The Most Wanted Gift: A Dollhouse of Dreams from Little Forest Animals
Childhood is that magical chapter when everything feels possible, and even the smallest details hold meaning. Toys are not just for play—they spark imagination, nurture creativity, and help shape the way children see the world. Yet, in today’s fast-paced, oversaturated market, finding a toy with true heart and purpose can be a challenge.
The dollhouse has always held a special place in children’s lives, offering a stage where stories, dreams, and design come together. Little Forest Animals has taken this timeless idea and elevated it into something truly extraordinary. Exquisite, sustainable, and educational, their dollhouses are more than toys—they’re heirlooms in the making, destined to be the star of any playroom.
This year, Little Forest Animals was named Winner of the Junior Style Awards 2025 in the Best Lifestyle & Toys category, and we had the pleasure of sitting down with its founder, Omer Gungordu, to hear how a father’s handmade project grew into one of the most coveted gifts around the world. Because when children’s dreams are supported, they grow into adults with the courage to turn imagination into reality.
1. Can you please introduce yourself and your brand Little Forest Animals?
I’m Omer Gungordu, born in Istanbul. Before founding Little Forest Animals, I spent many years working in finance at Deloitte, EY, JPMorgan, and Citi. I completed my studies in Sydney, Australia. At the end of the pandemic, when our son asked for a dollhouse, everything shifted.
As a father, I wanted to find him something truly special—something timeless, built to last. When I couldn’t, I thought, “Then I’ll make one myself.” What began as a gift for my son quickly grew into something bigger. We shared the house on our social media, and it drew immediate attention. At the time, we were still producing everything at home. Soon after, our products began to be sold at Turkey’s most prestigious department store, yet even then, all the production was still happening in our living rooms. Then came an email from Harrods, which became a real turning point for Little Forest Animals. It was the moment we began to believe this could be more than just a hobby.
Today, our products are available at many leading retailers across the US, UK, France, Germany, the Middle East, and Asia. Little Forest Animals is a team of six—me, Deniz, Batu, Kutay, Senem, and Burak. We are still small, but we are surrounded by family and friends who have supported us from the very beginning. The first houses were built in my parents’ home, after long nights of sanding, painting, and assembling. Without them, there would be no Little Forest Animals, and to this day they continue to help us with production. Later, we moved into Deniz’s house, which completely transformed into a workshop. That kind of support is what has shaped our brand. And I should add that no one at LFA thinks of this as just a company. Everyone feels part of the process and takes part in every step. That is why we consider ourselves so fortunate.
2. What inspired you to create a dollhouse business?
My father is an architect, and although I built my career in finance, I’ve always been drawn to design. When my son asked for a dollhouse, I thought: why not create one with architecture in mind? There are so many inspiring buildings around the world—why not bring them into a child’s playroom in miniature form? That’s how the idea of architectural dollhouses was born.
3. Could you share a bit about your background?
I graduated in Business Administration in Turkey and completed my master’s degree in Australia. From the very beginning of my career, I have worked in finance and financial consulting, and I am currently a Vice President at Citi.
4. How did the journey of Little Forest Animals begin?
Our story began with something different. During the pandemic, as working parents, we couldn’t find the right artwork for our son’s room. We ended up ordering an illustration from the UK—a long, complicated process. That experience led us to license 256 illustrations we loved from around the world and sell them framed. But once dollhouses entered our lives, we couldn’t continue both projects, and the illustrations had to be put aside.
5. What are your plans and dreams for the brand?
In September 2024, we exhibited at Maison&Objet in Paris for the first time. Those five days changed everything. We decided we didn’t want to be in Paris only for a fair, but every day of the year. In May 2025, we opened the world’s first dollhouse boutique for children, right here in Paris. Admittedly, it was a bold move—because who opens a store with just one product? ☺ But that’s exactly the point: for us, a dollhouse isn’t just a toy, it’s a universe. It’s the most timeless, emotional, and meaningful toy of all. Ask anyone—no matter their age, they can recall every detail of their dollhouse. Our dream is to one day open in New York and London, but only when the right time and place come along. Beyond this, we want to explore collaborations across many different industries. There are fashion houses whose spirit we deeply admire and whose style we feel would beautifully complement our dollhouses, and working with them is something we truly hope for. At the same time, we notice a similar trend in the global furniture market as we do in toys: too many designs are cost-driven, leaving children’s furniture overly uniform. Rooms today often feel colourless, dominated by white or natural tones. Yet when we look back at nurseries of the past, they were alive with colour, pattern, and well-crafted furniture. That is why we are preparing to reintroduce vintage-inspired, colourful designs in the future.
6. Can you walk us through the manufacturing and design process? Is the dollhouse fragile, and is it designed more as a play piece or as an interior décor object?
That’s a great question. Dollhouses usually fall into two categories. The first are decorative pieces made for adults that are not really meant to be played with. The second are those designed for children, which must be more durable and pass strict safety tests. At Little Forest Animals, we could easily create detailed decorative houses and that part is simple. The real challenge is designing houses sturdy enough for children to play with while also meeting international certifications. None of our models use nails or screws and making a house of this scale stand strong without them took years of research and development. In our studio in Istanbul, we manage the entire process from raw wood to the finished packaged product. We work with traditional methods, without machines, and every piece is handmade. We are always developing new models, but only when we feel completely satisfied with them, and that, honestly, can be the hardest part. ☺
7. Why did you choose to work in the children’s lifestyle industry?
Little Forest Animals is proof that the best ideas often come from need. We saw that many companies were producing in the same factories in the Far East, and a product as special as a dollhouse was becoming standardized, losing its soul. As a father, that made me feel my son deserved something better—something lasting that could be passed down. We never began with the idea of entering the children’s sector; it simply grew from that instinct. Today we are a small team of six, each with different backgrounds, and every model we design reflects the spirit we share at that moment. Everyone has a hand in it. Last summer, for instance, we were working so intensely that we couldn’t take a proper holiday, and we found ourselves longing for summer. We pictured ourselves in a Palm Beach house, swimming and soaking up the sun, and that daydream became the House of Palm Beach. It came to life through all our ideas and the needs we were each feeling at the time.
8. Your dollhouses are truly dream houses. Do you believe aesthetics are important for children? If yes, why?
Our starting point was never about giving children many toys but about giving them fewer that are truly special pieces that are well-designed, aesthetic, and made to last. Unfortunately, the market is full of toys that are overly colourful, loud, and lacking in design quality. Perhaps children choose them simply because that is what is offered to them. We wanted to take a different path, creating toys in softer, pastel tones with thoughtful design. When children look at our dollhouses, we want them to say, “This feels like Parisian architecture,” or “That one looks English.” By giving them this awareness early on, they begin to play with a new level of understanding. That is why every crate we send includes the story of the house inside, so the child knows the world they are stepping into.
9. Although you are a young brand, your houses are already highly desired in the market. What do you attribute your success to?
We didn’t actually work very hard on promotion. In fact, we have done almost no advertising at all. From the beginning, our thought was simple: there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Throughout history, extraordinary dollhouses have been created and cherished across generations. What we wanted was not cost-driven production—the disease of our times—but models built around quality. We believed there must be people searching for that same focus on quality, and indeed there were. That realization has made us very happy. We have only been in this field for two and a half years, but the interest we have received has been a constant source of motivation.
10. What advice would you give to someone just starting a business in children’s fashion or lifestyle?
Our advice would be this: don’t do something just to make money, do it to create something meaningful. Love the work you do, be proud of it, and only then share it with others. If you treat your work like your child—caring for it, fixing its flaws, and nurturing it—you’ll find all the answers you need in the way people respond. And finally, there is never a need to repeat what has already been done. Whatever you choose to create, it is always possible to make it different. Be unique.
11. What message does your brand aim to share?
It may sound like a cliché today, but what we truly aim to create are products that carry emotions and memories. The children who play with our houses are between the ages of one and nine, yet when they are seventy or eighty, they will still remember those houses. They will be taken back to their past. Our goal in this age of technology is to draw children away from screens and into the timeless world of handmade dollhouses.
12. What inspires you personally and creatively?
My son is my greatest source of inspiration. As our brand grows, he grows alongside it, and his interests are constantly changing. At first, he wanted a house so his animal figures wouldn’t get wet; now he wants us to build a football stadium. No matter how creative we try to be, we can never think as freely as children do, and we love these unexpected turns. It is incredible to see a child invent a completely different game with our houses; in ways we never imagined. We can spend months working day and night on a model, and then a child looks at it and offers an idea or a critique none of us could have thought of.
13. What is your favorite place in the world?
I grew up in Istanbul, a city where civilizations overlap and intertwine. Later, I spent time in Alaska and Alabama, experiencing two very different sides of American culture, and then lived for three and a half years in Sydney, one of the most delightful cities in the world. I’ve had the chance to see nearly fifty countries, and I’ve realized that where I feel happiest has always been tied to my state of mind. There was a time when being in Bali, before it became so popular, made me incredibly happy; Australia was perfect for my student years; and Europe began to feel more fulfilling after I turned thirty-five.
14. What is your favorite building in the world, and why?
This is a difficult question to answer. I believe a building becomes unique when it is united with the story behind it. It doesn’t need to be as monumental as the Taj Mahal, built with immense wealth, or as ancient and labour-intensive as the Pyramids. What matters to me are the stories that belong to these structures. I love listening to them, researching them, and I have been deeply moved by so many.
15. What role does storytelling or imagination play in your creations?
That’s another wonderful question. As I mentioned earlier, when we design a model, we do so as adults in our thirties and forties, but children don’t always see things the same way. For example, during photoshoots we arrange the furniture in the rooms according to our own sense of order. Then a child comes along and says, “No, it wouldn’t be like this,” and rearranges everything, creating their own connection with the house. We love that moment because it teaches us to see from a perspective we had overlooked.
We also receive countless messages from parents who tell us their children wake up each morning and set breakfast for their dolls or tuck them in at night before going to bed themselves. For us, that is an extraordinary feeling.
We once created a model called the House of Stockholm, and it came entirely from a child who loved horses and asked, “Can this horse also live in our house?” Sometimes there are physical limitations in real life, but in the world of play nothing is impossible. That’s exactly why we love it so much.
16. Do you think toys and interior pieces like dollhouses can influence children’s sense of style and creativity?
Yes, absolutely. Every dollhouse we create is designed with architecture and design references, so children absorb these aesthetics naturally. They don’t just play; they begin to recognize styles, proportions, and cultural influences. This shapes their awareness of design and sparks creativity in the way they reimagine spaces.
17. What has been the most rewarding moment so far on your journey with Little Forest Animals?
Today, our houses can be found in Bergdorf Goodman, Harrods, Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom, Beymen, Ounass, Printemps, Lodenfrey, El Corte Inglés, and many other leading stores around the world. But I think the most unforgettable moment for us was when we had only three models and received an email from Harrods saying, “We would like to carry your products.” Until that day, we were still a small local brand producing in our own home. That was the moment we truly felt our work had reached an international level.
18. If you could collaborate with any designer, artist, or brand, who would it be and why?
Another great question. Personally, we find so much inspiration in reading brand stories and learning about the people who give those brands their soul. One of the figures who has inspired us most recently is Jonathan Anderson. What he has achieved with Loewe is extraordinary, and now at Dior he continues to weave references to its heritage into something fresh and modern. His creativity is something we truly admire.
We also deeply respect Cordelia de Castellane, who has been creating beautiful work with Dior for many years, and it would be a dream to collaborate with the house one day. And then there is Simon Porte Jacquemus, who built his brand from scratch and consistently grounds his designs in the colours and landscapes of the place he grew up. To us, that is the essence of authentic storytelling.
What we love most are creations that are instantly recognizable, even without a logo—when you can sense who made them just by their spirit. Whether it is the timeless patterns used by Cordelia de Castellane or Jonathan Anderson’s inventive ideas, they both achieve that quality. With Little Forest Animals, we hope for the same: that when someone sees a dollhouse or a piece of furniture, they will say, “That must be Little Forest Animals.” It is precisely for this reason that our products carry no logo at all.
19. How do you see the balance between sustainability, quality, and design in your work?
Whatever material you look at, nature has already given us the finest version—wood, stone, diamond, steel. Humanity may create imitations, but they can never truly replace what is natural. For that reason, we choose to craft all our products from wood and never use plastic. Our designs are conceived to live in harmony with this material, and we are certain that if we had produced them in plastic instead, our brand would never have resonated in the same way.
20. Finally, what do you like about Junior Style?
Junior Style has been important to us because it is our primary source for following developments in the children’s design world. We’ve discovered many brands through your magazine, and we’ve also had the pleasure of being featured. Reading those stories lets us follow other brands’ journeys and draw inspiration from their designs. The annual “Best of the Year” selection is always a highlight for us, too. We’re deeply grateful to your whole team for their hard work—thank you, and long may you continue.
Follow Little Forest Animals on IG @LittleForestAnimals
