If you see a shiny, bubblegum pink and white Corvette rolling around the Twin Cities this July, you’ll likely find a woman behind the wheel with cascading blonde hair and a joyful laugh.
As she drives, she cranks up the music, much of it from the new Warner Brothers “Barbie” movie soundtrack. She wears a white-and-pink checkered dress and pink sunglasses, an outfit Margot Robbie dons in the motion picture.
You may even wonder if you’d spotted the actual Mattel doll come to life. (In fact, spectators have mused as much, having captured images of her and posted them to social media).
But alas, the woman painting the town pink isn’t Barbie: she’s identified herself as Ann Marie Keene, of Shoreview.
“I’ve been taking the Corvette out quite a bit and I see pictures on Instagram and social,” Keene said. “People have spotted the Barbie car. So they’ll stop me.”
Keene, 53, is fully in her Barbie fantasy this summer, and it doesn’t stop with costuming and Corvette tours. She has converted her entire home into what looks like a Barbie Dreamhouse — highly stylized and brightly colored, with a good measure of kitsch and camp. She has an entire “Barbie room” with a round bed covered in a hot pink, disc-sequined duvet.
The kitchen is painted “envy green,” and cabinets are adorned with gold handles in the shapes of panthers. Her living room has a velvet sofa and high ceilings, and a rocking horse supported with a gold pole — a spectacle that looks like it was plucked straight from a carnival carousel.
While this is Keene’s actual home with her husband, it also serves as a home to models, social media influencers and Twin Cities creatives looking to collaborate in a safe, colorful space. In 2020, Keene opened her home to others as “The Zebra House,” offering the space for photoshoots, content creation and bachelorette parties. People can rent the space for a minimum of two hours, at $125 per hour.
One peek into Keene’s dreamhouse, and you’d be sure that her whole life has been leading up to the release of a Barbie blockbuster. But there’s a big plot twist.
“It’s interesting because I grew up a tomboy, I didn’t play with Barbies,” Keene said. “I know that sounds hard to believe.”
Her full embrace of the blonde icon is more of a recent rebirth. After decades in a corporate job, she’s decided to play.
“I’ve never played so hard and had so much fun,” Keene said. “I love the experience I had for 30 years in the graphic arts industry and corporate, but I’ve taken all that knowledge and now can just have fun.”
Keene is a Barbie girl living in her Barbie world
Fun comes in many forms for this Barbie. She can waterski barefoot and rides a motorcycle. But perhaps more surprisingly, she is also training to be a death doula, a unique interest she connected with Margot Robbie’s portrayal of Barbie in the film. In the movie, Barbie becomes aware of the realities of the “real world” outside of “Barbie Land,” openly pondering about death.
“I’m finishing my death doula training in August through the University of Vermont, so I’m super excited about that,” Keene said.
However, most of her time is spent remodeling different parts of her home, curating new spaces - like a Madonna room - and working on a new business called “Bare All Barbie.” The business is a collaboration with local artist Jeralyn Victoria, who works with Keene to turn digital prints into hand-drawn sketches that are then printed onto wallpaper or cards.
A peek on the Zebra House Instagram page reveals many photoshoots of Keene cosplaying as Barbie or collaborating with other models. She says her favorite part is seeing just how much joy the space brings to artists.
“When I hear people laughing, that is what makes my job all worth it," Keene said. "I want people to be able to come and experience the space.”
Those who come to the Barbie movie might realize the leading blonde has plenty more depth than the “real world” has ever expected from her. Similarly, people who might get a smile and laugh out of Keene when they first spot her, after a conversation, will quickly find out that behind the Corvette and fun outfits is a person with many complexities, a culmination of ambition, entrepreneurship, savvy and plenty of heart.
“It doesn’t go [without] all the hard work that I’ve put in my whole life,” she said. “At 14 I was a car hop at A&W, worked three jobs. Which I loved, I loved every minute of the hard work and now I can enjoy it.”
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