Offbeat L.A.: The Bunny Museum… A Strange Collection in Pasadena

Giant bunny topiary (photo by Nikki Kreuzer)

One of the most amazing things about living in Los Angeles is the sheer number of eclectic and eccentric people. Outsiders may view our city as a place of wealth, glamour and glitz, but just a slight scratch of the surface, (say venturing outside of Beverly Hills), and a completely different perspective of the city emerges. When time is taken to poke around in all of its nooks and crevices, our fair metropolis may just be one of the weirder cities.

Table at the Bunny Museum (photo by Nikki Kreuzer)

So, given that, I have to write about one of the stranger little museums that you must pay a visit to. The Bunny Museum, located in a residential home in a quiet Pasadena neighborhood, is truly unique and extremely bizarre. Filled to the brim with 29,000 bunnies and counting, it takes collecting to an almost hoarder-like extreme. Here you will find stuffed bunnies, bunny statues and every manner of bunny replica that you could possibly imagine.

The collection was started years ago by the married couple who live here, Candace Frazee and Steve Lubanski. To show their love and affection for each other they gift one another a rabbit a day. They opened The Bunny Museum in their home in 1998 and give tours by appointment, though they generally have open houses on holidays. With a small donation you too can delve into the wild world of bunny obsession. This museum may look like a hoarder’s paradise, but everything is carefully organized and arranged into sections. It is fun to identify and figure out the odd classifications… Kissing bunnies! Weird hybrid human-faced bunnies! Playing bunnies! Cookie jar bunnies!

Crowded display case of bunnies (photo by Nikki Kreuzer)

You can walk into the TV room that is literally stuffed to the rafters, walls to ceiling with stuffed rabbits. You can contemplate the meaning of all this and pray that there is not an earthquake while you are in this museum.  If you are very lucky, Candace and Steve will allow you to pet one of the flesh and blood bunnies they keep as pets. Then you can view the display case of freeze dried bunnies who were past members of the household, now residing in Bunny Heaven. You may even be handed a piece of chalk and urged to unleash your inner bunny-Van Gogh on the pavement of their back driveway.

Do yourself a favor, visit.  If you would like to endear yourself to this odd bunny couple, bring them a bunny present. When searching for the address, look no further than the giant bunny topiary summoning you from the front lawn.  You will be glad you made the trip, literally and figuratively.  It’s definitely a surreal world…

Bunny cookie jars (photo by Nikki Kreuzer)

The Bunny Museum: 1933 JeffersonDrive, Pasadena, CA 91104; (626) 798-8848. www.thebunnymuseum.com

www.laweekly.com/bestof/2013/award/best-weird-museum

 The Crossroads of the World