Question of the Day - 25 May 2018

Last things first: Yes, it is, indeed, very interesting, particularly if you’re into eccentricity.

It's not open to the public, although its owner, former Nevada Lt. Gov. Lonnie Hammargren, used to throw the doors open wide (for an admission fee) on Nevada Day, October 31. However, this past open house was, by Hammargren’s declaration, the last.

Paradise Castle is actually three houses that the forcibly retired neurosurgeon bought in succession, imposing a Mayan theme on the exterior. The interior has been described as “an endless maze of historic and sometimes bizarre collectibles.”

Realtor and historian Jack LeVine calls the area “one of the best preserved ‘Leave it to Beaver’ 1960s' neighborhoods in the whole valley.” Tourguide and preservationist Brian Paco Alvarez describes the Hammargren compound (which does rather overwhelm the neighborhood) “a Mayan Revivalist Modern that looks more like a temple to the God Quetzalcoatl than a mansion.”

Hammargren lost the first of his three houses, Castillo del Sol, to a foreclosure auction in 2016 and he reckons that the value of his vast collection of memorabilia, once worth $20 million, has fallen to $1 million. An auction of some of Paradise Castle’s contents brought the former politician five cents on the dollar. Perhaps someone took home the brontosaur skeleton that Hammargren says was featured in the movie Bringing Up Baby.

Once a NASA surgeon, a Bronze Star-winning Vietnam flight surgeon, and the possessor of five academic degrees, Lonnie Hammergren is now known as the owner of one of Nevada’s strangest collections. CNNMoney described Paradise Castle as the “only place in the world where you can find an Apollo space capsule, dinosaur skeleton, Liberace's staircase, the Batmobile, and a Venetian gondola.” Oh, and an iron lung, just for the heck of it, along with a “collection of fornicating bronze animals.” 

Hammergren served a lone term as lieutenant governor of Nevada, the Republican making an odd couple with Democrat Gov. Bob Miller.

“My tastes are unusual,” says Hammargren, who turned 80 last Christmas Day, of his collection. It has been termed “an explosion of objects that are by turn incredible, funny, and alarming … all arranged in loose thematic groups that perhaps only Hammergren himself can truly understand.” 

Casino-related artifacts include the Popeye and Olive Oyl from the ill-fated MGM Grand theme park, a roller-coaster car from the Stratosphere, and the Showboat’s paddlewheel. Hammergren’s benign mania eventually exhausted the patience of his wife Sandy and earned him a clinical intervention on a late-2016 episode of "Hoarders."

Hammargen’s second and third houses are bought and paid for. His downfall lay in taking out a second mortgage on Castillo del Sol, perhaps to finance his manic amassing of esoterica. He explained to News 3-TV, “I see something, I like it, and I think, oh my, I need that!” Atlas Obscura reported that the polymath had spent an estimated $10 million on purchases, construction and maintenance. “Some things are just going to have to stay with the house. Liberace’s staircase can’t be removed. I don’t see any way to get the rotating bed out of here either,” he lamented to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Concluded Atlas Obscura, “To try and wrangle what Hammargren has created into a narrow definition would be a mistake. Among the wild glamour and strangeness of Las Vegas, he has single-handedly created something unexpected and completely original.”

We can’t put it any better than that.