationship started with a little bit of magic.
"We lucked out in having our first date up the street here. A blind date. It was a place called the Heidelberg restaurant," Elkins said.
His best friend, a former companion on his mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, returned home from his mission and visited Utah from Phoenix. The friend called Elkins and wanted to get together.
Elkins already had plans — a dinner date with his serious girlfriend. But his best friend wanted Elkins to take his sister on a date. Elkins agreed to go, but only if his friend would take his sister out, too. They made it a double date.
When Elkins and his sister dropped their dates off after going to dinner in Farmington, Elkins said, "I think you just met your sister-in-law."
"My sister says, 'What?' And then she stopped and says, 'Larry, I think you just know your brother-in-law now, too,'" Elkins remembered, laughing. "So I married his sister, he married mine. And we raised our families together in Bountiful."
The couple had seven kids together, followed by 27 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren.
He says the marriage started as a "fairy tale" and ended as a "fairy tale," but had its "roller-coaster" moments in-between.
"There were times, even, when I would sleep in the car," he said.
During one of those more difficult times, the couple separated, according to Elkins.
"Unfortunately we were doing exceptionally well," he said, and owned three dairy farms, two cattle ranches, two dry farms, some property in Park City and a health club in South Jordan. They even had a "big home up on the hill."
"And I was working my butt off, I was stressed. That was the most stressful part of our marriage," Elkins recalled.
They separated for a while because of the stress, he said, until he realized he needed to adjust his priorities. After that, he took jobs that supported the family, but his career was no longer his focus.
There were times when he worked on the dollhouse that "it'd bring back bad memories."
But after the "main construction," when he could start trimming the house and working on the lighting, that's when the real fun began. The couple loved lighting. "It's my favorite thing," Elkins said, displaying a human-sized remote control that controls the lights in his human-sized house.
She was the light of his life, he said. He pointed at the tiny couch in the living room and became emotional.
Before she died, he remembered, "She crocheted continuously. She was making a little blanket, beautiful, and I said, 'Who's that for? We're not expecting any babies.'"
"And she says, 'Well, this is for the lady that does my nails' daughter.'"
"Nobody was a stranger. Everybody was Mom's best friend," Todd Elkins, one of the couple's sons, chimed in.
There's one room in the miniature home that remains empty.
Elkins has left the kitchen unfinished, "Because once the kitchen's done, it's done," he said.
The project has been his therapy, according to his son.
"When we were talking with each other as his kids, it was, 'He's OK, he's at home, he's with his house, and he's with Mom,'" Todd Elkins said.
"You need to do something. Just 'cause they die, doesn't mean they're gone," Larry Elkins explained. "I want to continue doing things for her as long as I can, because that's what we do. We do it for our kids, we do it for each other, and once that stops, there's no meaning."
Now, Elkins is considering selling the dollhouse as he deals with medical issues and bills from multiple surgeries. He also foresees needing to downsize, meaning he would no longer have room for it.
If he does sell it, he'd want it to go to somebody who "cherishes something that's pretty," Elkins said. "This is not, by any means, a dollhouse for Barbie. It isn't. It wouldn't withstand that."
"I would love to see it go to somebody that would just love that idea of sitting in that front rocker and having a yard that you can enjoy," he explained.
