Hardcore Disneyland aficionados already know about the secret apartment above the fire station on Main Street USA where Walt Disney and his family used to hide out, but today the Huffington Post has an interview with Walt's daughter Diane Disney Miller, who reveals some of the secrets about the pad, which is still not open to the public. Even today, the apartment acts as a quiet little time capsule in the middle of all the capitalist extravagance: it's "decorated with antiques, cranberry red glass lampshades, vintage instruments and a grandfather clock. It still looks today as it did when Walt Disney kept it as his personal home inside Disneyland."
Miller provides some fun anecdotes of the good old days when the family used the apartment:
-- "The decor, it was all little things that they picked up when they were traveling around the country various times, and it was decorated by Emile Kuri, who had decorated many of the films, including '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,' and it was lovingly done. It was really a very cozy, family place."
-- "...if there were special people in the park, mother and dad would go out and they would invite them up. Early, it was during 'Davy Crockett,' I remember there was some event there that day and Fess Parker and Buddy Ebsen were both out there for it, and dad was looking out that window and saw them and he said, 'Hey, come on up!'"
-- "...there was a fire pole in it, it's not there now, but there was a door into the closet area that had a fire pole, like the firemen would have, and he showed it to them and said, 'Why don't you guys slide down that?' And they did! People would say, did your father ever do that? I'm sure he didn't."
And one last fun fact: according to FindingMickey, "The lamp in the window is always on to show his spirit is always present!" A well-informed commenter on that Disneyland fan page points out that the light is turned off when Disney's daughters are in the park out of respect for their loss.
· Diane Disney Miller Remembers Dad: Walt's Secret Disneyland Apartment, His Passions & More [Huffington Post]
· Walt's Light [FindingMickey.com]
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