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.”
A Hollywood institution known for mystery, deception and drama, the Magic Castle is now gripped by a new variety of suspense.
Magic Castle mansion owner Randy Pitchford, who bought the establishment in 2022, has presented a reorganization plan to his tenant, the Academy of Magical Arts. The AMA is the nonprofit club that operates the castle and whose performer-members have helped build it into one of the world’s top venues for magic.
In a series of proposals, Pitchford has offered AMA members a choice between embracing his plan — which gives him control over castle operations and most revenue — or finding another clubhouse when the academy’s lease expires Dec. 31, 2028.
Members have until Sept. 29 to decide.
With backing from the AMA’s board of directors, Pitchford presents this moment as a chance for the academy to secure a vibrant future for the Magic Castle while preserving its legacy.
But the proposal is causing “division, fracturing and confusion” among many AMA members, as one magician, Ralph Shelton, put it. Some members, who asked not to publish their names, told The Times they believe that Pitchford is using an ultimatum to take control of the castle. Other members say they simply worry that Pitchford is giving AMA members too little information.
“The easiest people to fool are magicians and scientists,” said Shelton, a Huntington Beach attorney who put himself through law school by doing magic. “You know what they’re looking for and you work around that.”
Pitchford did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for comment on the allegation that he is using an ultimatum to take control of the castle. But Pitchford and his team had said that by taking over the risks and rewards that come with running the Castle, his company is freeing up the AMA to focus on its non-commercial mission — promoting magic — “for as long as it wishes to use the Magic Castle as its clubhouse.”
Since Sept. 8, the academy’s 4,664 members have been casting electronic votes on whether to change the organization’s bylaws and other documents to allow the proposed realignment. In previous polling, the members who voted have heavily favored a deal. A “yes” vote would mean the reorganization would begin as soon as Oct. 1.
At the Magic Castle, guests say a secret password to enter.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
Pitchford learned magic at the castle before building a video game empire as the co-founder of Gearbox Entertainment. In a Sept. 9 statement to The Times, he noted that he and his wife were married in the Magic Castle’s Palace of Mystery in 1997, “so our investment into its preservation and quality is quite personal to us.”
As an AMA member for more than 30 years, he said he is “thrilled that the Academy of Magical Arts, with the overwhelming support of the membership, are our ally in forging a bold, mission-first partnership for at least the next 30 years of magic at the Magic Castle.”
The Magic Castle, a 1909 Edwardian-style mansion, opened in 1963 as a clubhouse and performance venue for the Academy of Magical Arts, which was founded and sustained for years by the Larsen family. From the start, the academy was a tenant in the building, leasing from private owners, the Glover family, on terms often described as “a handshake deal.”
For decades, visitors have been drawn by the idea of dressing to the nines and roaming room to room, sipping cocktails as conjurers and sleight-of-hand artists ply their trade. Performers and members have included Cary Grant, Johnny Carson, Orson Welles, Jason Alexander, Neil Patrick Harris and Larry Wilmore (who sits on the board of directors). Exclusivity is part of the appeal, too. To get in, most guests need an invite from a member.
The enterprise ran into trouble in 2020 when the pandemic shut it down and a Times investigation detailed allegations of sexual harassment, groping and racism. In 2021, the mansion reopened amid a leadership overhaul.
Erika Larsen, president of Magic Castle Enterprises, and mansion owner Randy Pitchford.
(Tara Ziemba / Getty Images)
The latest chapter in the castle’s story began in April 2022 when Pitchford bought the property from its longtime landlords, the Glover family.
Pitchford, 54, whose Texas-based company created the popular Borderlands video game franchise, is a controversial figure in the video game industry. His purchase of the castle, valued by the L.A. County Assessor at $50 million, also included an adjacent apartment building and the 33-unit Magic Hotel next door.
About the same time as the castle purchase, Pitchford also bought intellectual property rights to the Magic Castle name from Milt Larsen, who died in 2023.
When Pitchford was announced as buyer of the castle, many academy members voiced optimism. “We were absolutely thrilled beyond measure,” said Paul Kott, an Anaheim-based commercial and residential real estate broker who has been an AMA member for 50 years. “We know his heart wants to dedicate this place to the art of magic.”
To manage the new holdings, Pitchford and his wife, Kristy Pitchford, created companies called Magic Castle Enterprises (for intellectual property) and Magic Castle Entertainment (for real estate), together known as MCE. They also enlisted Erika Larsen, daughter of castle pioneers Bill and Irene Larsen, as president of Magic Castle Enterprises, and Jessica Hopkins, granddaughter of Bill and Irene Larsen, as chief operating officer.
In January 2024, the AMA’s leadership told members that the group’s lease on the building would not be renewed — causing a surge of anxiety among members — and that academy board was negotiating with MCE in hopes of keeping the group in place.
On July 30, 2024, AMA members said they received an email that included a warning from MCE saying that if it couldn’t make a deal with the academy, MCE might “create a new club with enticing features and pricing” that “might possibly lead to [the academy’s] demise.”
(In a later email exchange with The Times, Pitchford said he did not recall that specific sentence; he did not respond to a request to confirm or deny the passage.)
In December 2024, AMA leaders invited members to vote on a proposed “resolution implementation agreement” for MCE to take over the Magic Castle’s commercial operations while the academy remained on site indefinitely and focused on its nonprofit role, including awards programs and educational efforts.
MCE reported that more than 90% of ballots favored the deal. Opponents said that a minority of members cast votes. A second vote yielded similar results.
Further details emerged in a “white paper” document that MCE circulated in February 2025. It said MCE would operate and collect revenue from the castle gift shop, bar, restaurant, box office and valet parking. AMA members would pay dues through a new entity which would divide that revenue between MCE and the academy. The Magic Castle would serve “as the exclusive clubhouse of the AMA indefinitely.”
MCE also pledged to invest $10 million in capital improvements and maintenance and relieve the AMA of remaining lease and trademark-related financial obligations. Meanwhile, the AMA board of directors would gradually shrink from nine members to five, two of them nominated by MCE.
In March, the Magic Castle announced that the MCE and AMA board of directors had signed a resolution implementation agreement, the framework for a deal. An AMA spokesperson said that MCE and the AMA board of directors “have negotiated terms for long-term access. Details of the agreement will not be released.”
“I think [Pitchford] has tried to do everything in his power to preserve the nature of this iconic place,” said longtime member Christopher Hart, who serves as chair of the academy’s board of trustees, which oversees artistic choices at the castle. Hart played “Thing,” the disembodied hand, in the “Addams Family” movies.
“The rumors have been so rampant in so many directions,” said Gay Blackstone, a longtime member who has served in many roles on the academy board of directors and board of trustees. Blackstone said she still has research to do before casting her vote but “I know that [Pitchford’s] love and passion for the magic are tremendous.”
Still, for some, doubts persist. “I don’t think the membership is being given what they need to make a good decision…. How long can we stay? how much is it going to cost?” Kott asked.
Now comes another membership vote. On Sept. 8, members began a binding vote on proposed changes in academy bylaws and other documents that would make the new deal possible. Those changes include creation of a Magic Castle Club, separate from the Academy of Magical Arts.
That “is an important wrinkle,” Shelton said.
The concept of the Magic Castle Club “is not to compete with the A.M.A., but we needed a new entity to collect dues on behalf of the A.M.A. and MCE per the arrangement,” Randy Pitchford said in a statement to The Times Sept. 15. Once an agreement is in place, Pitchford said, “All club activities, events, initiatives, etc, are and will be led and directed by the Academy of Magical Arts.”
The goal, MCE leaders have said, is “a seamless transition with a focus on an uninterrupted member and guest experience.”
If the membership rejects the changes, Christopher Grant, president of the academy’s board of directors, said in a statement that “MCE will terminate its current lease with the AMA” and the academy would need to find a new clubhouse by January 2029.
Further effects of a “no” vote, especially for academy-member performers and audiences at the Magic Castle, are harder to predict.
In his Sept. 9 statement, Pitchford suggested that the new proposal puts in place “the same kind of relationship that founded and created” the Magic Castle in the first place.
“Change is always scary,” Hart said. “Members just want the same experience they’ve always had and loved about the castle.” The proposed changes, Hart added, “could make the castle greater than it’s ever been.”
