Candace Frazee and Steve Lubanski have spent their entire relationship amassing the world’s largest collection of bunny objects. For nearly 30 years, from courtship to milestone wedding anniversaries, they have run a Los Angeles-area museum built on their love for the animals and for each other.
The Bunny Museum, a quirky monument to an L.A. love story, lost in fire
January 15, 2025 | In the PressFrom The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2025/01/15/bunny-museum-altadena-eaton-fire/)
Then, last week, the Bunny Museum “burnt to the ground,” the couple shared on social media.
They had only enough time to grab their pets — three cats and two bunnies — and about 20 items, including five 2,000-year-old antiquities, from their prodigious trove in Altadena, California. More than 60,000 other objects from their Guinness World Records-setting collection turned to ash in the Eaton Fire.
The fire had engulfed an adjacent structure, and Lubanski “valiantly hosed the building down all night long,” he and Frazee wrote. Despite his efforts, the inferno reached the museum on Jan. 8, making it another casualty on the Eaton Fire’s some 14,000-acre march that has damaged or destroyed an estimated 7,000 structures, according to CalFire.
But Frazee and Lubanski, both in their late 60s, are not abandoning their life’s work or their legion of fans, who have pledged personal items such as plushies, artwork, antiques and sentimental objects from their childhood. The couple started a GoFundMe page and vowed to return with a new museum.
The rabbit, after all, represents rebirth.
From Valentine’s Day gift to Guinness World Record
The Bunny Museum started sweetly, with a gift from him to her.
In an interview with The Washington Post, conducted over email because the couple no longer had a phone, Frazee said neither of them grew up with bunnies. Nor were the creatures present when the Southern Californian (Lubanski) met the Canadian (Frazee) at a singles event in Pasadena.
For their first Valentine’s Day together, Lubanski gave Frazee a white plush bunny, a manifestation of her pet name for him. That Easter, she surprised her “honey bunny” with a white porcelain figurine. A tradition was born.
“After that, [we] gave each other a bunny on all the holidays,” Frazee said, and because Lubanski had “a hard time” waiting, he started insisting she open her presents on ordinary days. “So, it became a daily gift-giving practice.”
They accumulated thousands of items from about 100 categories of collectibles, such as teapots, salt-and-pepper shakers, books, jewelry, movie posters and, an unintentional acquisition, dust bunnies, according to Guinness. Frazee said they had a simple criterion: If it was a bunny, it belonged. Including live ones.
“After the dogs passed, we got bunnies,” she said, “and [we] have had cats and bunnies ever since.”
In 1998, they opened their Pasadena home-slash-gallery to the public. A dozen years later, the actor Elijah Wood created a three-part “ad” about the quirky attraction. In the clips, he emerges from a cuddle puddle of stuffed bunnies (Part 1) and demonstrates the museum’s official handshake (Part 3), a fist bump followed by a peace sign — or, in this usage, rabbit ears.
“The Bunny Museum is saving bunny items that represent Candace and Steve’s love for each other for the future,” the Part 2 video informs viewers. “Their bunny collection will not be sold after their death, but kept together as a whole.”
In 2017, the couple relocated the museum to a larger space in Altadena, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. They occupied an upstairs apartment, until last week’s fire consumed that, too. They’ve since moved into a motel.
“It was an art gallery, so it came with unique curved walls and spotlights throughout,” Frazee said. “It was the first building we looked at and it was perfect!”
When asked by The Post about career highlights, their short list included a celebrity marriage that “we cannot reveal,” plus many famous names they can (actress Mayim Bialik, comedian Aparna Nancherla, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs); a slew of first dates; and Page 103 of the “Guinness World Records 2025” book.
In interviews with other outlets over the years, they demurred when pressed about their favorite items. (A parent wouldn’t favor one child over another, so why would they?) But Frazee shared some of the museum’s standout pieces, such as 10 Rose Parade float bunnies, three of which may have survived the fire; a bejeweled rocking bunny from India; five six-foot-tall dolls from Katherine’s Collection, a home decor and collectibles company; and “Bunny Pants,” a rabbit-ears-shaped sculpture constructed out of jeans and displayed in the Gallery of Original Bunny Art. Frazee said the piece, by local artist Tim Hawkinson, was worth $75,000.
Those and around 200 other items will now have to be preserved in a different way. The day before the fire struck, Frazee finished her latest book, “I Saw It in the Bunny Museum.” The book is due out in March.
“It is now a unique record of what was,” Frazee said.
Fans reflect on the Bunny Museum
The attraction, Frazee said, drew all walks and hops of life: families, seniors, individuals, influencers, artists, people dressed in bunny costumes.
In June, Amy Roiland, a fashion blogger who lives in nearby Studio City, visited with her 4-year-old daughter, Ryder, who was between chemotherapy treatments for a brain tumor. Roiland celebrated these brief respites by planning joyous, upbeat adventures.
“She styled herself in head-to-toe bunny: a bunny hat, bunny shoes, a whole bunny outfit,” Roiland said. “It was so cute.”
Outside the museum, Ryder drew chalk bunnies on the sidewalk. Inside, she chatted up Frazee and Lubanski, who directed them to a stone fountain surrounded by a mound of memorabilia. She pet the resident cats and ran around wide-eyed and cotton-tailed, taking in the profusion of bunnies.
“You’re just like, ‘My God, there’s so much to see,’” Roiland said. “I wanted to stay there all day.”
When Roiland learned the devastating news about the museum, she said she broke down in tears. To cheer up her mother, Ryder disappeared into her bedroom and returned with the bunny hat she wore that special day.
“It’s such a magical, amazing place,” Roiland said, her voice cracking. “I pray and hope these two will come together and rebuild.”
Frazee and Lubanski appear well on their way.
Five days after they set up the GoFundMe page, it had raised over $35,000.
“THANK YOU,” the couple wrote, “for helping to rebuild the hoppiest place in the world.”
