The Bunny Museum in Altadena, California, burned to the ground during the 2025 Greater Los Angeles Wildfires. For 27 years, since 1998, it had been the kind of place that made people smile—a sprawling collection of 45,000 rabbit-related objects that somehow managed to be both utterly ridiculous and genuinely moving. Egyptian amulets next to Bugs Bunny figurines. Vintage toys alongside Rose Parade float bunnies. The live rabbits and the couple's cats made it out safely, but the building and nearly everything inside didn't.
Founders Candace Frazee and Steve Lubanski had built something singular: a museum that took rabbits seriously across centuries and cultures. There were rooms exploring pop culture, science, superstition. There was even a restricted section documenting bunny exploitation throughout history. The Los Angeles Times once wrote that while the collection "may seem to tilt to kitsch, the vast stockpile harbors insight and imparts a quirky sort of gravitas."
What happened next says something about how people respond when something beloved is lost. The community didn't move on. Instead, they donated approximately 60,000 rabbit-related items to help rebuild. The museum earned three Guinness World Records before the fire. Now it's earning something else: proof that a community will show up for the things that matter to them, even when those things are wonderfully, unapologetically weird.
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Start Your News DetoxOn February 20, a 14-foot-tall, 1,100-pound stainless steel bunny sculpture named "Scanner" arrived as a gift. It was created by Jesse Zhao in Shijiazhuang, China, and donated by Wesley Zucco, a Monrovia resident. The sculpture sits where the museum once stood—a monument not to what was lost, but to what's being rebuilt.
"We hope Scanner will lift the community's spirit after such a devastating fire," Frazee told Pasadena Weekly. "And it will let the neighbors know the Bunny Museum is going to hop back up out of the ashes."
According to their GoFundMe page, the Bunny Museum plans to reopen in a brand-new building in 2028. Until then, Scanner watches over the lot—a gleaming, impossible bunny, waiting.
