Evening Star Newspaper, June 2, 1929, Page 108

16 TEE Sl '\II)AV ST \R V\ \\[IINGTQN R €. & §§ é e e A = S c” e e Lol N e A Multlmllhonalre at 'Thirty So Harold Lloyd, Motion Picture Comedian, Decides fo Build One of the Finest Homes in America—-Great Fortune, Hhich I as Lreated by Laughs, Ln- ables Star 10 Create SDream Pa/ ace” on His California Listate. BY MAYME OBER PEAKE. ’ EW men make a million before they are 30. Few see dreams come true /.' whlie young enough to appreciate / their realization. Harold Lloyd has 3 done all these things. With a pair of shell-rim glasses and refreshing comedy, he made the world laugh and forget and became & multimillionaire in his 20's. He married his 1eading lady, Mildred Davis. A year later their baby, Gloria, was born. The screen's -carefree comedian became a doting father. He lived thriftily, as his Scotch @ncesters did before him, cannily investing his income. His home was that of Mr. Average Citizen, his friends his fellow workers at the Studio. His only vice was golf, his ounly hobby Gogs. Such a thing as flaunting his fame and for- tune in the face of his public apparently never ©ccurred to Harold Lloyd, who in real life is & Berious, industrious business man. As the box Office returns increased from his productions, so id his investments, engineered by his business manager, William Fraser, his mother’s brother, whom Lloyd prevailed upon to leave his forestry Work in Denver and take charge of his financial Rfratrs, : Fraser knew land. He made some valuable Teal estate deals for his famous nephew. One fiay he ran across some property for sale in Benedxct Canyon, in the environs of Beverly Hills, Ca]lf{ _property that formerly had been original home site of Col. Benedict, who ©wned all the canyon, including the land in the &Qbed Ince estate. THE property was in crude, undeveloped state and was bought for considerably less than it is worth today. Lloyd was crazy about it from the first, visualizing the home he would build there—a home to hand down to his chil- tren’s children (with due apologies to Gloria, who is only 4). Devoted to outdoor life, he saw the opportunity the place would afford for ?sports and the freedom to enjoy them away from the madding crowd. He saw wide-flung fawns for Gloria and his Great Danes to romp _gver, heard the music of birds and the trickle ©f streams instead of the rush and roar of affic. Yo help develop his dream of a country es- tate Lloyd employed youth—an architect a little past 30, a young landscape gardener who had fome back from fighting in France with more ideas than financial backing. “No jazzy Span- ish architecture” was the owner’s only stipu- 1ation. So they made the house Italian Renaissance blend with the California atmosphere, cut- }.lng the plans half in two when Lloyd pro- tested over the first blueprints—*"I want a home, bot a hotel!” . The other day I drove up the winding, tree- iined driveway to this home on the summit of 8 hill overlooking its surrounding 16-acre estate 9t green lawns and private golf course. For four years and a half 50 men have toiled on this 11 to make Harold Lloyd's dream come true. very Sunday and every day he was not work- ing before the cameras the comedian has spent there. Without benefit of ballyhoo, he went Quietly about the absorbing business of devel- "oping his canyon property into one of Amer- ica’s loveliest private estates—a natural beauty spot where the almighty dollar doesn’t hit you in the face at every turn. You cannot count the cost while listening to the music of a 100-foot waterfall as it dashes bver the jagged rocks of a hillside. You cannot fail to find soul solace in this modernistic age h you stand by a mill stream, drink spring ‘water from a jug suspended in a willow tree Bnd hear the throaty notes of a dove calling to its mate. And it doesn’t much matter what’s %on the inside of a many-roomed mansion, when windows are flung wide to surrounding blue Stone mill constructed on the Harold Lloyd estate. hills, to golden glory of sunshine, radiant beds of California blooms and velvety green lawns sprayed by rainbow-hued fountains. When I enfered the courtyard, centered by a formal fountain, the first thing I remarked was how the pepper trees, with their lacy fronds, peeped over the walls, how the sun brightened the red pen tile of the roofs and shadowed the graceful arches of the cloister. GLAMO . Hollywood no doubt will call the ngyd bome a showplace, It will not be occupled for a. month yet, none of its fur- nishings are installed; but my impression is that of a rarely beautiful home, where a happy young couple, while young enough to enthu- siastically enjoy its luxury, will be able to have every detail precisely as they want it. As excitedly as a young bride displaying her first home, Mrs. Lloyd took me through the roomy house, with its antique marble mantels from Northern Europe, its Italian marble columns, its hand-carved walnut-paneled walls, its ceilings painted by an artist from Rome, its private clevator, pipe organ, its guest suitcs with sun porches, its servants’ quarters of seven rooms with dining and sitting rooms, its luxurious baths, dressing rooms and check rooms. With woman’s characteristic love for “fixing Grill used by Harold Lloyd in entertaining guests who visit his private golf course. ‘ up,” Mrs. Lloyd admitted she was “just crazy to move in,” but declared she would be quite as happy if the new house had 3 rooms in- stead of 30. Describing the various color schemes selected for each room, as we went along, she sald: “The only room I am still undecided about is our bedroom. I would like blue painted furni- ture and drapes of either blue or apricot tafieta, but that would be too feminine for Harold. “By the way,” she said, turning to one of the assistant architects, who has given every con- struction detail his personal daily supervision, “the estimate on that brocade I looked at was $1,000 & window. Ridiculous! We only aHowed $5,000 to furnish the entire room!"” One wouldn't imagine the wife of the screen’s multimiilionaire had a dollar to spare, much less waste riotously on $1,000 window curtains. But for the few diamonds sparkling in the gold top of her tapestyy bag she might have been Mrs. -Tom Jones returning from market. She wore the simplest of powder blue sweaters with plaited crepe skirt. Her sports hat was a poke of blue linen. } Blue is becoming to her blonde beauty and blue eyes, and it is her favorite color. In the decorative scheme of her new home blue will dominate, Her drawing room, which she likes best of all, will have pale blue brocade drapes shot with gold and Louise Seize gilt furniture. Gold-framed mirrors will grace the white pan- eled walls, and over the marble mantel will hang a French masterpiece. The dining room will have hangings of sil- ver'y cream damask lined with green blue, while the breakfast room will have painted furniture of turquoise blue and gilt with ivory satin cur- tains lined with blue. I will forgive these satin curtains if they don't shut out the velvet stretch of lawn before the windows or the al- together enchanting pergola covered with wild honeysuckle that runs almost a block down to the gardens and grecnhouses on this side of the house RIMSON brocade will cover the walls of the rather formal halls and lend warmth to hangings for the 25x50-foot living room, which Mrs. Lloyd informed me is Harold's favorite room. No doubt becauSe of its spaciousness, its many windows overlooking the grounds and tennis courts, and its hospitable fireplace of Italian design, as well as its sweet-toned organ. This room is pure Italian, with Tyrrolean ceil- ing, side walls of hand-carved walnut panels and floor of parquet. The pipes of the organ are hidden behind a screen made of alwmaung squares of glass and wrought iron. Lloyd’s library is another mellow room, pan- eled in red oak, with deep window embrasure, where his desk will be placed, and long French doors opening on two sides into groves and gar- dens. Every room on the lower floor, in fact, by means of these glass doors can be thrown open to the grounds or the cortile—the keynote of the house. The sun room is all glass, with a celling that Jooks like nature’s lavish hand rather than -