Guillermo del Toro puts prized 'Bleak House' memorabilia up for auction

Many fled when wildfires devastated Los Angeles earlier this year, but Guillermo del Toro rushed back in, determined to save his lifelong collection of horror memorabilia. It's the same loyalty that finds him making another tough decision to protect the items he loves like family: letting some of them go. Del Toro partnered with Heritage Auctions for a three-part auction to sell a fraction of a collection that is bursting at the seams. Online bidding for the first part on Sept. 26 started on Thursday and includes over a hundred items, with more headed to the auction block next year.

- 

"This one hurts. The next one, I'm going to be bleeding," del Toro, 60, said of the auction series. "If you love somebody, you have estate planning, you know, and this is me estate planning for a family that has been with me since I was a kid."

Del Toro is one of the industry’s most respected filmmakers, whose fascination with monsters and visual style will shape generations to come. But at his core, the Mexican-born horror buff is a collector. The Oscar-winner has long doubled as the sole caretaker of the “Bleak House” — which stretches across two and a half Santa Monica homes nearly overflowing with thousands of ghoulish creatures, iconic comic drawings and paintings, books and movie props.

The houses function not just as museums, but as libraries and workspaces where his imagination bounces off the oxblood-painted walls. “I love what I have because I live with it. I actually am a little nuts, because I say hi to some of the life-size figures when I turn on the light,” del Toro told The Associated Press, sitting in the dining room of one of the houses, now a sanctuary for “Haunted Mansion” memorabilia. “This is curated. This is not a casual collection.”