Whatever you think or thought of Michael Jackson — genius, pathetic, strange or criminal — certainly we must all agree that tragic is also an apt description of the man and his life.

He moved to the Santa Ynez Valley in the late 1980s, onto a ranch of about 2,800 acres, a quiet area surrounded by working ranches and vineyards. He named it Neverland after the fantasy island in “Peter Pan,” the story of the boy who never grows up. It would probably be appropriate to describe him as the most famous person who ever lived here.

The ranch operated as Jackson’s home and private amusement park when it opened. It contained, among other things, a zoo and a theme park with two railroads and a Ferris wheel, carousel and other amusement park rides.

The amusement park and zoo that was Neverland was as out of place in the Santa Ynez Valley then as a Michael Jackson memorial or museum located there would be today.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I grew up with — and loved, adored — the music of the Jackson Five and Michael Jackson. I was just about the same age as Michael Jackson when “I Want You Back,” “ABC,” “The Love You Save,” and “I’ll Be There” first became top-selling singles from the group The Jackson Five.

That music is part of the sound track of my life, just like later, in the 1980s, “Thriller” and “We Are the World” became the music of my daughters’ lives.

But this clamor by crazed fans — and some short-sighted merchants — for a museum, a shrine, to the man and his music is just not something that belongs here in this valley.

The idea of a so-called Graceland West is, I believe, not in keeping with the wishes of the majority of the residents here. Nor, do I think, would it be what the man himself would have wished.

 

Michael Jackson moved here precisely because this was a place “away from it all,” a place of pastoral beauty and peace. It was a place for him to escape the fans, the press, the outside world.

Graceland, the place where millions of fans have paid homage to Elvis Presley, is located in Memphis, Tenn., a large metropolitan area of around 1.3 million citizens. It’s located just 12 miles from downtown Memphis. The infrastructure of the metropolitan area supports the volume of tourists that flock to the museum.

According to Wikipedia, on the anniversary of his death in 2002 — on one single day — 40,000 people visited Graceland.

Visitor numbers each year to Graceland are around 700,000. Can you picture 40,000 or 50,000 visitors on one single day trying to navigate the winding, two-lane Figueroa Mountain Road up to Neverland?

 

There is no reason to think that Jackson would be any less popular in death than Presley. In fact, I would venture to guess he would be more popular given our fascination these days with celebrities.

It’s probably only a matter of time before the rumors start swirling that Jackson really isn’t dead, that he faked his death so he could find some peace. Jackson sightings, like those of Presley, are inevitable.

If Neverland were to become a museum, weeping Jackson fans, kitschy souvenirs, the fringe crowd — parachuting Jackson impersonators? — would descend upon the valley like locusts, chewing up everything peaceful and lovely in their path.

 

When Jackson left in 2005, he said he would not return to Neverland, saying he no longer considered the ranch his home. He felt, he said at the time, that police officers had “violated” the sanctity of Neverland in their search for evidence of his alleged sexual misconduct with minors.

The only reason anyone would want Neverland to become some sort of gaudy tourist destination is for the revenue it would generate, not because it would honor his wishes or memory.

To be sure, there are some merchants in Los Olivos and Santa Ynez and maybe beyond who would benefit from the added tourist traffic.

But generations of ranchers and other residents have spent their lives tending and safeguarding the heritage of this valley, and that heritage doesn’t include crazed fans traipsing across private property and up a little two-lane road to see a place that Jackson himself no longer saw as “away from it all.”

Reach Barbara Lanz-Mateo at bmateo@syvjournal.com.