L.A.'s quirkiest museum? It's gotta be the Bunny Museum

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Candace Frazee and her husband, Steve Lubanski, started the Bunny Museum in 1998. Now, there are more than 35,000 rabbit-related items at their spot in Altadena.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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A family of bunnies made of resin stands in front of an oil painting at the Bunny Museum in Altadena.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Easter eggs from the White House are on display at the Bunny Museum in Altadena.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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A live bunny enjoys its space living among giant stuffed toy bunnies at the Bunny Museum in Altadena.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Three live rabbits hang among giant stuffed toys at the Bunny Museum in Altadena.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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A giant you-know-what greets visitors to the Bunny Museum in Altadena.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Small figurines can be found at the Bunny Museum in Altadena. There are more than 35,000 rabbit-related items in the museum.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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A small bronze bunny-shaped pendant for a necklace, Roman, circa 100 A.D., was found in a dig at a parking lot in England. It’s on display at the Bunny Museum in Altadena.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Candace Frazee and her husband, Steve Lubanski, pause amid the displays at their Bunny Museum in Altadena.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

By R. Daniel Foster

March 22, 2018 7 AM PT

Overwhelming. The remark is commonly heard when visiting Altadena’s Bunny Museum, home to the world’s “largest collection of rabbit-related items,” according to Guinness World Records.

The 35,400 items — from plush toys to matchbooks to costumes –– multiply rapidly: Curators Candace Frazee and Steve Lubanski gift each other with a rabbit-themed offering each day.

The tradition began in 1993, when Lubanski gave his then-girlfriend a plush bunny for Valentine’s Day. The couple soon began exchanging daily rabbit-related gifts. They wed a year later; Lubanski showed up at the reception in a bunny suit.

“This museum is based on a love story,” said Frazee, who in 1998 launched the now nonprofit museum in the couple’s Pasadena home. The collection moved to Altadena last March.

Amid the scent of carrot cake candles, Frazee recently gave a tour of the 7,000-square-foot exhibition space. A blast of bunnies hits one upon entering the warren of 16 galleries; it’s like stumbling into an art installation designed to stupefy by shock immersion.

A family of bunnies made of resin stand in front of a bunny oil painting at the Bunny Museum on Lake Avenue on March 8, 2018 in Altadena, Calif.

Displays burst with rabbit-shaped and bunny-branded objects sorted into 111 categories and include cookie jars, lunch pails, slot machines, music boxes, chocolate, thimbles and characters (such as Bugs Bunny and Thumper).

In one room are three live rabbits that can be petted. A nearby display case contains seven of the couple’s deceased pet rabbits, now stuffed and paired with photos labeled with their names and lifespans.

“The sheer enormity of it — it’s both cute and a little unnerving,” said visitor Griffin Scanlan, 24, an office assistant who lives in Koreatown. “There’s stuff that makes you think of your grandma’s house, and then you bump into something straight out of a nightmare.”

Scanlan refers to the Chamber of Hop Horrors. Slung over its door: a rabbit suit resembling flattened roadkill.

“This represents the abuse of bunnies throughout history,” Frazee said in hushed tones as she edged into the space.

The dim room is packed with scores of leering rabbits; some figures date to the 1930s, when creepy expressions appeared to be in vogue. A seven-foot-tall Tiki-style wooden hare (salvaged decor from a Long Beach restaurant) hangs flush with the ceiling, its gaped, teeth-studded mouth ready to devour — perhaps that can of dog food nearby that’s packed with (gasp) rabbit meat.

A live bunny enjoys his space living amongst giant stuffed toy bunnies at the Bunny Museum.

Most curious is a tall clay rabbit holding a human foot — because, in truth, how lucky is a rabbit foot charm for the rabbit?

The couple (they’re vegetarians) often go “bunny hunting” at antique stores, festivals and yard sales. “We have about everything,” said Frazee, adjusting a rabbit-shaped earring. That includes such collectibles as White House Easter eggs.

The rabbit array may seem to tilt to kitsch, but the vast stockpile harbors insight and imparts a quirky sort of gravitas.

The space presents the perfect storm of how rabbits have been depicted throughout history: The critter’s uber-cute traits (those ears, that hop) so readily morphed into darker themes of barbarity as well as rampant sexuality (that horror chamber will soon include a door key to Chicago’s Playboy Club).

There are even a few antiquities: a rabbit-themed Egyptian amulet and a Roman brooch. Lending further insight, wall plaques detail rabbit-related topics: luck, magic, superstition, folklore, fertility and more.

All of that is lent an outré edge by items Frazee has fashioned herself, including a bunny-populated crucifixion scene and a nativity crèche with a floppy-eared infant Jesus bunny.

Frazee said she’s aware that many call her “the crazy bunny lady.”

Fans counter that dig, saying that many Angelenos also called Simon Rodia crazy; they nearly destroyed his Watts Towers. Frazee and Lubanski share something valuable with the Italian immigrant: the power of a dream and the courage to carry it out.

The Bunny Museum

Where: 2605 Lake Ave., Altadena

Hours: Noon to 6 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m. Sundays

Cost: $8. Free to kids 4 and under

Info: thebunnymuseum.com