Portrait of the 'perfect American family': Walt Disney's secret apartment is frozen in time above Disneyland's fire station

He's the man who built the world where dreams come true.



But tucked away from Sleeping Beauty's castle, fireworks and whirling theme park rides, Walt Disney treasured his own private hideaway in the Disneyland hills of Anaheim, California.



On the second floor of the Main Street Firehouse, the film producer's little-known Victorian apartment remains almost exactly as it did nearly 60 years ago.



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Refuge: Walt Disney sits with (clockwise from left) his daughter, Diane, an unidentified man, his daughter, Sharon, and wife, Lilly, while they read and drink from tea cups in their turn of the century apartment circa 1955

Tucked away: The Disneyland apartment sits on the second floor of the Main Street Firehouse

Walt Disney's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, spoke to the Huffington Post about the memories she shared with her father at the family's Disneyland home.

'It was their refuge, it was their little place. The décor, it was all little things that they picked up when they were travelling around the country various times... It was really a very cozy, family place,' she told the website.

The apartment remains closed to the public, but a video tour uploaded by Disney Parks gives a glimpse into how Mr Disney and his wife, Lillian Bounds Disney, kept their personal home.

Ms Disney Miller recalled the park's grand opening, on July 17, 1955, when her father was in the middle of production on Lady and the Tramp.

Decades later: Walt Disney's private Disneyland apartment remains nearly just as is did in the 1950s

Antiques: Mr Disney and his wife, Lillian, decorated the home with help from Oscar-winning production designer Emile Kuri

As it was: Cranberry curtains and matching couches dominate the livingroom, accented with floral furniture and carpeting

Collectables: Lillian Disney had a love for cranberry glass and lamps from the Victorian era

Bric-a-brac: Walt Disney often collected items from his world travels

'I think he always envisioned he'd have to be there - and he'd want to be there [at Disneyland],' Ms Disney Miller said.

Bric-a-brac acquired from her father's travels abroad - phonographs, picture frames, china and candelabras - decorate the apartment.

Cranberry curtains and matching couches dominate the livingroom, accented with floral furniture and carpeting that could perfectly set the scene for a Disney cartoon.

There was a fire pole hidden behind a closet door, and a screening room, where her father critiqued his live action films.



The apartment was decorated by Emile Kuri, who had worked on many of Disney's own films, including '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea', and who helped the Disneys to create what their daughter calls 'their Victorian masterpiece'.



Part of history: Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955, when Walt Disney was in the middle of production on Lady and the Tramp

Dear dad: Walt Disney reads a book to his girls

Family: Diane Disney Miller, left, is preserving the memory of her father, Walt Disney, as the founder of the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco

'Mother and dad loved the Victorian period,' she explained. 'It was the period they grew up in.'

Ms Disney Miller, now 78, founded and is the head of the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. She said she hopes a glimpse into her father's life will set the record straight about the kind of man he was, she told the Huffington Post.



'I encountered enough people who said "I love your father" and enough of the negative comments,' she said. 'Other little kids would say to my kids, "My mother said your grandfather was anti-Semitic" or "Your grandfather is frozen, isn't he?" And I couldn't let that stand.



'And I thought, I have a really good life because of him and the one thing I can do is establish this place, and I wasn't doing it just for him, I was doing it for all those millions of people that kind of love him,' she said.

Watch video here



