A woman looking for a new home for her family of four had no idea what she was in for when she bought a fixer-upper in Sugar Land, Texas in 2021.
Of course, Sara Ahmed knew the house would need work. The house had been uninhabited for over two years. Over 300 boxes of the previous owner's items were left behind. She started going through them after her family of four moved in.
Sara discovered many treasures among the things in those boxes. Among them was a collection around 200 dolls. All of the dolls were Black and part of the Black Like Me Doll Museum, which the home used to house. Sara discovered more about the museum and former owner, Phyllis C. Hunter, as she dove into the house's past.
Sara Ahmed spent a lot of time at home with her family of four in 2020. During that time, she realized they needed more space. She found what she was looking for in a unique home in Sugar Land, Texas, that needed a little TLC.
"The house was dilapidated, for sure," Sara told Yahoo Lifestyle.
"It had not been lived in for over two years [after] the previous owner had passed away," she continued.
"But I just fell in love with the bones and it felt warm and fuzzy."
There were over 300 boxes to go through when Sara and her family moved in.
When Sara started going through the boxes, she was amazed at what she came across.
"It was really cool because you found these amazing love letters from the 60s, and I found this timeline of their family dating back to like 1865," she told FOX 26 Houston.
After sifting through boxes of documents, she came across an astounding collection of over 200 Black dolls, many of which were limited-edition Barbies.
"I was like, 'This is not the Barbies I grew up with,'" Sara said to Yahoo! Lifestyle.
"Then I started opening the box and uncovered more and more. And I thought, 'How can all these Barbies be boxed? Clearly we have a collector here.'"
Sara did some digging into the history of her home and discovered that it was once a doll museum. Former owner Phyllis Hunter owned and operated the Black Like Me Doll Museum. Phyllis died in February 2018, leaving the house and all its treasures behind.
Phyllis' full collection had over 6,000 dolls at its height. The dolls featured prominent African American leaders of government, sports, entertainment, and more. Sara shared the ones she discovered in the home online and found that people were definitely interested.
One of the dolls, the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority doll, is considered one of the rarest Barbies in the whole world.
"I have had like at least 300 DMs and emails from AKA sorority girls … and their stories are so beautiful. There's woman after woman talking about what the sorority means to them and how their grandmother was an AKA, how their mother was an AKA and they hoped her daughter will be an AKA. And they're just offering me that, like 'whatever amount you have been offered, I will double it,'" Sara shared.
"Then I've had other women DM me and say, 'I know I won't be able to afford this because it's such a highly coveted Barbie, but please do me a favor and make sure it goes through an AKA sorority sister and not anyone else because I would love it. And this stays within the sorority.' So, I mean, it's been phenomenal."
Sara was able to get some of Phyllis' personal items back to her family. She has donated some of the Barbies to a charity called Birthday Bash Box, which aims to provide children in underserved communities with toys and other items. She's also working with various museums to place some of the more rare dolls.
