Buying Neverland: Update

More than 1,300 lots of personal belongings taken from Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch are up for grabs in Beverly Hills, Calif.

The complete collection is on display at the former Robinsons-May building and is open for viewing. Admission is $20.

Los Angeles Times fashion critic Booth Moore got a chance to take a gander at the eclectic (and sometimes creepy) wares and had much to say about the collection.

Representatives of the auction house spent three months clearing the Santa Barbara County property, now co-owned by Jackson and private equity firm Colony Capital LLC and known as Sycamore Valley Ranch. Workers gathered belongings from the main house, the theater, the office, the game room and guest cottages where luminaries such as [Elizabeth] Taylor and Marlon Brando stayed when they visited Neverland.

“We were told to take the hood over the stove and the light fixtures, but we really wanted it to be a museum-quality project,” said Darren Julien, president and chief executive of Julien’s Auctions. (Still, what would the stove hoods have looked like? Italianate baroque?) “Michael Jackson is bigger than life. His collecting tastes say that as well. When he wanted something, he bought it.”

That’s the understatement of the decade. How else do you think MJ wound up more than $24 million in the hole?

The exhibition is loosely organized into three categories – stage wear and music memorabilia, toy and Disneyana, and furniture and decorative arts. There are numerous music honors – awards from People’s Choice, Billboard, the NAACP, MTV and more – record displays, a Madame Tussauds wax figure of the star and a letter from President Reagan. A ceremonial crown, scepter and faux ermine cape, cropped military jackets and costume brooches are reminders of Jackson’s 1980s fashion icon status.

Ewww. He actually had his own copy of Madame Tussauds wax figure of himself? That’s just freaky. Or maybe kinky. (Okay, I just grossed myself out.)

Heavy carved wood furnishings, marble tables and gilded statuary speak to the singer’s ostentatious style. He is the subject of much of the art from his walls, painted as a king, leading a group of children at moonrise and being knighted.

Other decorative items include “little prince” and “little princess” chairs, civil rights and black history books with uncracked spines and a four-poster bed with a brocade bedspread more befitting a grandmother than the King of Pop.

The number of games, toys and amusements Jackson amassed is astonishing – Disney figurines, many of Mickey Mouse, life-size “Star Wars” characters (including Han Solo in the frozen carbonite), Sega video games, pinball machines and a Neverland trolley. He also had a particular affinity for Peter Pan paraphernalia.

As well as an affinity for – never mind, we won’t go there.

In a nod to Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane,” which tells the tragic and lonely tale of Charles Foster Kane, Nolan told Moore, “Neverland represents Michael Jackson’s Xanadu.” A fitting reference indeed.

Bidding on the collection is open at Juliens-Auctions.com, with a live auction April 22-25 determining the winners.

Read Moore’s complete coverage of the Neverland Ranch auction here.

UPDATE: While the exhibition at the former Robinsons-May building will continue through April 25, the auction has now been officially called off. Julien’s Auction House and a spokesman for Jackson said the singer will retain possession of some 2,000 items from Neverland Ranch as part of a dispute settlement.