When residents walk through the streets of Long Beach, they can easily miss the city’s latest and most mythical addition to the landscape: urban fairy doors.
The miniature, wooden, handcrafted and meticulously decorated doors that reveal an imaginary world have been placed in at least 10 trees throughout the city, with more sprouting up everyday.
“I just like to be a blessing, however that’s possible,” said Debbie Martin, one half of the two-person team behind the fairy doors of Long Beach. These magical developments are the result of two Long Beach neighbors, Gary Ramos and Martin.
On Friday, July 22, Martin’s hands fluttered over the various capsules of colorful glitter and miniature objects strewn across her workbench which she collected as makeshift fairy items.
A vintage earring makes a perfect door charm, aquarium rocks act as gravel leading up to a doorway, an old brooch resembles a stained glass window.
Glued inside the miniature door frame is an image that Martin uses as inspiration: a misty forest and a long bridge. As she leaned over a fresh batch of miniature wooden doors—soon to be blinged out fairy doors—she quickly placed the unique decorations atop the 1-foot tall wooden door frame.
Once completed, the door will be carefully wrapped and delivered for free somewhere in Long Beach.
Martin came across her first fairy door in December of 2021 along Fourth Street: a 2-foot high fairy door made from an out-of-service utility door. She had been making and selling cloches for a few months—a terrarium containing people and figures following a theme rather than plants—and saw similarities between the two.
Martin shared the idea with Ramos, who had begun experimenting with his own “pandemic project” in woodworking which he started in March of 2021. He began making custom platters that can hold large numbers of shot glasses, wine or margarita glasses.
“It began as just making things so I can sell them so I can buy better tools,” Ramos said. “I had come across [the fairy doors] before, and then she came up with the idea.”
Over the last several months, Ramos has invested in better tools and has gotten more experimental with his designs, which he says is all done by hand. The latest batch of doors include curved and wavy designs—one of which he said took him three hours to complete.
“This has been hundreds and hundreds of hours of work,” Ramos said of the woodworking portion of the process. He explained that the first couple of doors they collaborated on only took him about an hour or two—squared-shaped doors made out of scrap pieces of wood originally destined for firewood.
Once the doors are sanded down and can smoothly open and close, Martin takes a couple more days to search through antique stores and craft bins before deciding on a theme for each fairy door.
Debbie Martin tries out different placement options for a signpost on a fairy door that is still under construction at her home studio in Long Beach on July 22, 2022. (Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune) 
Debbie Martin adds some glass-like material to the bottom fairy door that is still under construction at her home studio in Long Beach on July 22, 2022. (Richard H. Grant | Signal Tribune)
By January of this year, Martin had begun planting her and Ramos’s creations in front of unsuspecting businesses and homes around their neighborhood. Her original goal was to leave the miniature mystical doors around the city for people to find, take a picture and post them for others to see and search on their own.
This plan was quickly dashed when she found that two of the three doors she planted (and nailed to trees with two-inch screws) had been removed. Ever the optimist, Martin began conjuring up new ways to spread the magic throughout her city and took to Instagram.
The pair has now made and delivered nearly a dozen free fairy doors throughout the city, wrapping them in colorful twill and ribbon and leaving them on doorsteps or hidden in plain sight. It’s the delivery part of the process that Martin enjoys the most, she said.
“It’s been fun like I said, just to meet cool people,” Martin said. “I just wanted to show some love in Long Beach. So my hope was, or my plan was that people would be like, ‘I spotted your fairy door. It’s so cute!’ and that was it. I didn’t know people would want one.”
Doors can be requested through the Instagram page @fairydoorsoflongbeach and will be completed in the order in which they are received. Martin explained that although her and Ramos don’t plan on charging people for their fairy doors, donations are welcome through Zelle.
“This is my outlet like I get off Friday night after my full [work] day and it makes me happy and I like meeting new people and I come alive every time,” Martin said. “I would love to be known as that girl on the corner who spreads joy wherever she goes.”
