A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: Snow White, Off the Beaten Path
By Dave Shute
Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians and author of Jim’s Gems in The easy Guide, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.
SNOW WHITE AT THE GAMBLE HOUSE
By Jim Korkis
Some Disney treasures are not on Disney property. Here is a secret that is not found in any other Disney travel guide or website.
In the deep forest of eastern Volusia County alongside the dark waters of Spruce Creek is a charming cottage of fantasy architecture known as the Snow White House that is virtually unknown to Disney fans. It is located off Taylor Road, roughly two miles west of I-95.
The tiny cypress-and-pine home is furnished with a miniature stairway that leads to a mock dwarfs’ bedroom marked by seven little headboards. Bookshelves set atop cypress knees and gnarled wood handles adorn the Gothic wood doors.
Surrounding the house are fantasy features such as a Witch’s Hut, dwarfs’ mine shaft and wishing well, all connected by field-stone paths.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was a milestone animated feature film that captured the hearts and imagination of many people when it was first released.
Judge Alfred K. Nippert began building the Snow White House as a playhouse in 1938 for his nieces on the 150-acre hunting and fishing retreat that he inherited from his father-in-law, James N. Gamble, of Procter and Gamble.
The Gamble estate includes acres of forest, a Cracker-style lodge, a citrus packing house, azalea garden and trails through a hardwood swamp. It was donated in 1983 to the Nature Conservancy and is a historical and environmental preserve open to the public for tours by reservation.
The Daytona Beach Museum manages the Gamble place for the Conservancy with financial help from the Junior League of Daytona Beach. Tours of Gamble Place are arranged by appointment only through the Daytona Beach Museum of Arts and Sciences, (904) 255-0285.
Like so many others, the young girls loved Snow White and Nippert got carried away once the project started.
Nippert hired local carpenter Ernie Whidmeir, who prepared himself for the task by studying twenty animation cells from the film obtained from the Disney Studio and by repeatedly viewing the movie.
Because of Nippert’s social connections including supposedly a friendship with Walt Disney himself, he was able to obtain the celluloids for the carpenter to use as an architectural guide and create workable blueprints. A nearly full-scale replica was completed with heavy Gothic doors featuring huge authentic strap hinges and an enormous fireplace.
The cottage was completed in March 1938. Nippert invited Walt Disney to visit, and reportedly, he did.
Walt was so pleased and amazed at the detailed work that captured the fairy-tale quaintness of the film that upon his return to California, he gifted Nippert with eight life-sized dolls of Snow White and each of the Seven Dwarfs.
Snow White was displayed in the parlor in a glass coffin that Nippert had built to look like the crystal tomb in the movie. The seven Dwarf dolls were put in various corners of the room to keep a watchful eye on the sleeping little princess as they awaited the arrival of the prince and true love’s kiss.
But the dolls disappeared between the time the Nippert family closed the estate in the 1940s and the Nature Conservancy took it over in the early 1980s.
During a restoration in the early 1990s, Dana Ste. Claire and his wife, Carol, lived in the Snow White House for two years, working in their free time to restore the landmark and have furnished it with their own antiques. After they finished, they moved out.
”We’re going to try to get the Disney folks interested in this . . . they might come over a do a little film about the house,” Dana Ste. Claire said at the time but that never happened and this little gem has been hidden from Disney fans for many years
Except for special events open to the public, tours of Gamble Place are arranged by appointment only through the Daytona Beach Museum of Arts and Sciences, (904) 255-0285. So the next time you decide to go “off property” to explore some of the many other offerings of Central Florida, you may want to include this little known Disney related treasure.
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Thanks, Jim! And come back next Friday for even more from Jim Korkis!
In the meantime, check out his books, including Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew
, which reprints much material first written for this site, and The Vault of Walt: Volume 4, and his contributions to The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit, all published by Theme Park Press.
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