The Beatles mobile home in Cleveland

 

Many Cleveland area fans have fond memories of touring the Beatles trailer in the 1980s.   The mobile home the Beatles used as their backstage area during their 1966 Cleveland performance was available for fans to tour.  It was one of those quirky Beatles things you could do once upon a time.   The home was made "famous" because during the 1966 Cleveland "riot," the Beatles entered it in the middle of the concert for safety reasons.   This story was from the Plain Dealer newspaper and was published on December 4, 1981.   This was when it made its first public appearance since 1966. 

John, Paul, George and Ringo Slept Here

By Jane Scott

The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio)

December 4, 1981

The fans tried to tear it apart here in 1966.  It disappeared for 15 years, but the Beatle hideaway trailer where the quartet slept on August 15, 1966, is finally out of its wraps and available for inspection. It will pop up tonight at five at the Shore Gate Shopping Center parking lot on East 305th Street and Lakeshore Boulevard, Willowick, and be there during daylight hours tomorrow and Sunday. Timely, too, because Tuesday is the first anniversary of John Lennon's death. 

You might call the trailer one of Cleveland's best-kept secrets. If you were at the final Beatles show at the stadium 15 years ago, then you saw that 40-foot by 10-foot mobile home from a distance stationed near second base. It was placed there just in time, too, figures trailer builder Philip J Braff of Gates Mills. "It probably saved the Beatles from injury. It was built like a fortress," he said. 

After about four songs into the Beatles' set, a young male fan jumped over a small fence in front of the field and raced toward the stage. Soon, an excited horde followed him. John Lennon ran off the stage into the trailer first, followed by Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. Ringo just made it in time, his shirt torn by the door.

" Actually, the whole story of the trailer is like a James Bond tale," said Braff, a leader in the mobile home construction field. One day, he got a call from Brian Epstein, the late manager of the Beatles. "I didn't even know who he was, but  WIXY executive Norman Wayne joined Joe Zingale. Robert Weiss had given him my name. Epstein asked if I could make a hideaway for his group, The Beatles, to stay in before, during, and after the show. He even gave me the favorite colors of each in the group."

 Braff's daughter Dory, 11, knew Epstein's name, though.  She had been playing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" for months on a little record player.  "We made the trailer from special designs out of town at night. It was hand built in our Napnee, Indiana plant. No one there knew what it was for. We would work on it with a special crew and take it off the racks when the morning crew came on. Remember, this was 1966, and there was no such thing as a self-contained trailer. Then we put in room for several 1000 gallons of water for drinking and sanitary use. We couldn't tap into water or a sewage system next to second base. The only thing I asked for was an electrical extension that was for their lighted stove, refrigerator, TV, radio, stereo and air conditioner. The trailer was finished in three weeks. It took two days to tow it here. It was stored anonymously in a West Side warehouse. Then, on the day of the show, at about 5am, we sneaked into the stadium next to the stage."

 Braff was besieged by offers and did try showing the trailer after the concert; that's when the TV was stolen, and girls with pin knives tried to hack out some of the carpeting, so Braff hid it at home again. Enter newscaster Joel Rose of the WEWS, channel five's morning exchange into the picture. "I met Braff at a gathering and talked him into displaying the home again," said Rose. "I thought  Beatle fans would like a chance to see it. I told him that this time, there would be adequate security."

 So Rose, Braff, and Lee Ann D'Arcy, daughter of WELW FM  station owner Leo D'Arcy, formed a firm, RDB, to get the show wagon on the road.

"You're going to see removable panels on the trailer that you didn't see 15 years ago. Rose got WEWS artist Ron Stipes to design and fabricate panel pictures of the Beatles." What you will see as they were then are the two rooms where John and Ringo and Paul and George slept. John and Ringo were in the back bedroom, the one with the mirror with 50 electric light bulbs.

 Back in the early '60s, forever fans had to know their idols and favorite colors instead of their philosophies. John's favorite shade was green. Ringo is red. George's purple and Paul's royal blue. There were towels and curtains to match too. The trailer has a neat sitting room with a zebra couch, pecan-colored shelving, and a table with color-coordinated chairs. There's one-inch carpeting on the floors, walls, and ceilings that make it soundproof. 

Braff's wife, Bette, stored the refrigerator with rare cheeses, as many different nuts as she could find, chicken wings, giblets, and finger sandwiches, as well as soft drinks, champagne, and wine. "I met the Beatles before the show; their hair came almost to their ears, but that was daring then. They were very pleasant. Lennon seemed to be the leader," said Braff.

 Rose had stayed with the news during his 25 years in radio and TV, but he has a Beatles connection too. His station, KQV, brought the mop tops to Pittsburgh Civic Arena in 1964.  "They seem so carefree, completely unaffected by their success.  I stood only a foot or two away during the show and couldn't hear a thing."

 D'Arcy had added a collector's item, a bust of Lennon, for the table.  Three books on the table may seem a little out of sync, but they were volumes The Beatles wanted. Mary Robert Reinhart, The Great Mistake. (1940) Jack London Stories and Structure of the Vertebras by Malcolm E. Little, Assistant Professor of Biology New York University, 1932.

 Admission to the trailer will be $2, and you'll get a replica of the 1966 Beatles concert ticket as a souvenir. Actually, the trailer cost Braff $35,000, but he was never paid a cent for its construction or use. He confided Epstein had promised that "I could have the firm's name Bill Braffs Sahara Mobile Homes on the roof instead. But after the trailer was already out in the stadium field, he told me I couldn't put the sign up." Incidentally, Braff never saw the 1966 Beatles show. "I'm more of an Andy Williams fan," he said.