The conjurers have decided to stay put at Hollywood’s Magic Castle.
In a membership vote of the Academy of Magical Arts that concluded Monday, members say that about 92% of those voting endorsed a reorganization plan designed to give control over the castle’s operations and revenue to a company owned by Magic Castle landlord Randy Pitchford.
As part of the deal, AMA members can continue to use the castle as their clubhouse. The AMA, a nonprofit group, would continue to promote magic, running educational efforts and awards programs.
If the magicians had voted no, they would have needed to find a new venue at the expiration of their lease on Dec. 31, 2028.
Members said they received results by email from the academy Tuesday morning, with tallies showing a 1,038-89 vote to approve changes to AMA bylaws and a 1,043-84 vote to approve changes to AMA articles of incorporation. The vote “will provide a strong foundation for the future of the Academy of Magical Arts,” wrote Christopher Grant, president of the AMA board of directors, in an email to members. The Magic Castle remains open daily and leaders have vowed a swift transition to new management.
Leaders of the AMA and Magic Castle Enterprises — the Pitchford-owned company taking over operations — declined to comment on the results. An AMA spokesperson said “the AMA and MCE treat membership proceedings as private club matters and therefore refrain from public comment on internal processes.”
The AMA’s membership was recently put at 4,664, suggesting that most academy members didn’t vote.
In the run-up to voting, some members said they were not being told enough about what the AMA gets out of the deal. Several academy members said that moving from their historic home could deeply damage the AMA.
“We’ve given up a significant portion of self-governance for an undefined and indefinite occupancy,” said Ralph Shelton, a longtime AMA member and attorney who opposed the proposal.
Soon after reporting vote totals on Tuesday morning, AMA leadership sent another missive saying that veteran Magic Castle general manager Hervé Lévy was leaving his position, effective Tuesday. Lévy was not immediately available for comment.
The Magic Castle opened in 1963.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
The Magic Castle, a 1909 Edwardian-style mansion, opened in 1963 as a clubhouse and performance venue for the Academy of Magical Arts, a nonprofit group founded by the Larsen family. The membership vote, conducted Sept. 8 through 29, follows several dramatic changes for Pitchford, the Magic Castle and the Academy of Magical Arts.
Despite trouble in 2020, when the pandemic shut it down and a Times investigation detailed allegations of sexual harassment and racism, the mansion reopened in 2021 amid a leadership overhaul.
Pitchford, 54, is a longtime academy member, having married his wife, Kristy Pitchford, in the castle in 1997. His Texas-based company, Gearbox Entertainment, created the popular Borderlands video game franchise. When he bought the Magic Castle building in 2022, he inherited a lease that allows the AMA to remain at the castle through December 2028. Rather than negotiating to extend that pact, Pitchford and his team MCE have been working on plans for a dramatic reorganization.
With the changes, Pitchford’s MCE is to gain control of castle operations, including its restaurant, bar, gift shop and valet parking. Also, MCE will get to nominate two members to the AMA board, which will shrink from nine members to five.
Some members expressed faith in Pitchford’s long history with the Magic Castle and noted that two members of academy’s pioneering Larsen family hold key positions with MCE. During the voting period, longtime AMA member Christopher Hart, who serves as chair of the academy’s board of trustees, said, “I think [Pitchford] has tried to do everything in his power to preserve the nature of this iconic place.”
Elsie Eiler runs the sole business in Monowi, Nebraska and is also the town’s only resident, as well as its mayor, librarian and postmaster. Monowi is officially the smallest incorporated town in the US
Elsie Eiler is the only resident of Monowi(Image: AP)
A particularly hard-working woman is the mayor, librarian, postmaster, and sole business owner of the smallest town in the US.
Elsie Eiler may be in her 90s, but she fully embraces the side-hustle culture more often associated with Gen Zs. The multi-jobbed Nebraskan has been holding down the fort as the only resident of Monowi for years.
Along with her husband Rudy, Elsie moved to the sparsely populated area about 90 miles northwest of Norfolk, near the South Dakota border, and set up the Monowi Tavern in 1971. Its nearest restaurants are more than a dozen miles away, but business was slow at first.
Rudy died in 2004, leaving Elsie to run the rest stop as a one-woman show. Slowly, over the years, the other remaining residents of the town either died or moved away until Elsie was the only one left.
Today her business is a well-maintained iceberg in a sea of crumbling buildings. Homes are slowly tumbling over and collapsing into the snow-covered ground of Monowi.
The town’s rapidly declining population has provided a silver lining for Elsie. As officially the smallest incorporated town in the US, Monowi has become something of a tourist attraction. Nowadays, business is booming, with small-town enthusiasts coming from far and wide to meet a woman who has taken on more and more responsibilities in recent years.
Not only does she welcome around 50 guests a day, cook them a delicious feast, and keep the restaurant looking spic and span, but Elsie also serves as mayor, librarian, and postmaster.
As the only resident in town, she must advertise mayoral elections with a sign she posts on her bar and vote for herself, as well as produce a municipal plan each year. Other duties include raising taxes to keep utilities running.
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“It’s a bar and grill, I would call it. I do quite a lot of cooking the last couple of years. It’s a bar and a meeting place for everybody. There’s a toy box under the TV for all of the little kids that come in, and it’s just a community meeting I guess you would say,” Elsie told Nebraska Public Media at an event at the restaurant in 2021.
One regular customer is Boyd County Sheriff Chuck Wrede, who says the tavern is a meeting place for area police officers.
“We come here once a month and kind of have an intel meeting between the counties, and invite different people to come and discuss what we need to do and what things go on,” he explained.
Jeff Uhlir, who farms 20 miles south of Monowi, meets with other agricultural workers from the area to play cards at the tavern.
Despite working so hard long after most people have hung up their working boots and retired, Elsie doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
“Each year I just renew my license and stay again. I mean, basically…I’m happy here. This is where I really – I want to be here, or I wouldn’t stay here,” she said.
George Nathanel was found guilty of illegally using the properties in North Finchley, north London, for short-term rental bookings, Barnet Council said in a statement
Milo Boyd Digital Travel Reporter and Isobel Williams
10:13, 17 Jul 2025Updated 10:15, 17 Jul 2025
Neighbours of the holiday let were not happy
A rogue landlord has been hit with a hefty £75k fine for unlawfully renting out two flats on Airbnb and Booking.com to unruly revellers.
Neighbours of properties leased out to partygoers by George Nathanel were subject to banging parties and chaos.
A court heard that the properties were being booked through holiday platforms for brief stays by large groups, often using them for raucous parties. Neighbours reported significant noise disruptions due to lack of soundproofing and antisocial hours, with boisterous parties continuing into the small hours of the morning.
Victim statements presented in court included one from a local resident who described the rentals as “stressful and devastating.” He said that they had a “detrimental impact on his life, his work and mental health” and it “had severely impacted his ability to sleep and has made living in the property unbearable.”
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All seems normal inside the holiday let
Mr Nathanel was convicted of illicitly utilising the North Finchley properties in north London for short-term lettings, according to Barnet Council.
The landlord, who oversaw the flats on behalf of Zenobia properties, was served a notice by the council in November 2023 to halt the use of the flats following grievances from local residents.
The Grove Road residences were scrutinised for potential planning control breaches as the properties only had permission to be used as self-contained single households. Nathanel failed to attend court hearings, telling the court that he was residing in Russia with his children and awaiting surgery.
The landlord claimed ignorance about the short-term lets on Airbnb and Booking.com, yet was hailed as “an amazing, attentive and responsive host” in Airbnb reviews.
The court heard that the two flats had been occupied for at least 220 days within the first ten months of 2024, according to evidence from the prosecution.
On June 26, 2025, Nathanel faced justice at Willesden Magistrates’ Court, where he was convicted for not adhering to a Breach of Condition Notice from the council. He received a hefty fine of £75,000, was ordered to cover council costs amounting to £5,400, and pay a victim surcharge of £2,000.
Cllr Ross Houston, Cabinet Member for Homes and Regeneration, commented: “We gave Mr Nathanel ample opportunity to stop using the properties as short term rentals, but were left with no alternative but to take him to court when he didn’t stop.
“Barnet Council clamps down hard on rogue landlords and where they don’t cooperate, we will always bring them to justice. We would like to thank the residents who brought this case to our attention. This is a great result for the neighbours whose lives were made a misery by the illegal letting of these flats on Airbnb and Booking.com.
“The prosecution and huge fine highlights the seriousness of the case and will be a strong deterrent to other rogue landlords from breaking the rules in the borough of Barnet.”
A Booking.com representative said: “When accommodation providers sign up to list on Booking.com, they agree to our terms and conditions, where we ask them to verify that they are operating in full compliance with local laws and are legally permitted to rent out their property on a short-term basis.
“If we are ever made aware that a property on our site may not be operating in compliance with local regulations, we investigate and take further action as needed.
“At Booking.com, we remain committed to collaborating with the Government and local authorities to help deliver sustainable, measured legislative solutions for short-term-lets in the UK.”
Airbnb was contacted for comment.
A milestone court case came to a close in Spain earlier this month, ruling that ten holiday lets all located in the same block must close down due to “the illicit and unsanitary activities” that had taken place there.
Vomiting and sex in the communal areas, as well as drunken, destructive, and lewd guest behaviour, had caused one family stress, anxiety, and sleepless nights. This was judged to have inflicted psychological damage on the family, which includes two children, and violated their fundamental right to privacy.
Madrid’s 44th Court of First Instance ruling—that the flats must stop being used as holiday lets—is a significant one, as the properties were registered legally but their presence was judged to infringe on the family’s rights.
In the ruling, the judge noted “the constant noise, the breaking of shared fixtures, the filling of the lobby with suitcases at all hours, and the presence of shopping trolleys filled with towels,” before the family were awarded €37,000 in damages.
After living in her two-bedroom apartment in Los Feliz for more than a decade, Debra Weiss encountered a problem experienced by many renters in Los Angeles: She was evicted.
“I moved into the apartment in 2014, and four years later, my landlord sold it to a wealthy family who bought it at a loss,” said Weiss, 69, who works as a textile artist. “They knew they couldn’t evict us due to rent control.”
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When the landlords put the three-unit complex on the market in 2022, however, they offered Weiss $50,000 to move out — far more than the amount required by law — to make the building easier for them to sell. She declined, concerned it would affect her Social Security benefits, as there is a limit to how much one can earn and still receive full benefits.
Then, last February, the three tenants received eviction notices under the Ellis Act, which allows landlords to evict renters from rent-controlled apartments if the building is being torn down or removed from the rental market. It’s currently for sale for $3.2 million.
As a senior, Weiss was entitled to a full year’s notice because she had lived in her unit for more than a year. Still, she knew she would eventually have to move out of the comfortable 1,200-square-foot duplex, for which she paid $2,670 a month in rent.
Artist Debra Weiss stands in her dining room where she often works as a fiber artist.
When she began looking for another apartment in the area, Weiss quickly learned that she could no longer afford to live in Los Feliz. “The apartments were so much more expensive than what I was used to paying, and they had no parking or a washer and dryer,” she said. (Weiss was paid $24,650 in relocation assistance, which was taxed, due to her age and the length of time she lived in her Los Feliz apartment.)
She also visited some small studios and considered purchasing a TIC, or Tenancy in Common, where buyers purchase a share in a corporation that owns a building. However, to secure a loan, she’d need someone to co-sign. “Even though they are cute, they are tiny and not necessarily in the best neighborhoods,” she said. Another option, a Craftsman apartment near USC, wasn’t in a good walking neighborhood, something that was important to Weiss. It was also dark and hundreds of dollars more a month than her previous apartment. “I’m almost 70 years old and I need light to work,” she added.
Handknitted sculptures, embroidered weavings and a tufted rug adorn the guest room.
When her son-in-law spotted a charming two-bedroom apartment near the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for $2,950 a month on Zillow, Weiss decided to check it out.
“My initial reaction was, ‘I want this,’ ” Weiss said of the fourplex.
The rental had high ceilings, oak floors, ample sunlight, an appealing fireplace, a garage and a washer and dryer. A newly redone modern kitchen felt out of character for the 1930s building, but that didn’t bother Weiss. “The kitchen is a blank canvas,” she said of the all-white cabinets and countertops. “The white background makes all of my stuff stand out,” including ceramics by Mt. Washington Pottery and Altadena artist Linda Hsiao.
Weiss knits a sweater for her granddaughter with yarn she purchased in Japan.
Concerned that the landlord wouldn’t want to rent to her because of her age, she was pleasantly surprised when she got the apartment. “The light is amazing,” Weiss said. “I was initially worried about some of the modern touches like the overhead lighting, but it floods the room with bright light that allows me to work at night.”
Nearly a year after moving in, Weiss has filled the apartment with her stitched collages, quilts and the artworks of others, many of which she described as “trades.” “I like color and pattern and objects,” she said as she pointed out some Japanese ceramics on her buffet and a dress that she crocheted with scraps of fabric, yarn and metal.
In the guest room, a wall hanging composed of three separate weavings in a gingham check pattern is embroidered with a series of characters she based on her 5-year-old granddaughter’s drawings. “It’s about people coming together in chaos and supporting each other,” Weiss said. “I like the pattern; it reminds me of eating together on picnic tables.”
“I like objects,” Weiss said of the many treasures and collections of things that are featured throughout her rental.
On the opposite wall of the guest room above her sewing machine, a series of metal sculptures she knitted with copper and silver hangs alongside cloth dolls and purses. In the corner, a cowl made of macrame, textiles and yarn adorns a mannequin. There’s also a colorful latch hook rug that she made with acrylic yarn that looks more like artwork than a functional accessory.
In her bedroom, a coverlet that Weiss assembled from vintage quilts adorns the bed.
The long hallway ends at the laundry room and is lined with her colorful quilts, some of which are mounted on Homasote board, along with weavings and stitched works, which, like her cooking, are improvisational.
“I work without planning and respond to the materials and see what it becomes,” she said. “I start knitting and see where it goes. I get excited about the material, and then I go for it. “
The hallway in Weiss’s apartment is lined with her artworks.
Much of the wood furniture in her apartment was made by her father, who died 13 years ago.
“I’ve had this since my kids were little, and you can see all the markings,” she said of the hutch in the corner of her dining room. “My dad made it 40 years ago for the Van Nuys house I grew up in.”
It is here, at the dining room table that her father made, that she works, hosts workshops and teaches lessons in fiber art, collage and stitching. Later this year, she hopes to host a sale of her work at a holiday open house in her apartment.
Weiss is an expert in mixing texture, pattern and color in her Mid-Wilshire apartment.
The mixing of colorful Persian rugs, textiles, natural materials, chunky wood pieces and intricately knitted metal sculptures creates a warm balance throughout her apartment.
Bursting with color and pattern, the rooms offer a sense of calm that Weiss appreciates as a woman who raised three daughters alone and has had to pivot during major life changes. Over the years, she has run a clothing company, Rebe, which closed in 2019 due to economic uncertainty, declared bankruptcy and sold her Woodland Hills house. Most recently, she was forced to weather the eviction process.
“I’ve always been an entrepreneur,” said Weiss, who works six to eight hours a day at home and sells her artwork and sewing patterns on her Specks and Keepings website and at L.A. Homefarm in Glassell Park. “I’ll always figure out a way to make money by selling the things that I make.”
Even though the process of having to move was stressful, Weiss is happy with her new home and neighborhood. “I take the Metro bus everywhere and hardly ever drive,” she said. “I go to the Hollywood Farmer’s Market on Sundays. Kaiser is nearby and I can walk to LACMA. Everything worked out perfectly.”
Weiss pulls out a drawer of her flat files cabinet filled with her artwork.
The failure of one of Skid Row’s largest homeless housing providers represents a dire warning for the viability of supportive housing in Los Angeles, according to a new report on the organization’s demise.
Without major changes, other supportive housing providers remain at risk, imperiling housing for thousands of the region’s most vulnerable residents and exposing taxpayers to further bailouts, said Claire Knowlton, a Los Angeles-based financial consultant for nonprofits and the report’s lead author.
“This is a wake-up call,” Knowlton said. “It’s time to dig in and figure out a vision for this sector moving forward.”
Once considered a national leader in homeless housing, the trust announced in early 2023 it could no longer manage its 2,000 units across 29 properties, many of which were renovated, century-old single-room occupancy hotels in and around Skid Row. The decision came after years of financial trouble with buildings in disrepair and disarray, replete with squatters, crime, nonfunctional elevators and clogged and broken toilets.
Researchers received access to the trust’s internal financial data and interviewed more than 30 people, including former trust executives and those knowledgeable about its operations, to produce the report.
The report, which was funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, is not meant to be a definitive understanding of the trust’s failure, Knowlton said. Times reporting has shown questionable decision-making, financial mismanagement and unstable leadership marked the organization’s final few years. The report did not examine specific actions made by trust executives. Joanne Cordero, the trust’s final CEO who took over amid its spiral in late 2022, was a co-author.
The root of the trust’s problems, the report determined, was that tenants’ public rental subsidies did not provide enough revenue to manage the buildings, including costs needed to assist those dealing with mental illness and drug addiction. All trust properties, including newer buildings with studio and one-bedroom apartments, were running annual deficits — nearly $1 million in one case — once factoring in long-term maintenance expenses, the report found.
Not only were the rental subsidies insufficient to cover costs, but also the funding came through multiple programs that paid the trust wildly disparate rates for rooms without any clear way to increase them. Similar trust buildings received subsidies priced at a difference of up to $600 per unit per month.
The report called the calculation of these rates “cryptic” and their variability “indefensible.”
“The subsidies are not covering the cost,” Knowlton said. “The increases are inconsistent. The subsidy types are inconsistent, and there’s no reason.”
The report cites 2015 as a turning point for trust properties. That year, the region implemented a new coordinated entry system for placing homeless residents into trust buildings and other supportive housing through a process designed to prioritize rooms for the neediest.
The system has been criticized broadly among homeless housing providers for taking too long to match potential residents with units and for concentrating too many people with mental illness, physical disabilities and addiction problems within buildings.
After its implementation, vacancies in trust buildings skyrocketed, which further sapped the organization’s revenues. Spending on security immediately jumped from $50,000 annually prior to 2016 to well over $500,000 after, and ultimately soaring above $1.4 million by 2022.
Knowlton said she could not determine that the coordinated entry system was the source of these problems as other factors played a role. The portfolio’s vacancies were stabilizing until staffing and maintenance woes amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 sent them spiraling. Deteriorating conditions in Skid Row broadly over the same period also could explain the greater security needs, she said.
Still, Knowlton said that local leaders should reevaluate decisions to house those with the most severe health problems in single-room occupancy hotels, which have shared kitchen and bathroom facilities.
“I don’t think single-room occupancy is the right type of housing for people with high levels of mental health needs or extreme substance use issues,” she said.
Reaching similar conclusions during the receivership, city housing officials advocated for tearing down trust SROs and replacing them with new efficiency and one-bedroom apartment buildings, but they abandoned that plan as too risky, expensive and disruptive.
Knowlton is pushing to overhaul the region’s system for funding supportive housing, noting that the problems she identified were universal.
Rent subsidies, Knowlton said, should be set to the cost of providing supportive housing, including social services. Doing so, however, would require significant and ongoing funding boosts at the federal level, which she deemed “extremely ambitious.” In the short term, she argued government agencies should increase and standardize the subsidies to reduce their variability.
“That’s going to give us the time and the cushion that we need to really set that longer term vision around how these buildings are stewarded as public assets, as community assets, because that’s what they are,” she said.
When the trust failed, the city stepped in to save critical last-resort housing, but at great cost to taxpayers and without resolving underlying problems in the supportive housing system, Knowlton said. Federal, state and local leaders should do everything they can to avoid a similar situation from occurring again, she said.
The trust’s collapse, Knowlton said, was, “a canary in the coal mine situation.”
Times staff writer Douglas Smith contributed to this report.
