Day 85 -- June 24, 2003 -- Tuesday

Still in San Francisco. We helped Ryan with his work overload today.

It was The House of Magic! for dinner with the amazing Richard Tuck. Richard is a friend of Ryan's. He owns a circus -- see Day 75.

Richard's HOME is named "It Must Be Magic!" The home features a complete magic theatre, a room with over 450 clocks, a collection of 900 wizard figurines, movie memorabilia from the golden age of Hollywood, a room filled with roller coasters and roller coaster memorabilia, a real roller coaster, and much, much more. Rooms include the Dickens Parlour, Wizard of Oz Room, Pinball Alley with a huge assortment of pinball machines and video games, a Soda Fountain, and a Movie Theatre with over 18,000 movies available.

100 circus people lived in Richard's home for several months after he invested in the circus. It is one wild place!

When Richard Tuck and Tim Sauer moved into the house looking out over the San Francisco Bay, they never dreamed of what they would someday be creating. With a reputation from hosting friends and family for meals and movies for over a decade, they now had the property to expand their generosity to larger groups. And the construction began. And never stopped. For 13 years, construction crews and electricians have been adding new surprises. Although small looking from the street, the house just seems to continue on forever. You get disoriented and confused as walls melt into doorways, closets lead into whole new sections of the house, and illusion is the order of the day. When Frank Biafore joined the household in 1995, he brought another level of expertise to the growing merriment. Frank had studied architecture and design. By combining Frank's design and construction experience and wild ideas with Richard's magical touches and flair for the mysterious, the construction of some of the most memorable areas in the home was accelerated.

It Must Be Magic! is strictly a hobby -- a part time endeavor to share fun and joy with the world. The three men behind the scenes work full time to support their generosity. Featured in numerous newspaper and magazine stories, It Must Be Magic! is one of those unadvertised special places that most of us never know about. Richard, Tim, and Frank live in the home; it is not open to the public.

We had dinner with Richard, Tim, Frank, two ladies who work with Richard, and the Advance Marketing Team from Circus Chimera. Richard took us on a guided tour of It Must be Magic! Following the tour, the curtains parted, a screen lowered, and we enjoyed watching "Harry Potter: The Sorcerer's Stone" as if we were watching the big screen at the theatre, but our couch seating was much more comfortable, and the fresh fruit served at intermission was much tastier than movie theatre candy and popcorn.

My photos do not even begin to capture the quality of the displays or the "magic" of the home. It was simply amazing.

The world needs more people like Richard Tuck!

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we've been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we've seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this web site. Other pages of interest include the running report of "vital statistics" on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you'd like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest and the full itinerary is shown.