The model rooms were the brainchild of Narcissa Niblack Thorne, who was born in 1882 in Vincennes, Indiana. During her childhood, her uncle Albert Parker Niblack, a United States Navy vice admiral, sent her many antique dollhouse miniatures from around the world. The idea for the model rooms also developed from Thorne's collection of miniature furniture and household accessories, which she began assembling around 1900, and her desire to house and display these items. A further inspiration may have been a miniature shadow box that she encountered at a bazaar in Istanbul during the 1920s.