Sunken Hearth

In December 1964, Walt Disney and Ray Bradbury bumped into each other while Christmas shopping. Bradbury offered to take Walt to lunch “someday.” Walt proposed lunch in his own office the following afternoon. Over soup and sandwiches on an old card table, the two futurists talked about how much they admired each other’s work. Walt showed Ray plans for Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion, and they went for a ride on a PeopleMover prototype. They became friends only two years before Walt’s death, but Bradbury’s ideas became a part of Disneyland, Walt Disney World and Disneyland Paris. In 1985, after a visit to Paris, Bradbury realized Walt had incorporated a Viollet-le-Duc spire (the central spire that collapsed during the 2019 Notre-Dame Cathedral fire) into the Sleeping Beauty Castle. “$100,000 to build a spire he didn’t need,” Ray said. “That was Walt’s secret: do things you don’t need, and do them well. Then you realize you needed them all along.”