The Rise of the House of Bunny

(Illustration by Ronald Kurniawan)

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More About

• Bunny Museum
• Steve Lubanski
• Candace Frazee
• Wildlife
• Nature and the Environment

It started off innocently enough.In 1993, Steve Lubanski gave his newly acquired girlfriend, Candace Frazee, a plush Valentine’s Day bunny. The bunny was holding a heart between its fuzzy paws. The heart said “I love you this much.” Not so unusual. What is unusual is that the bunny gifts didn’t stop there (or simply resume every Valentine’s Day). In fact, giving each other bunny-related items became a daily ritual for Steve and Candace.

Today, the married couple have amassed more than 22,000 rabbits — including seven living ones — in their Pasadena home. This is a Guinness world record, in case you were wondering. Along with the deteriorating rabbit heads of former Rose Parade floats, the Bunny Museum — as the married couple’s home is now known — contains every rabbit embodiment imaginable. There are sections for international bunny products, including a series of Liseberg Rabbits (the neon-green and -pink mascots of an amusement park in Göteburg, Sweden), bunnies on spoons, giant chocolate bunnies, bunny macaroni, etc. Even the cordoned-off section of their home is rife with the things — I spotted a bunny shower curtain in the bathroom and what I think was a bunny toilet seat. Indeed, there are so many questions you want to ask Candace as she shows you around their “living museum” that it can be a little overwhelming.

Why bunnies? Why have you freeze-dried your former living rabbits and encased them in glass? Do you really have bunnies sculpted out of poop? You can ask her all these questions (and more), but in the end it’s clear these people just like them some bunnies. In recent years, the couple’s love for the rabbit has actually presented them with a very unique problem. All that bunny paraphernalia has made their home a bit difficult to traverse. Thankfully, there are grand construction plans under way in the not-so-distant future. They involve a much larger home (possibly a mansion) and lots of open space in the yard. “Something like Huntington Gardens .?.?. but with a bunny theme,” Candace tells me. So if you like your cute mixed with a little creepy, or if you just love the rabbit and all its commercial possibilities, please, do yourself a favor and drop by the Bunny Museum.

The Bunny Museum 1933 Jefferson Dr., Pasadena, (626) 798-8848