Walt Disney's Barn by Dave Lavery

Canon SD850 IS

The birthplace of Imagineering. This is the actual barn that was in the back yard of Walt Disney's home in Holmby Hills, California. Walt Disney was a huge railroad enthusiast, and had an extensive scale railroad built on his property. It was here that Walt – along with fellow Disney animators and railroad enthusiasts like Ward Kimball and Ollie Johnson – operated his workshop and built several scale steam locomotives and an entire railroad. Known as the Carolwood Pacific, his scale railroad provided the inspiration for his vision of a family-oriented theme amusement park that we know now as Disneyland (his description of the park was “I just want it to look like nothing else in the world… and it should be surrounded by a train.”).

Following Disney’s death, his family preserved the barn until the home was sold. The barn was moved to it’s current location on the property of the Los Angeles Live Steamers Railroad Museum, in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, in 1999. It is now operated as a museum by the Carolwood Pacific Historical Society (for more info on the barn, see www.carolwood.org/WaltsBarn / )