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New
Horizons: |
The Carolwood Pacific |
Walt's daughters enjoyed their
home soda fountain - but probably not as much as
Walt
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The next year, Walt and Lilly celebrated
their 25th anniversary, and they decided it was
time to build a new house. They selected a site
on Carolwood Drive in Holmby Hills, an elegant location
between Beverly Hills and Bel Air. Though there
was space for a projection room, it wasn't an enormous
house and was designed in a way that would simplify
housework, making a large staff unnecessary. As
Walt wrote, "It's built to conform to our present
needs, and I know we're going to like it very much.
There's a playroom with a soda fountain . . . where
the girls can entertain their friends without disturbing
the rest of the household." To be sure, the girls
did enjoy the soda fountain, prompting Walt to later
happily gripe about "supplying the whole neighborhood
with sodas at my expense." He was delighted to have
the girls bringing their friends home rather than
gallivanting around. What's more, Walt seemed to
enjoy his sweet laboratory too. "He'd experiment,"
said Sharon. "He'd go out there and make these weird
concoctions that nobody would eat, including himself.
I remember one time, trying to make a champagne
soda. It was the most awful thing. He couldn't get
anybody to taste it and he agreed it was pretty
bad." |
But perhaps the most outstanding attribute
of the new house was that it contained property
appropriate to the construction of a half-mile circle
of one-eighth-size train tracks, upon which Walt
intended to ride his own miniature steam engine.
"Walt was not so much interested in a new house
as he was in the property so that he could build
his train on it," said Lilly. Lilly was concerned
that Walt's train not destroy her plans for beautiful
flower beds. So Walt had a 90-foot tunnel dug that
ran underneath the garden. He even had a studio
attorney draw up a facetious legal document, giving
him the right of way to run his train through the
property. In its mock legalese, Walt was described
as the "first party," Lilly was the "second party,"
and Diane and Sharon were the "third parties."
Walt equipped the property with a red barn (modeled
after his family's barn back in Marceline) with
woodworking and machine tools. He also enlisted
the aid of studio staffers like Roger Broggie, who
had established the Disney Studio machine shop (and
whose son is author Michael Broggie). He decided
that it would be more exciting if the tunnel were
shaped like an S -- so that riders wouldn't be able
to see the light at the end when they entered it.
One worker advised Walt that it would be cheaper
to build the tunnel straight. "No," said Walt, in
a classic Disney response, "it's cheaper not to
do it at all." Walt dubbed his train the Carolwood
Pacific Railroad, and he treated it like another
child. |
Walt working on his Carolwood
Pacific Railroad.
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On Sunday afternoons, Walt took
his family and friends out
for rides on
his railroad. Walt's Red Barn, his
machine shop, is in the background.
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Sunday afternoons he would take visitors
out for rides. This was a marvelous opportunity
for Walt to socialize. Walt really couldn't abide
small talk and the kind of inside-Hollywood gossip
that consumed people's time at parties. But his
train provided a perfect way to entertain guests
without actually having to undergo the pointless
chitchat. When he wasn't actually riding the train
around on its track he enjoyed working on it in
his barn, creating his own yellow caboose, among
other things. "It's my pride and joy," he said,
"and I love it." In the early years with his wonderful
new toy, Sharon was something of a junior partner
in the railroad. "He taught me how to run the thing
and how to fire it up -- get the engine going. I
thought it was great fun," she said.
As time passed, Sharon
joined her sister in the realm of teen interests
that were out of her father's grasp. As Walt recalled,
"They reached an age where they fell in love with
horses. And their dad didn't count for much except
to pay for the horses and things. Then from horses,
instead of getting them back they fell in love with
parties and all of the things that come when you
get in that teenager bracket. I was rather frustrated
through there for awhile. I just didn't know what
was the matter with me. I'd get my kids. I'd say,
'Come on, let's go somewhere.' 'No, Daddy, we've
got to stay home, or there's a prom on.' And they
had to go get their hair done and things." |
Thomas tells a revealing story in
his biography of Walt. "Once, when he was visiting
friends, a little girl sat on his lap. Memories
of the younger Diane and Sharon returned, and he
told the girl, 'I think you'd better get down, dear,
or you're going to see your Uncle Walt cry.'" Despite
his quick temper at the studio, neither girl feared
him. "We would clash at times," recalled Diane.
"I was very assertive. But I was never afraid of
him -- not ever. I challenged him all the time."
That didn't mean, of course, that Walt never got
angry with his daughters. If Diane's resistance
turned into insolence or disrespect, he was quick
to let her know she had gone too far. Ordinarily,
he'd call Diane "kid," but she knew that if he was
referring to her as "sweetheart" something was amiss.
As his older daughter reported, annoyances weren't
left to fester; "nothing was ever under the surface
in our family." Recalled Sharon, "One night [my
parents] were going to bring some people home from
a restaurant. We had one telephone line and I was
sitting there on the phone. They tried to call our
housekeeper to tell her to make some coffee. They
didn't have emergency breakthrough then, and the
operator would not cut in. When Daddy came home
I was still on the phone, and Daddy walked down
the hall, very quietly, saw me sitting there with
my feet up on the wall, just talking away. He just
walked down, and his eyebrow went up, and his finger
went down on the receiver and he didn't need to
say anything. That was enough. That raised eyebrow
was a scolding in itself." |
Walt poses with his daughters,
Sharon and Diane, in
front of a 50'-era TV.
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