Michael Jackson transformed Neverland Ranch much as he did music

LONG WALK: Fans park their cars behind a police roadblock for a 1 ƒ¦1/2ƒ§-mile trek to the gates of Neverland Ranch.

The architecture on his Santa Barbara County property reflects his androgynous, perpetually childlike model of superstardom -- and his unique if disjointed take on the celebrity compound.
By CHRISTOPHER HAWTHORNE, Architecture Critic
July 3, 2009


It was while I was bumpily making my way across a rope bridge in a quiet corner of Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch on Thursday morning -- next to an elaborate treehouse crowned with a ship's wheel, and overlooking a bronze sculpture of smiling children -- that I finally figured out what the late entertainer's compound represents from an architectural point of view.

Jackson didn't commission Neverland's Tudor-style main house. That 13,000-square-foot structure, which sits nestled under a collection of magnificent oak trees, was built in 1981 by real estate developer William Bone, from whom the singer bought the property for $19.5 million in 1987. But the changes Jackson made to the 2,600-acre property over the years -- notably, adding a slew of kid-friendly attractions -- markedly changed the place, softening it and shrinking it to less than full-grown scale.

At the height of his popularity, Jackson bent the music industry toward an androgynous, perpetually childlike model of superstardom. He managed a similar trick in transforming the architecture of this classic Santa Barbara County ranch property.