Collection of Rabbits Keeps On Multiplying
Candace Frazee’s toilet seat has a rabbit on it. She brushes with a bunny toothbrush and washes with a rabbit-shaped bar of soap. Her phone? Bugs Bunny.
When one of her pet rabbits, Bonnie Bunnie, died last year, Frazee had her stuffed and placed in a glass case in the dining room. She burns carrot cake-scented candles and allows her five rabbits to run free in the kitchen and bedroom.
Frazee and her husband, Steve Lubanski, live in a 1,530-square-foot Pasadena house that has been taken over by their collection of long-eared knickknacks, which includes an Elvis Parsley pitcher and a 30-pound chocolate you-know-what.
By 1999, the Chinese Year of the Rabbit, they had accumulated 8,437 rabbit-related clocks, neckties and figures -- or enough to win the Guinness world record for owning the most bunny items in the world. The couple believe that their collection has since doubled.
Five years ago, they began opening their home, a 1926 Spanish-style house known as the Bunny Museum, to the public on holidays. They figured that Easter would be a natural. But Christmas proved to be the most popular. Last Christmas, several hundred visitors appeared. This year, they expect even more.
“We are filling a need we didn’t even know existed,” said Frazee, 47. “People own a Renoir or a Matisse, and they’re the only ones who see it -- that’s selfish. People should share what they have.”
Collecting has become one of the nation’s popular pastimes. About 35% of Americans collect, according to one study.
In some cases, those collections turn into museums. In Orange, for instance, there’s a Moose Museum, which, among other things, has gold-dipped moose dung.
“In an age of conformity, collecting allows you a form of individual expression,” said Harry Rinker, author of the Official Guide to Flea Market Prices. Rinker’s 250 collections range from the serious, like English Staffordshire china with American historical views, to the absurd, like toilet paper.
In Frazee’s case, she sees the bunny collection as an expression of love between herself and her husband.
She and Lubanski met 11 years ago in a singles group at a church and began dating. For Valentine’s Day, Lubanski gave a white plush rabbit to Frazee, who called him “Honey Bunny.” At Easter, she gave him a white porcelain rabbit. Then they began exchanging bunny gifts on all holidays. Soon, it was bunny gifts every day.
Evolving Gifts
“It wasn’t meant to be a collection,” said Lubanski, 46. “We were just giving each other things. It evolved.”
After dating almost two years, they married. At the wedding reception, Lubanski surprised his wife and dressed in a white bunny costume. When the party kicked into gear, guests formed a conga line and danced to Ray Anthony’s “Bunny Hop.”
Their wedding cake? Carrot.
At this time of year, she has been known to wear a red shirt and red pants cinched by a black belt. Frazee, who grew up in Toronto, has long platinum blond hair. Bunny earrings dangle from her ears, and a bunny pin sits below her left shoulder. Her lipstick is red. Her two front teeth have a small gap reminiscent of the animal she adores.
Asked by a visitor whether she has ever eaten rabbit, Frazee winces. She is vegetarian. Often when she cooks, she’ll intentionally drop vegetable slices on the kitchen floor, where three rabbits -- Chummie Bunnie, Jackie Rabbit and Buddy Bunny -- eagerly await the falling tidbits.
In the kitchen, as elsewhere in the house, rabbits rule. Their powerful hindquarters have shredded the linoleum. (Frazee has given up her quest for bunny-themed linoleum.)
Magnets cover the refrigerator, stopping 1 1/2 feet above the ground. It turns out, Frazee says, that bunnies chew magnets.
Stacks of platters, dishes and pitchers clutter the counters and unused stove burners. The kitchen display case holds food that’s either bunny-shaped, like the pasta and cookies, or bears a bunny label, like the molasses and cocoa. There’s a rabbit waffle-maker, cake pans and chopsticks.
The motif of their silverware? Strictly hare. They have, however, had little luck finding adult-sized forks.
Today, the house is wall-to-wall bunny. What was once a living room now holds 23 floor-to-ceiling display cases, wedged together, blocking windows.
The cases contain different categories of bunnies, including angel bunnies, music box bunnies, bunnies on bikes, bride and groom bunnies. One shelf is devoted to bunny pretenders -- animals or characters, such as SpongeBob SquarePants, trying to disguise themselves as bunnies.
The couple’s 40-page tiny-type inventory hops from acrobats (seven ceramic, one wood) to yo-yos (one 1951 Bunny Martin World Champion, three rabbit-shaped and one plastic one with a hare atop).
Plush rabbits jam the TV room, which the couple call the warren. The layers of plush are so thick that they muffle sound in the room.
“Of course, a lot of people are going to think it’s obsessive or compulsive, because no one else does this,” said Lubanski, who runs a Pasadena bike shop. “But what we do is give joy to people.”
The bedroom and bathroom are not open to visitors. But Frazee insists that those rooms are as leporine as everywhere else. In her most recent newsletter, called Hoppy News, she announced that the couple had reached a resolution: “After our deaths, we have decided that our bedroom will be open to the public.”
The bunny-stuffed house, which is distinguished by a rabbit-shaped topiary on an otherwise ordinary suburban street, cannot accommodate the entire collection. Some of it is in storage. But Frazee hopes to one day open a proper museum, similar in size to the Huntington Library, with a rabbit carousel and a restaurant.
Some residents in her neighborhood, who would rather not be named, describe her as eccentric. Many have not visited the rabbit house.
“Her whole world revolves around a dreamland,” said one neighbor.
“She’s a bunny freak,” said another.
Bunny Advocate
Frazee considers herself a bunny advocate. She has been known to lecture petting-farm owners about their treatment of rabbits. She also tells everyone willing to listen about the importance of diversifying their pet’s diet. She has an opinion about all rabbit issues.
Pat the bunny? No, stroke between their ears.
Frazee sees most visitors as an opportunity to educate the public about a creature that’s commonplace yet largely ignored.
Three years ago, just before Easter, Frazee was coiled in pain and Lubanski rushed her to the hospital. When the doctor announced that he needed to remove her appendix, she pleaded with him to operate quickly so she could run the open house planned for the next day. Much to her chagrin, Frazee spent that holiday in a hospital bed while her husband welcomed strangers at their museum home.
Frazee and Lubanski are selective in what they collect. They have ruled out certain lines because of aesthetics or politics, such as the Playboy emblem because of the magazine’s treatment of women.
Today, married for nine years, the couple continue giving gifts to each other every day. But, they concede, it has become harder to find objects that they don’t already have. They scour stores, catalogs and thrift shops. To avoid duplication, they divvy up sources. She does mail-order and EBay, while he trolls antique and secondhand stores.
“Buying is like breathing,” Frazee said. “We’re always thinking and doing it.”
Asked how much of their income has been devoted to the collection, Lubanski shrugs. “If I can give someone enjoyment for a couple of hours -- that’s what life is all about.”
The bunny house is at 1933 Jefferson Drive, Pasadena. (626) 798-8848. Open 365 days a year by appointment. No appointment necessary on major holidays.
