Immersive whimsy
This joyful, theme park-style home engages all of the senses
Brandon Shahniani enjoys screening movies and serving TV dinners in the 1950s-style diner area of his Los Angeles townhome.
Brandon Shahniani's bedroom is decorated like a 1980s Miami hotel room, complete with a light sunscreen scent for ambience.
Shahniani calls his Disney-themed guest bedroom the Archive Room.
A Pizza Hut pendant illuminates McDonald's collectibles in the '80s & '90s Food Culture Hall of Fame dining room.
Shahniani's home is filled with specific "time-capsule" moments that bring him joy.
Brandon Shahniani is obsessed with the 1980s sitcom "The Golden Girls," so much so that he decorated his breezy bedroom in pastel tones that would make Blanche Devereaux, the show's famously flirtatious character, green with envy.
"When I ask myself, 'Where would I want to wake up?,' the answer is right here," says the 28-year-old Shahniani. "And I sleep really well here."
His bedroom looks and feels like a hotel, with a soothing scent reminiscent of Coppertone sunscreen coming from a specialized scent-delivery machine, a resort activity schedule on the dresser and an emergency evacuation map on the back of the door.
Welcome to Shahniani's three-bedroom, three-bathroom 1982 townhome in Los Angeles composed of 11 carefully curated immersive moments, each filled with the pop-culture sights, sounds and smells of his youth that make him "feel safe, expressed, playful and happy."
"Whimsy is very important to my generation," the zillennial says as he offers a tour. "The future is bleak for us," he adds, even though his upbeat attitude and warm energy make you feel like you've known him for years.
To push back against generational anxiety, Shahniani covered every wall in his house with sentimental items — hundreds in total — many of them from periods he is too young to have experienced.
There's a vintage Disneyland ticket book, a Rubik's Cube and an old aluminum speaker from a drive-in theater. Some things, including a signed birthday greeting from Disney Imagineer Joe Rohde, are framed. Others, including an Egg McMuffin carton, lunchboxes and food-themed Barbies, are simply mounted on the wall.
When you first walk in the front door, you'll see a "dine-in theater" centered around a custom-made shiny red-andwhite vinyl booth. Across from the booth and above the bar, a pink-andwhite television made from an iPad inside a plastic foam cooler plays old cereal commercials and clips from "I Love Lucy" and "Bewitched" on repeat.
"I love a diner and a drive-in theater," he says about his movie nights, where he screens films and serves TV dinners. But don't expect him to sit still for long. "I'm not a big movie person," he says. "I play movies for ambiance."
His home is visually overwhelming — colorful, whimsical and jam-packed as Disneyland's Enchanted Tiki Room — with license plates and custom-made signs by artists Reimi Mosses and Dan Rocky as big as movie posters.
"It's clear that he, like me, was educated at theme parks," says friend Charles Phoenix, a midcentury pop-culture and design expert. His home "feels like we are in some sort of exquisite divine design reality. It touches a nerve in me that everybody has their own version of nostalgia. And what Brandon has created is his own nostalgia."
Using sensory theme park tricks he picked up during his time as a storyteller at Disneyland, Shahniani filled his townhome with sound effects from hidden speakers he controls with his iPhone. In the diner, for example, the speakers play outdoor sounds, including crickets, to create a real drive-in movie atmosphere. Upstairs in his bedroom, tropical sounds and steelpan music add to the feeling of sleeping in a seaside resort.
Other rooms downstairs include the B-Movie Bathroom, the Kitchen of Progress and the '80s & '90s Food Culture Hall of Fame dining room, which is illuminated by a Pizza Hut pendant. In the '80s Palm Common Room, a vintage keyboard, a computer mouse and touch-tone phone hang on the walls.
This spring, just outside the dining room, Shahniani will add the Expoterrace, a relaxing patio with a fountain, waterfalls and lush plants inspired by Living with the Land at Epcot in Florida.
Past the 1970s-themed mint chocolate chip bathroom, you'll find the Disneyland-themed Archive Room. Shahniani calls it a "teenage boy's dream." Which tracks for someone who has visited every Disney theme park in the world — Tokyo is his favorite — and was recently featured in AJ Wolfe's book "Disney Adults: Exploring (And Falling in Love With) A Magical Subculture."
The Archive Room is painted blue and filled with Disney parks memorabilia he's collected over the years including his ticket stubs, which are safely stored in a fillable glass lamp.
"From scouring through antique malls and online auctions to personal items from my childhood at the parks or things gifted by previous cast members and Imagineers, it's a holy grail collection of all of my personal hyperfixations from the park," he says.
Shahniani says his home feels special because so many friends helped with the design, the art on the walls and even his clothing.
His friend, theme park journalist Carlye Wisel, noticed these details, too. "Visiting Brandon is glee-inducing not just because of the decor, but also the company," she says. "At our annual holiday party, he sets up gingerbread houses for us to decorate, puts presents on the steps, and even bakes enough of his signature cookies that we can bring a box home to our families. Spending time at Brandon's house during the holidays is the closest I'll ever feel to being inside a Christmas movie."
Shahniani agrees: "It's so fun to be here. There's something so youthful about it."
"I believe that my default way of thinking, feeling and seeing the world is being dictated by the way I was programmed as a young child," Shahniani says. "When the youngest, most innocent version of you is healed and well, then it's easy to go out and do amazing things. And when little Brandon feels great inside, then big Brandon can go out and change the world for the better."
