There’s a whole world within Modesto woodworker’s home

In the classic tale “Pinocchio,” the woodworker Geppetto creates a marionette that is touched with magic. It’s fitting, then, that a replica of the kindhearted, humble old man’s workshop sits in the Modesto home of Don Silva, who works his own particular magic with wood.

The nearly 80-year-old retired contractor lives in a mobile home community, where the exterior of his modest dwelling belies the wonderland inside. Within steps of Pinocchio’s “birthplace” are several other meticulously crafted, 1:12-scale models of buildings real and imagined.

A witch’s cottage sits doors down from the Tuck Box tea house, which looks remarkably like the real one in Carmel-by-the-Sea. Silva has an affection for the seaside town’s so-called fairy-tale cottages, so similar buildings dot the room.

On another table sits the Lake-town home of Bard the bowman from “The Hobbit” movies. On yet another is a mad scientist’s home, complete with a laboratory and a dark secret in the attic.

Everything’s for sale “at the right price,” Silva said. A fairy-tale cottage, for instance, might run $12,000 to $15,000.

The artist’s talent and time – and he puts in a lot of both – don’t come cheap. The Tuck Box took three years to build. A much larger mansion he’s building for a buyer, working only from an exterior photo she provided of an actual home, will cost her upward of $30,000, he said. He’s been at it for six months and figures it will take two years from start to finish.

And Silva’s masterwork, a castle he took a year to research and five to complete, sits in the Peer Recovery Art Project’s Mod Spot shop on J Street. An embossed brass plaque on its base reads, “Dragon’s Lair Castle.”

There are 27 pieces to the castle “that fit together like a puzzle,” he said, adding that it took him two days to set it up at the Mod Spot. If you want to take it apart and take it home, it will cost you about $135,000.

Following the proverb “measure twice, cut once,” Silva does a lot of homework before beginning a project. Sometimes he has the good fortune of being able to visit the actual structure he’s re-creating. When he went to the Tuck Box, the owner pulled out a stepladder to let him take all the measurements and photographs he wanted.

Other times, he’ll determine dimensions only by studying photos. Still other times, he simply uses his imagination.

In the case of the Lake-town house, Silva would freeze-frame “The Hobbit” movie to make sketches. He also keeps a notebook of his projects.

Silva estimated he’s built 25 model houses over the years, in addition to countless pieces of miniature furnishings. When he starts work, he approaches a job just as he did during his construction career, which primarily was remodeling. In most cases, “I stick-frame it like a real house because all my electrical wires for chandeliers have to run through it like a real house,” he said.

Silva’s workshop includes a number of power tools – themselves small-scale – such as a table saw, router and lathe made especially for creating miniatures. He’s learned tricks such as using a wire brush on a drill to create a weathered effect on wood. He sculpts a material called paper clay to look like stone walls. He builds light fixtures using little metal odds and ends. He poured his own rubber molds to duplicate ornate window frames for his castle.

While he does the great majority of the work himself, he said, he also turns to experts for some pieces, including an Indiana supplier’s milled cherry wood and a San Francisco craftsman’s miniature wrought-iron work.

The hardest part of working in miniature, he said, is making sure everything fits just so. He always holds pieces together before applying adhesive, he said, “because once you start gluing …”

Since his childhood playing with erector sets and Tinkertoys, Silva said, he’s always enjoyed building.

“I love to see things taken apart and put together. I took my car apart one time and, boy, I didn’t mark all the bolts and everything, and I was in trouble. I had to call somebody over there to come help me put it back together. A little ’39 Chevy, a Chevy coupe. I’m that way. I just love to see how things tick.”

A native of Watsonville, Silva got into miniatures as a youth, building layouts for his father’s model railroad hobby. He then had his own model trains, but gave that up because they took up even more space than his miniature homes now.

But the twice-married Silva – single now for about 17 years – really got into small-scale construction after retiring.

“It was so easy for me because when I did construction work, I knew exactly what you can use and how things go together,” he said.

Over the years, Silva has sold his miniature furniture creations to shops and individuals, created and sold miniature house kits, and taught classes. Several of the houses in his own home probably will end up with his children, grandchildren and great-grandkids, he said.

With a focused mind, steady hands and sharp eyes, he works on miniatures about six hours a day, every day.

“I figure at 80, I guess I’m still doing pretty good. I don’t take a bunch of medicine; my health is really good and everything, so I figure God has been good to me,” he said.

Silva takes care of himself, too, eating healthy and walking every day.

So when he talks about grand plans for the future, it’s easy to picture him achieving them.

He wants to tackle a second castle – this one Frankenstein’s. He’s planned it all out, he said, but faces one formidable obstacle. He wants the doctor’s lab to have working lightning.

You read that right: not lighting, but lightning, as in what author Mary Shelley’s scientist captured to give his creature life. Silva wants something akin to a plasma lamp, but doesn’t want it to look simply like a plasma lamp sitting in the lab.

Silva said he also wants to write a book about the construction of his Dragon’s Lair Castle.

“I don’t know if it’ll ever happen or not,” he said. “I want to make it a history – I love history.”

He loves a good story, too, he said, and in fact has created several in his mind to accompany his miniature buildings.

That mad scientist’s house, for instance.

“He fell in love with a girl but she married someone else,” he said.

Removing a section of the roof, Silva reached in and pulled out – wait for it – a little skeleton lying on a bed.

“He got rid of her and put her up in the attic for years.”

This story was originally published June 1, 2016 at 4:16 PM with the headline "There’s a whole world within Modesto woodworker’s home."