An "real cultural asset" could close after its landlord decided to sell the building that houses it.
Ron's Place is the chaotic but fantastic creation of outsider artist Ron Gittens, who spent years transforming his home - a rented flat in Oxton, Birkenhead - into a wonderland with a huge 3m tall lion fireplace. It was discovered soon after Ron's death in 2019.
His niece, Jan Williams, is now battling to save the flat after the landlord made the decision to sell the building it's in. She said the flat has until the building goes to auction on Thursday, March 1, with an asking price of £325,000.
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Jan and a team of others, including Martin Wallace and former Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker, patron of Ron's Place, are now trying to stop that from happening. They are currently fundraising to try and raise enough money to buy the building, though are also trying to explore avenues in which it would be bought by someone else, thought he flat would be reserved and opened up in a partnership.
Jan told the ECHO: "We thought we had longer. We thought we had a year and would've been able to lease the building while we tried out a pilot
"The owner just wants to sell the building now if we can't act in time. We've spoken to housing associations thinking they could take on the building and refurb the flats above it and we could run it as a cultural centre below.
"The fact the flat was rented is part of the problem. I still think the landlord is sympathetic but it's got to a point maybe. Ron had a history of mental health issues and his creativity really helped him.
"He had some eccentric behaviour, post people would think they're definitely not going to go in there. My parents went in some time after he died and they were flabbergasted at the chaos of it all.
She continued: "It can't be moved as the whole point of it is that it's an in situ environment. It's about the look on people's faces when they walk through the door, it's about the whole atmosphere of the place.
"It would just feel like we've failed to honour Ron's achievements. It's a huge responsibility. It's a real cultural asset to Birkenhead. Liverpool gets all the fame and the glory.
"This showed what an ordinary person is capable of doing and we want to encourage people to do the same. I don't think people understand the urgency."
You can find the fundraiser created by Jan to try and preserve her uncle's legacy here.
Jarvis Cocker became a patron of Ron's Place after he was introduced to the flat by filmmaker Martin Wallace. Jarvis said: "With environments like these, you get a complete work of art that somebody is living in and that they’ve established the rules. It’s like a personal universe."
Martin, director of 'Journeys into the Outside with Jarvis Cocker,' and one of the volunteer group trying to save the flat, said it was "in the top five places of its kind in the world. He said: "Jarvis and I filmed at about thirty amazing sites across the globe, from Mexico to India. Places where people had felt compelled to create something very personal and idiosyncratic.
"Ron’s Place is up there with the best of them. I’d say it’s in the top five places of its kind in the world and certainly the best in the UK, so we can’t let this go; it would be so short-sighted."
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