Edible Real Estate: These Amazing Gingerbread Houses Are Totally Turnkey
What could be better than real estate you can eat? Though these (mostly) edible homes are way too pretty to take a bite of, there’s just something about the idea of frosting on the roof…
Ahead, check out some of the sweet, scaled-down edifices we’ve scouted across the web and NYC, including a gingerbread version of the Hogwarts School, Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic Fallingwater, and the Guggenheim, which, as they say, takes the cake!
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FAMILIAR FORMS OF EPIC EDIBLE PROPORTIONS
Gingerbread Hogwarts School created by Britta Peterson.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater in Gingerbread. Image courtesy of Melodie Dearden/Garden Melodies.
Gingerbread and candy architecture by Caitlin Levin and Henry Hargreaves.
The comestible creation of the Guggenheim was crafted, along with an edible rendition of the Louvre, from gingerbread, icing, cotton candy, hard candy, candy wrappers, licorice and sugar in a collaboration by photographer Henry Hargreaves and chef/food stylist Caitlin Levin for a Dylan’s Candy Bar display at the 2013 Art Basel fair in Miami.
 Gingerbread Lane at the New York Hall of Science.
Though the above artist-made beauties may impress, the New York Hall of Science knows it takes a (gingerbread) village to set the stage for a holiday wonderland everyone can share. The homemade creations of Gingerbread Lane, now in its 22nd season, are drafted, designed, baked, planned, built and decorated by chef Jon Lovitch (read our exclusive interview with him here) over the course of an entire year. This one-and-a-half ton, 300-square-foot village holds the Guinness World Record for the largest gingerbread exhibit. The whole town gets given away on January 10th during the Gingerbread Giveaway (only two houses per person–more than we can say for the non-edible kind of real estate.).
Gingerbread Domino Factory at City Harvest Gingerbread Extravaganza 2014
Last year, the NYC food bank City Harvest hosted their then-annual (unfortunately, it didn’t return this year!) Gingerbread Extravaganza which spanned one month from December to January. Visitors were invited to view incredible gingerbread structures inspired by the theme, “Made in New York” in the atrium of Le Parker Meridien as well as at select locations around the city and vote for your favorite by donating to City Harvest. The year’s entries include a fittingly sweet rendering of the Domino Sugar Factory, as well as several other sweet city icons, which you can view here.
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DO-IT-YOURSELF GINGERBREAD ARCHITECTURE
If you’re in the mood to construct your candy-laden palace, we’ve found three very excellent DIY motifs sure to tickle the architecture enthusiast inside of you—especially if you’re a lover of Buckminster Fuller and California modernism—though we’ve also got one for the classicist.
Image via DWR
This year, Design Within Reach posted a detailed how-to on recreating their “gingerbread dream house” featured in their holiday catalog. Just note, this isn’t an one- or two-hour affair. They actually suggest you put some time aside over the course of four days to build this epic beauty. But as they say… Rome wasn’t built in a day!
 Photo courtesy of Renee Baumann.
This remarkable gingerbread Brooklyn brownstone has all of the charm—if not the square footage—of the real thing. Designer and chef Renee Baumann provides step-by-step instructions and plenty of delicious photos. In 2012, Baumann created an entire block of “cookie architecture” with a row of the sugar-based row houses to raise money for CityHarvest.
This Bucky inspired dome is one of the most fun versions we’ve found and it comes courtesy of the cool kids over at Scout Regalia. They’ve developed a dome template and some easy-to-follow instructions that include how to make the yummy gingerbread and icing to decorate your tasty masterpiece—all available for just $25. The kit will yield a dome home of approximately 9 inches in diameter and 6 inches tall.
This video here shows how it’s pieced together:
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OH SO SWEET ESTATES
 8220 Narrows Avenue in Bay Ridge is for sale for $10.99M. Image courtesy of Douglas Elliman
If you’d rather invest in the kind of gingerbread styling that doesn’t melt in the rain, it might just be your lucky season. This tooth-achingly cute, quirky Arts-and-Crafts style “gingerbread house” at 8220 Narrows Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn is on the market for $10.99 million. You can see more photos—and get all the other details—over here.
Image Gwynne Hogan for DNA Info
Greenpoint resident Tony Auriemma has been decorating his home in Christmas decor since childhood. Located along Humboldt Street, his sweet Brooklyn display looks very much like a real-life gingerbread house, covered in peppermint pinwheels and candy canes painted by Auriemma himself. DNA Info recently met up with Tony to get more details. You can read their interview with him here.
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