A tribute to Prince has turned a quiet street in Citrus Heights into a pilgrimage site
An unlikely pilgrimage site for Prince fans has bloomed on a residential street in a nondescript suburb of Sacramento.
Shortly after Prince died in 2016, a fan, Christine Stein, painted a 6-foot-tall mural of the musician’s face and placed it against a shrub that served as his hair in the front yard of her home in Citrus Heights.
The shrine got some attention on social media and in the local press. Then a series of chance events catapulted it to global attention.
At some point a mulch delivery was dumped in error in Stein’s front yard. She left it there, and the nutrients caused the red-tipped photinia behind the mural to grow bigger and bigger until this spring when it erupted in whites, pinks, and reds for the first time in years.
On Easter, Stein tweeted a photo that earned more than a million views within a couple days. News reports were published as far as Britain and Australia.
Stein said fans of the “Purple Rain” singer have arrived at her home from Los Angeles, Georgia, Florida, and Minnesota.
They ring her doorbell and leave things — flowers; wax sculptures; a purple, hollowed-out computer with Prince’s visage in place of the monitor. One group of visitors laid down on the driveway in some sort of devotional act.
It’s all been a bit bewildering, Stein said. “You lead a normal life then all of the sudden everybody knows you.”
Stein said she used to chat with the pilgrims. Now, she’s disconnected her doorbell, covered her front windows, and started using a side entrance to her home. She even put a fake address number on the house.
“They’re very nice people, but they’re fanatics,” Stein said. “They have all purple going on. They have purple hair.”
The scene is poised to get even crazier soon. Prince’s two-year death anniversary is 10 days away. “I might not go outside that day,” she said.
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