Update, 2:00 p.m. Fairy door disappears Berkeleysider Andy Kelley stopped by to see the fairy door on his walk up to Cheese Board today and reports it was gone. He writes: “Only a few remnants of rocks and shells inside to indicate it was ever there. Rather than being crestfallen by the culprit out to crush all the whimsy left in the world, I’m going to pretend the fairies decided to move now that their secret had been discovered. Maybe they’ll move into my neighborhood next!” See Andy’s photo below.
Original story: There’s a fairy door in a Berkeley tree and you can almost guarantee any child in the city will be delighted to discover it.
The existence of the minuscule door, set snugly into the roots of a tree on Cedar Street near California, was brought to our attention by Berkeleysider Lisa Cole.
Cole says her husband found the fairy door on his commute one day.
“We took our little ones to see it and they were so excited!” she wrote. “If you open the door there is a teeny animal inside. I have no idea who did it or why but it is special.”
Fairy doors have been in the local news recently when one that appeared in a tree in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park last year received national media attention before being unceremoniously removed as the city’s parks and recreation department deemed it was not “up to code.”
The door was the creation of Tony Powell and his then six-year-old son Rio and, in September, they installed a new polished circular door with the blessing of officials at the end of a fallen eucalyptus log not too far from their original one.
Lisa Cole said that since they discovered the Berkeley door she and her husband have taken their kids to see the fairy door in Golden Gate Park. She doesn’t know if they are related to the Berkeley door.
She does know, however, that her kids believe the Berkeley door leads to Children’s Fairyland in Oakland.
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