For years Huell Howser was on the local PBS television station. Originally, he had a show called Videolog followed by a show called Visiting and finally a show called California’s Gold.

That’s Huell. Everybody in the state of California probably knows who he is and, I suspect, everyone in the state of California misses him. I never met him but I feel like I know him. R.I.P. Huell. (1945-2013).
Anyway, Huell would travel around California to different sites and basically ask people to show him around while he asked questions and then he acted flabbergasted or amazed at what he was seeing or hearing. He never seemed fake. He always seemed honestly interested. One of the sites Huell visited was the Nethercutt Museum in Sylmar. The only reason I know about this place is because of Huell’s show. The Nethercutt is out in Sylmar in two rather inconspicuous buildings.

There are automobiles on the ground floor and on the first floor. This 1903 Peerless and the Orange Lincoln that follow were on the ground floor. (In the basement.)

The interior was orange too. I would feel like a pimp driving it. If I owned it I would buy an orange hat with fur trim and wear it whenever I went for a ride.

There were so many great cars but I’m drawn to the movie related ones. C.B. (That’s what Norma Desmond called him) was in Sunset Boulevard.

This is what I actually came to see. It’s the reason I drove all the way out to Sylmar. This figural group is on the second floor of the building and it was made for the P.P.I.E. in 1915.

On the 3rd floor they had a lot of big musical instruments like this old, movie theater, pipe organ.

These pipes were revealed when the curtains that circled the room parted. At which point, the concert began and the organ started churning out songs from its electronic memory. I don’t remember a lot of the songs (my memory isn’t as good as the organs) but the finale was the theme from Star Wars. That stuck in my head because, well, it’s the theme from Star Wars.

This guy, Kyle, oversaw this part of the tour. He reminded me of myself but he may have been a bit more masculine than me if that’s possible.

There were other big instruments on the 3rd floor. I think Kyle said this was an Orchestrion. It’s a whole orchestra in a box.

There was a dinning room too. The Nethercutts used it for entertaining. Their home was in Brentwood but they brought people here for dinner. That seemed odd, to me, but I guess this way they didn’t have people traipsing through their home.

The train car was owned by this woman. Evidently, her father made money in mining and real estate, lived a very long time, finally died and left his daughter a large fortune. One of the things she did with the money was to purchase this private rail car for herself.

This is where the servants slept. There were three men (porters) who accompanied Clara and her guests. The seats fold down to form a bed.
A couple of final things…

Uh, I like Egyptian stuff but I’m not sure about this. I don’t know if I would want that on the front of my truck.

How did these things NOT get broken? Nowadays, they would be stolen the first time the car was left on the street. Am I too pessimistic?

This is my favorite one. I’ve always had a thing for Felix the Cat. I would want to attach him to that Orange Lincoln. I can see myself tooling around in that vehicle with Felix attached to the hood. I would be the envy of every Latino man who saw me.