Gingerbread house show at Sheraton draws crowds

Hundreds of people lined up to get a chance to see a unique labor of love on display at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel downtown this weekend.
The hotel’s 19th Annual Gingerbread Village display was in full swing on Saturday where droves of visitors came to see gingerbread houses like no other. Architects in Seattle, including Magnolia resident Stacy Smedley of KMD Architects, donated scores of hours in making the super-sized gingerbread structures, and all to benefit Juvenile Diabetes Research International, an organization working toward curing type 1 diabetes. As visitors snaked around the velvet ropes, they dropped folded bills into a giant plexiglass donation box. Then, having waited an average of 30 minutes in line, took in the gingerbread views. The theme was trains and train stations. There were stations from Australia, New York City, New Zealand, England and even from the land of Misfit Toys.
Smedley’s was a scale model of Kings Cross Station in London, the one featured in the Harry Potter films. Smedley made sure to include a detailed, Google-like map of the famous city below the train station that was raised on a separate platform. Swooping in little loops above the city was Harry Potter himself straddling his broomstick.
The display continues through Jan. 1.