Gilded Rose Manor: The Little Girls Understand
“Is this a toy house?” My four-year-old daughter was struggling to comprehend the garish lavender and green building in front of us. “It’s a tea party place,” I explained, as we walked up the entryway, its banisters still wrapped in Christmas-season garlands on a March afternoon. “Does somebody live here?” my daughter asked, still trying to make sense of it all. “It looks like a house!” The fact that Gilded Rose Manor clearly was a house, with few changes to its architecture, is a big part of its charm, and the former residence turned girly haven on Devonshire Street just west of Balboa is all about charm, of an achingly earnest sort. Fake flowers are everywhere—over the doorways, painted on the walls, even adorning the Christmas tree still standing in the corner, and one room is even painted to resemble a faux-seaside scene. Gilded Rose is the perfect place to go if you want to delight a small girl, or humiliate a small boy. Has any male ever dared set foot in this place? It might