The Barbies of Freddie’s Beach Bar
Freddie Lutz has been collecting Barbies since he was a child. Now hundreds of the dolls adorn both of his renowned LGBTQ bars.
Freddie Lutz admits it probably isn’t “normal” for a man his age to be “this excited” to see Barbie. But the 72-year-old probably passed the point of normalcy a few hundred Barbie dolls ago.
“I tell people I’ve been collecting them since I was a little girl,” says Lutz, the owner of Freddie’s Beach Bar in Arlington and a newer location in Rehoboth Beach, have an uncountable number of Barbies on their shelves.
To be fair, it’s not just Barbies. There are Ken dolls, too, and also RuPaul and Jeff Stryker dolls. He even has a Gay Bob. Billed as the world’s first openly gay doll, Bob sports a satchel and tight jeans, and his packaging box is decorated like a closet.
Back to the point of tangency, out of every five of Lutz’s dolls, four of them are Barbies, he estimates. He has a Rosa Parks Barbie. And he has one of Mattel’s first Holiday Barbies, and she would be more expensive today if Luz hadn’t unboxed her the same Christmas he got her.
His favorite Barbie was made in the image of rock ‘n’ roll goddess Tina Turner. The doll has been draped in black since her real-world counterpart died in May.
That same month, Lutz asked a little girl at his restaurant what her favorite doll on the wall was. She pointed to a Barbie bride. “I like that one, too,” he told her.
Lutz then took her back to her table and asked her mother what they were doing in Arlington. The mother explained that the pair was there to honor law enforcement officers, including the girl’s father, who died in the line of duty.
Lutz, whose father served in the military, got a step ladder, took the doll down, and gave it to the girl. He put his hand on his heart and told the mother, “You know, this really means more to me than it does to her.”
Lutz, who as a child especially enjoyed playing with Wedding Barbies, recently gave another one of those dolls to his 7-year-old niece for her last birthday. When he was around that age, he would play with Barbies while his friend Marilyn, a lesbian, played with figurines of “cowboys and Indians.”
Lutz says what drew him to Barbies was the imaginative aspect of it. Indeed, playing with dolls allows kids to build imaginary worlds — and also empathy and socio-emotional skills. Of course, there’s also a gendered element — some Barbies, particularly older ones, promote an unrealistic and unattainable body ideal.
His parents didn’t quite “encourage” him to play with Barbies, but they “condoned” it. Decades later, he has hundreds of the Mattel-manufactured dolls.
He’s running out of room for new Barbies, which means he just might have to open up another restaurant. But before then, he’ll be seeing the Barbie movie with his better half. They’ve been together for more than two decades and keep talking about getting married.
Will Lutz perhaps one day become a Wedding Barbie?
“Hey, listen,” he says, “you never know.”
Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant is located at 555 23rd St. South in Arlington, Virginia and at 3 South First Street in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Visit www.freddiesbeachbar.com.
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