Disney

The Magical Madrigal House

The Casita you fell for in Encanto, finally big enough to earn its magic.

Brick Rated Score

4.3/5

Set 43245 · 2024

Pieces1,560

Minifigs7

Year2024

Set number43245

Check price on Amazon

Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

The verdict

This one got me at the roof.

Casita is a character in the film, and LEGO actually made her move, so a little slide bar sends the shingles waving hello. It's colorful, faithful, and packed with the sisters you actually care about. If you love Encanto or you want a modular dollhouse that photographs beautifully, this set is an easy yes. The missing Bruno stings a little, but the rest of the family shows up in force.

Best for: Encanto fans and modular dollhouse builders who want a display that also plays

The full review

What it is

Encanto handed LEGO a genuinely tricky assignment, because the star of that movie is a house. Casita has moods. She shrugs her tiles, she slams her shutters, she throws tantrums with her own floorboards. This LEGO® set is the version that finally gives her the room to do all of that. At 1,560 pieces it nearly triples the older 43202 Madrigal House from a few years back, and the extra size is spent well, on more of the rooms you actually remember from the film rather than just a bigger empty shell. The finished house spans about 37cm and opens up modular-dollhouse style, so every room faces you at once, ready to be played with or just admired on a shelf.

The catch

Here's where I'll be straight with you. This is a mini-doll set, not a minifigure set, and if you're firmly in the minifigure-only camp that's worth knowing before you commit. The figures themselves are lovely, with Abuela's embroidered butterfly dress being a real highlight, but they're the Friends-style dolls, not the classic yellow crew. The price is the other honest hurdle. At 159.99 this sits at a full Disney premium, and while ten cents a piece is fair on paper, the set's secondary value has already drifted down since launch, so this is one to buy because you want it, not because you're expecting it to appreciate. And then there's Bruno. We do not talk about Bruno, apparently, because LEGO still hasn't made him, even though his satin trans-green tower is built right into this set. A couple of the smaller rooms, Mirabel's nursery especially, get so packed with a bed, chair and sewing machine that building them is more fiddly than fun.

Who it's for

None of that changes the fact that this is the best Casita LEGO has made, by a wide margin. If you love the movie, or you already collect the modular Disney dollhouses, or you just want a colorful, playable house that looks fantastic open on a shelf, grab it and enjoy every waving shingle. If you only build serious minifigure display pieces and Encanto means nothing to you, this won't convert you, and that's completely fair. But for the right person this is warm, clever, and full of personality, which is honestly the highest compliment I can pay a set built around a house that has feelings.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

The build comes split across nine numbered booklets, one per section, which is a genuinely nice touch if you want to hand a bag to a kid or spread the build over a few evenings. You work room by room, and the pacing shifts as you go. The ground floor and courtyard are steady, satisfying dollhouse building, while the towers upstairs bring in the small mechanisms, so there's a rhythm of easy stretch, clever stretch, easy stretch. The showpiece is Casita herself. A hidden sliding bar under the roof pushes the shingles into a wave, and the shutters swing, so the house actually performs the little gestures it makes in the film. Isabela's swinging bed and the tucked-away storage drawer round out the play features.

For parts nerds there's real interest here. Bruno's tower uses printed satin trans-green 1x2 tiles that are close to unique, exactly the kind of recolor that gets pulled straight into people's parts bins. There's a fresh element used at the main entrance that slots in perfectly, and the Miracle Candle recreation carries the family butterfly motif that runs all through the design, right down to Abuela's dress print. The mini-doll roster is the other value story: Mirabel, Abuela, Isabela, Dolores, Luisa and Camilo, plus a micro Antonio and two animal figures, with three of those family members making their mini-doll debut here. At ten cents a piece for 1,560 parts, a working house and that many characters, the value math holds up nicely.

Fun facts

01Casita is treated as a full character in Encanto, so LEGO built her a sliding mechanism that makes the roof shingles physically wave, matching the way the house 'talks' in the movie.
02The set nearly triples the piece count of the earlier 2021 Madrigal House (43202), jumping from around 587 pieces to 1,560.
03Bruno still has no official LEGO mini-doll, despite his satin trans-green tower being built into this very set for the second time across the Encanto line.
04The house splits into nine buildable sections with its own storage drawer, and spans roughly 37cm wide when fully assembled.