NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas — Piled up inside Jon Fish’s workshop in New Braunfels are tiny slivers of wood. Fish gathers them up to make something magical. His latest project is a replica of a Chicago-style building done in miniature.

“It’s in the style of the 1910s where the details are a little more restrained. That’s always been my passion: architecture. I’ve always been interested in how buildings work and how you can translate that into something small,” said Fish.

He designs the structure and the client will fill it with tiny furnishings. Fish’s miniatures look like real buildings but with small-scale challenges.

“You pick a color, ‘oh, this is a really nice color,’ and you put it in a room this small and it amplifies it, so you tone things down,” said Fish.

He’s been making miniatures full time for more than 30 years. But his doll houses aren’t for children. He caters to grown-ups who have an eye for tiny details and the finances to hire an artist like Fish.

“You’re always trying to push the ceiling limit on what you can charge because it’s not the materials, it’s the time, a huge amount of time,” he said.

Fish calls his small-scale structures an escape from the real world where adults can be kids again.

“It’s what I like to do, pure and simple. I enjoy sharing it with people,” said Fish.