THE MAGICIAN'S HOUSE

I can still remember the day I first read that address on an envelope that dropped through my letterbox one day in the Kentish village of Chislehurst: '10265, Cheviot Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90664'.

With all the unfettered confidence and temerity of youth, I had written a fan letter to my literary idol, that master of science-fiction and fantasy, Ray Bradbury and he had replied...

For some years I only knew it as an address on the many envelopes that followed the first: envelopes containing long letters and short notes accompanying cuttings and clippings, theatre programmes, flyers for shows and – eagerly awaited every year – Ray's Christmas poem...

Envelopes often embellished with Ray's highly individual line in benign postal monsters... 

Then, the first visit (to interview Ray for a BBC radio series I was making) and the curious feeling of looking at the mailbox with its five-digit house number and thinking that this was where all my letters had been delivered...

Inside, it was a miraculous opportunity to see where Ray lived and dreamed and wrote his fantastical tales of spacemen, dinosaurs, freaks and small, insignificant ordinary people with huge, unexpected, extraordinary dreams and obsessions...

Painted the yellow of Dandelion Wine, the house was an extension of the man: it was the place where he crafted novels, short stories, plays, essays and poetry and it was crammed full of Bradburyness: his own books, of course, but those, too, of the writers and artists he loved, and then, all those paintings and pictures: animation and comic-book art and the work of two of his favourite artists: the mysterious Gothic or futuristic visions of Joe Mugnaini (who illustrated so many of his books) and stunning landscapes by Eyvind Earle, also known as the man responsible for styling Disney's most stylish animated feature, Sleeping Beauty. Not to mention all the toys, trinkets, trivia, nick-knacks ad geegaws...

Ray Bradbury in his basement writing den  in 2008. Photograph: Dan Tuffs/Getty Images 

I went there many times and spent many hours talking books and films and wild notions, and I took friends there who wanted to meet the Illustrated Man and the Martian Chronicler.

I would usually come bearing some addition for his library, a book of Piranesi prints or Victorian fairy art or an exhibition catalogue from his favourite London haunt, the Sir John Soane's Museum: a fantastical building that was featured as a sectional engraving on Ray's letterhead...

For several years I had, somewhat romantically, assumed that this was actually 10265 Cheviot Drive, until the day when I stumbled into the Soane Museum and realised my error. It was a misunderstanding that – when confessed – gave Ray considerable amusement!

Sometimes my gifts would be highly personal: a book of my own, perhaps, or recordings of BBC radio dramatisations that I had made from his stories. Always, I would leave with a copy of a something by Ray – it might be his latest novel or collection of stories, or, possibly, a vintage limited edition of a pamphlet, broadside or poster...

I loved visiting this house and when Ray died in 2102, I was saddened to think that I would never again call at 10265, Cheviot Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90664.

Then, last year, when the house went on the market for $1.5 million, I found myself wishing I might win the lottery in time to bid.

But yesterday... Oh, yesterday, I learned from Mark Evanier's blog, News from me, that the house is being torn down so that the purchaser can build something new...

And who is responsible for this unthinkable deed? According to Variety magazine, the owner of the plot of land that was once the Bradbury house is the avant-garde architect, Thom Mayne. 

Mike Glyer's File 707 has this sad eye-witness report:

There was no ceiling overhead. The dining room wall is now the dining room rug. The living room is the only place that’s remotely intact, but its floor is littered with twisted metal and broken glass.

So–– the temple of ideas, the workshop of words and the emporium of magic has fallen to the bulldozer of progress.

For myself – and for many others – deeply treasured memories of the big yellow house at 10265, Cheviot Drive will remain in tact and unassailable...

...and yet, I am deeply grieved.

Would you like to take one last look around...?

If you can bear to view them File 707 has posted photos of the wreckage.

When Ray died, I posted this tribute to our friendship: Farewell to the Martian Chronicler which includes that first letter I received from Ray in 1974.

Photographs by Brian Sibley © 2003