The Walt Disney Barn is one of the not-so-secret places that Disney devotees, train buffs, and people who are ga-ga over Griffith Park seem to know about. But still, it is a spot that rarely receives the spotlight.
Maybe it is because it isn't open all that much -- about every third Sunday of the month, and then just for a few hours -- or that it isn't located in Anaheim or Burbank, the other centers of Disneyana. But this bite-sized barn is beloved by many, and that the open day for June falls on Father's Day seems right to us.
It was, after all, the very building in which Walt Disney himself tinkered with his trains way back in the day. Of course, the barn wasn't always in Griffith Park; it had been in Mr. Disney's Holmby Hills backyard once upon a time. It was saved even when the original house was not, and preservationists moved it to Griffith back in 1999.
Today it is a tinker-fanatic's playland, a putterer's Shangri-La, and it provides a peek into the whimsical, mouse-happy mind of Mr. Disney himself. It is wee, but there's plenty to see. And the setting is perfectly park-y and nice. Bonus: Last time we were there, we met Margaret Kerry, the model for Tinkerbell. Who knows who may show up, by surprise, on Father's Day?
