Inside Allee Willis' fabulously kitsch party house that inspired a pop-up book

When you locomotion into Willis Wonderland, your oculus doesn’t cognize wherever to land. The North Hollywood house, which songwriter Allee Willis archetypal purchased successful 1980 and turned into a surviving ode to each things kitsch, is awash successful trinkets and tchotchkes. But besides successful coveted creation pieces and stylish furnishings.

The surviving country unsocial features a lavender Plycraft seat and a Sputnik chandelier arsenic good arsenic a Weltron Space Ball Retro stereo boasting an Earth, Wind & Fire 8-Track and a “Sock It To Me” squished brew ashtray. It’s each conscionable the mode Willis had it earlier she died successful 2019 astatine 72.

The pop-up publication is opened to Allee Willis’ surviving country successful her surviving room, implicit with pinkish sofa and Willis sitting successful her signature wacky wardrobe. The publication is afloat of delightful easter eggs conscionable similar the home.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

And now, for those who person ever wished they could circuit this astir fabulous of L.A. houses wherever everyone from Lily Tomlin, Paul Reubens and Cassandra Peterson erstwhile partied, comes a caller pop-up publication that brings it into your own, apt little fantastical, home.

“Willis Wonderland: The Legendary House of Atomic Kitsch” was written by Willis’ person Hillary Carlip and Trudi Roth, designed by Carlip, illustrated by Neal McCullough and paper-engineered by Mike Malkovas. And, similar the location it hopes to seizure and mythologize successful adjacent measure, the pop-up publication is simply a solemnisation of Willis’ ain “more is more” sensibility.

“When you locomotion in, it’s afloat of surprises,” Carlip tells maine arsenic we locomotion astir the location connected a sunny Friday greeting and respect the Jason Mecier representation of Willis made of trash trinkets. “You support uncovering caller things. I’ve been present hundreds of times, and I saw thing contiguous I hadn’t seen before. I wanted to bash that with the pop-up book. To person easter eggs and things wherever you propulsion and rotation and unfastened and that benignant of thing. I conscionable deliberation the interactivity, wherever you truly immerse yourself successful it, is truly important now, particularly since truthful overmuch is digital.”

Hillary Carlip poses beside the Jason Mecier representation of her person Allee Willis.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The tactility of the publication encourages you to research each nook and cranny of the house, which does already consciousness similar a depository of sorts. Of kitsch, perhaps, but besides of Willis herself. The much you get to larn some astir this well-kept gathering (once rumored to beryllium an MGM enactment house), you besides larn much astir Willis’ bonzer career.

Willis is possibly champion known arsenic the songwriter down specified hits arsenic Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” and “Boogie Wonderland.” But implicit her four-decade career, she besides co-wrote the songs for Broadway philharmonic “The Color Purple”; penned a Grammy-winning tune for “Beverly Hills Cop”; and worked with acts arsenic varied arsenic the Pet Shop Boys, Dusty Springfield, Patti LaBelle, Cyndi Lauper and Taylor Dayne.

But she was besides a ocular artist, a designer, a sculptor and an avid collector. With her signature asymmetrical haircut, her loud, fashionable outfits and a penchant for each things off-kilter, the Detroit-born creator made small favoritism betwixt her enactment and her life. It makes consciousness her abode, a pinkish William Kesling single-family location (one of lone 15 built successful the Los Angeles country successful the 1930s) dotted with bowling balls and thenar trees, would service arsenic a continuation of her wild, wondrous aesthetic.

Hillary Carlip, sitting by Allee Willis’ pool, wanted the pop-up publication displaying her friend’s location to consciousness arsenic elaborate arsenic the quirky location is successful existent life.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The backyard excavation area, dotted by bowling bowls, arsenic seen from above

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

When Willis died, the question of what to bash with her Willis Wonderland was entangled with however to further cement her legacy. Her partner, animator and shaper Prudence Fenton, knew the famed location would request to beryllium cared for. And, possibly much importantly, memorialized.

When Fenton and Vincent Beggs — the enforcement manager of the Willis Wonderland Foundation, launched successful 2022 — came up with the thought of a publication astir the house, they knew it couldn’t beryllium conscionable immoderate benignant of book. They toyed with a sleek java array publication with gorgeous photos of the house. But that would’ve been excessively sterile. Too staid. Willis, they knew, deserved thing bolder.

The pop-up publication offers arsenic immersive a circuit of the location arsenic you tin imagination of. The country astatine the alleged “kitsch-en,” for instance, wonderfully captures Willis’ committedness to playfulness arsenic a cardinal plan conceit — thing each excessively uncommon successful a satellite often dressed successful basal neutrals.

Allee Willis called her room the “kitsch-en” — it’s afloat of knick-knacks and novelty items, conscionable similar different rooms successful her retro home.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The eating nook, 1 of Allee Willis’s favourite places successful her home, and the pop-up publication mentation of the space.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

A pink-leather dinette anchors a abstraction that’s each but drowning successful tiki mugs, brackish and capsicum shakers and adorned with artworks (including a postulation of Zel caricatures). Willis’ wit is intelligibly prevalent throughout.

That’s obscurity much evident than successful her “Rec Room.” A blue-hued linoleum level made to look similar an aquarium, replete with singing food and turtles, brightens the dark-wooded downstairs abstraction and echoes the nautical elements Kesling introduced into his Streamline Moderne homes. Here, this underwater abstraction serves arsenic a repository for “Allee’s Legendary Landfill of Esthetic Essentials.”

The recreation room, with its bluish floor, is filled with collectibles, conscionable similar successful the pop-up book.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The tiled level and decorative inlays successful the recreation country astatine Allee Willis’ house.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The shelves, arsenic the publication shows, are filled to the brim with collectibles, galore of them portion of the postulation of Black culture, which her person James Brown archetypal helped her curate. Lunchboxes, magazines, records, enactment figures and sculptures each but beg you to walk hours upon hours examining each and each 1 of them. This is thrifting arsenic taste history. Kitsch arsenic humanities remembrance.

In Carlip’s pop-up mentation of this room, you tin see, among galore different things, a crowned Miss America Vanessa Williams Corn Flakes box, a slew of Afro picks acceptable for the taking, a Harlem Globetrotters coloring book, a Diana Ross doll and a Chubby Checker Twister game.

“It’s a comic thing, due to the fact that Mike, the insubstantial engineer, who’s done galore different books and clients and everything, kept saying, ‘You can’t person truthful overmuch detail. You person to edit,’” Carlip shares. “And I was like, ‘Nope.’ I conscionable stood my ground. I was like, ‘It’s Allee. It’s each got to beryllium successful there.’ But past I yet relented and said, ‘How astir there’s a downloadable poster wherever radical tin get descriptions of items and spot them up close?’”

In that poster, you tin spot “Libby the Lovely Liberated Lady” doll, a Women’s Liberation artifact that’s arsenic hilarious arsenic she sounds (you’re encouraged to propulsion her skirt for a surprise). And you tin besides spot a photograph of the famed Riverside Market motion that adorns the house’s outdoor excavation adjacent to a portable barroom Willis had hand-sculpted from Motor City-found items.

As the aboriginal of the location arsenic it stands remains up successful the air, with Carlip unsure what the Foundation has planned for it, the pop-up publication (like past year’s “The World According To Allee Willis” documentary) hopes to marque definite Willis’ artistry is preserved successful ways she would astir enjoy.

A tongue-in-cheek faux-Picasso hangs supra the fireplace.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

“I conscionable deliberation it truly captures her whimsy, her thoughtfulness, her creativity and the joy,” Carlip adds, astir the location and publication alike. “Everything she created had truthful overmuch joyousness successful it. I deliberation erstwhile radical travel into this house, they consciousness each those things, they’re inspired to create. I deliberation conscionable the breadth of her creativity is infectious. You cannot assistance but beryllium inspired by being successful here.”

Carlip points to a coating that sits atop the fireplace close supra a Sascha Brastoff golden ceramic bull. The portion features a blue-hued pistillate whose irregular features (bold neon lips, perky colorful nipples) are intentionally meant to evoke a definite famed artist. It is signed “P. Picasso.”

“People would ever inquire her, ‘Is this …?’” Carlip recalls with a laugh. “It’s not. I mean, it’s called ‘Girl with Blue Period.’”