When the antiques dealer from Columbus, Ga., bought the property last June and cleared the brush, 15 to 20 people a day dropped by to gawk and offer their versions of who once lived there. Framed by ominous-looking oak and palm trees, the crumbling stonework stairways, the walls, bridges, fountains and other ruins have distracted commuters on their way to the San Fernando Valley ever since and revived the Houdini-slept-here stories anew. were stripped of years of obscuring brush. One thing is certain: Last summer, the remains of someone’s house at 2400 Laurel Canyon Blvd. Not that they were successful at anything more than alarming the transients who lived hidden in the undergrowth. During the more than 30 years that the Houdini House property sat vacant at the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Willow Glen Road, devotees held seances tainted with black magic every Halloween, hoping to beckon the magician for a posthumous chat. It would seem that a lot of Houdiniphiles need to believe he lived somewhere here in Laurel Canyon, if for no other reason than a legend requires a few plausible details. But when I ask for those elusive particulars, he concedes he isn’t sure either. One canyonite complains that, just once, it’d be nice if the media got its Houdini facts straight. Which leaves us with a wonderful metaphor but little proof of his whereabouts. The escapist had a quaint habit of never putting his name on ownership papers.

Then again, several reliable accounts place Houdini’s Los Angeles home across the street-the street being Laurel Canyon Boulevard. And so, despite the dust and decay, he searches the so-called Houdini House, hoping to touch the ethereal locks of the master’s handcuffs. At the moment, workers are moving dirt, dead shrubs and garbage from the crumbling ruins of a Laurel Canyon house and garden where, the man believes, Harry Houdini lived in the 1920s. The young magician steps over an old brick and stares out with quiet reverence, as if he’s traveled miles on bloody feet just to be here.

The houdini house