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Page 20 of 28 New Horizons: The Carolwood Pacific

Walt and his daughters at their home soda fountain

Walt's daughters enjoyed their home soda fountain - but probably not as much as Walt

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

Walt working on his Carolwood Pacific Railroad.

Walt taking his family and friends out for rides on his railroad

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.

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

Walt poses with his daughters, Sharon and Diane, in front of a 50'-era TV.

 

 
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