Brian and Marilyn Wilson move out of their rented apartment in Gardner Street, West Hollywood, and take up residence at their new home at 1448 Laurel Way in an expensive area of Beverly Hills. Shortly after the couple moves in, Brian hires a carpenter to build a wooden box in the dining room. The boxwood construction stands several feet off the ground some say as much as four feet. Brian places his grand piano in the box and then surrounds it with two feet of sand. With his shoes off and his feet dangling in the sand, Brian will sit happily playing the piano. Business meetings are also carried out in the sandbox.
Marilyn Wilson tells US Radio KHJ: “He wanted a sandbox, so he got a sandbox. He said, ‘I want to play in the sand. I want to feel like a little kid. When I’m writing these songs, I want to feel what I’m writing.’ We had this really good gardener come up to the house and, in the dining room, this guy built a gorgeous wooden sandbox, about two and a half feet tall. Then they came with a dump truck and dumped eight tons of sand into it.
“One day, our piano tuner walked into the house and said, ‘OK, where’s the piano?’ I was quite busy so I said, ‘Oh, it’s over there in the sandbox,’ thinking nothing about it. He looked at me and said, ‘Oh.’ All of a sudden, he walked over to the sandbox, sits down, and starts taking off his shoes and socks. That made me howl! He just took them off, like, ‘Oh, sand. I’ve got to take my shoes and socks off to go into the sand.’
“Because there is no sun [in the dining room] the sand was freezing cold and the dog also used it. You know what it’s like with dogs and sand. Brian lifted up the hood of the piano and he acted like he was going to have a nervous breakdown. Brian shouted, ‘My God, this piano is filled with sand!’ and he had to vacuum it out.” — Keith Badman, in his book The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America’s Greatest Band, on Stage and in the Studio (read for free)
