Cleveland, Ohio – The simple, hand-painted sign on Broadview Road gets your attention:

“Witch Museum” it says under the adorable image of a painted cat. A broomstick points to the door of a century-old storefront.

Since March, this building at 2155 Broadview Road has been home to Cleveland’s unique Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick. It was previously located on West 14th Street in Tremont.

Like many of the business moving to the neighborhood south of downtown, they were driven out of Tremont by high rents. Yes, even witch museums have worldly concerns.

“But we’re so glad we’ve moved,” says Director Steven Intermill. “Old Brooklyn is a great neighborhood, very welcoming.”

Buckland joins an array of diverse, locally owned establishments who have made Old Brooklyn Cleveland’s on-the-rise neighborhood: across the street is Lucy’s Ethiopian Bar and Restaurant, a few blocks away sits the excellent El Rinconcito Chapin Guatemalan eatery, not far away is the Old Brooklyn Cheese Co., new coffee shops, bikes shops and more.

“The CDC helped us find this spot, they were so helpful,” says Intermill. “Plus, it seems like there are really a lot of witches in Parma who this is convenient for.”

Even more than location, Intermill, who opened the museum with his wife Jillian in 2017, is excited about the space the new address offers. “It’s four times as big, we’ve been able to bring out so much more of our collection from storage.”

The magic collection, known as the Raymond Buckland Collection, is one of the most significant in America. It was started by Buckland, founder of one of America’s first covens, in 1966 after a visit to English Wiccan leader Gerald Gardner on the Isle of Man. Buckland worked for British Airways and began to acquire artifacts as he traveled the world.

At first, he showed his pieces in his house in Long Island, N.Y. But by the early ‘70s he had so many artifacts – from Ancient Egyptian ushabtis to Salem Witch trials pieces– that he opened a museum in New York. As the only anthropological museum in America dedicated to witchcraft, it garnered attention in The New York Times, Newsday, Look Magazine, Esquire and other magazines. Some of his pieces were even shown in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 1976, Buckland moved his museum to New Hampshire, where it was open until 1980. Busy with lecturing and writing, he put the collection in storage until 1999, when the Rev. Velvet Reith of the Covenant of the Pentacle Wiccan Church put it on display in New Orleans. Buckland, who passed away in 2017, was still active in writing and promoting Wicca, but no longer involved in the museum, which he entrusted to Reith.

In 2015, Buckland, then living in Northern Ohio gave his collection to the Temple of Sacrifice in Columbus Ohio, where it was purchased by Toni Rotonda. It was here that Intermill became familiar with the collection.

“My wife Jillian and I always wanted to own a small museum, so when the opportunity came to show the Buckland collection we went for it,” he says. “I had sent Raymond Buckland an email asking about the collection, not knowing it was here in Ohio. He forwarded it on to our now partner in this endeavor, Toni Rotonda, the actual owner of the artifacts themselves. She called me up, I went to Columbus to visit here and we decided to show them here in Cleveland.”

Highlights of the collection include Raymond Buckland’s ceremonial robe; the horned pipe and briefcase of Gerald Gardner; Buckland’s “cards of alchemy”; a high priest ceremonial horned helmet; Buckland’s ritual wand; thousands of books; and even a “demon in a box” captured by Buckland in the 1970s.

“I really love them all, but the part of the collection that is most special to me is the archive of newspaper clippings,” says Intermill. “There are hundreds of clippings in featuring articles about Raymond Buckland or his contemporaries, a real treasure trove of information about contemporary witchcraft coming of age in the 1960s and ‘70s.”

Though not Wiccan himself, Intermill says “ It's just exciting to show something of such beauty and depth, and of real significance to our culture.”

His goal, he says is simple: “I hope by learning about the history of witchcraft and demystifying it, people learn a little more about their neighbors.

The Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick is at 2155 Broadview Road, Cleveland. Call 718- 709-6643. Open noon to 7 p.m. Tuesday – Saturday. Admission is $7 adults, $6 seniors, $5 children 3 – 12.

It will celebrate its re-opening with a party from noon to 7 p.m. Saturday, April 27, with tarot readers and more.