Page 128 - AIT0318_E-Paper

WOHNEN • LIVING THEORIE • THEORY

Fotos: Rhodes College Archives, The Richard Halliburton Collection Foto: University of California, Santa Barbara, Architecture and Design Collection

Der Abenteurer: Richard Halliburton bei der Überquerung der Alpen Der Ghostwriter: Paul Mooney auf der Baustelle des Hangover-Hauses Der Architekt: William Alexander Levy an seinem Zeichentisch

The architect and his house shelf there are two high porcelain figures representing two handsome sailors turned
towards each other, a popular subject of homoerotic art. In retrospect, the two sailors on
After the municipality had completed the necessary land development work, Halliburton the bookshelf are also a disastrous warning: the unusual ménage-à-trois of the Hangover
accelerated the construction of his house in 1936. At the instigation of Mooney, he com- House lasted only a few months. At the end of 1938, Halliburton embarked on a new
missioned the young and inexperienced New York architect William Alexander Levy adventure. He wanted to conquer the Pacific aboard a Chinese junk. It was planned to
(1909-1997). Mooney and Levy had known each other since the late 1920s. They had met arrive in San Francisco for the opening of the "Golden Gate International Exposition" in
in New York and were lovers. He had studied at New York University - among others with 1939. Mooney accompanied Halliburton to document the journey. It was, however, a trip
the two high-rise pioneers Ely Jacques Kahn and Raymond Hood, chief architect of the without return. Neither Halliburton nor Mooney had experience at sea. In a severe storm,
Rockefeller Center. He probably had seen the legendary exhibition "Modern Architecture" their ship capsized near the Midway Islands, halfway between Hong Kong and San
at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1932, which introduced the American pub- Francisco, in the night of 23-24 March 1939. The last radio message was "having wonder-
lic to 1920s European modernism. However, Frank Lloyd Wright had the greatest influ- ful time / wish you were here / instead of me." Their bodies were never found. Levy was
ence on the young architect. He had even sought admission to Wright's private school, in New York when he heard about Halliburton's and Mooney's disappearance. He never
the Talesia Fellowship, but was unable to afford the tuition fees. After graduating in 1934, returned to the house in Laguna Beach. Instead he moved to Los Angeles, where he built
Levy first worked on various refurbishment projects for the City of New York, before himself a spectacular dream house in the Hollywood Hills. The "House in Space", as he
Halliburton brought him to Laguna Beach. Here, Mooney and Levy rented a house near himself called the building, was built on a steep wooded slope. Levy had heavy steel
the beach to start their first plans, while Halliburton rarely found time to stop by. The beams driven horizontally into the mountain and erected an artificial platform that
plan to design the house not for two, but for three residents must have emerged during seemed to float in the air. The Hangover House, Levy's ingenious early work, was sold
one of these rare visits. The construction work itself took almost two years and con- to Wallace Thompson Scott, a general, and his wife, the dancer Zolite Elizabeth Scott, in
sumed many times the budget originally expected. There were two main reasons for this: the 1940s. They loved the building and kept it in its original condition. Even when her
the difficult location of the property, which was inappropriate for heavy construction daughter, who lived in the house alone after her parents' death, died in 2009, hardly any-
machinery, and the reinforced concrete construction Levy wanted, for which there were thing had changed. After 70 years, Halliburton's map was still in the same place in the
hardly any residential models at the time. As a result, no building contractor was pre- front bedroom. Photographs then taken by estate agents show the almost perfect state of
pared to take over the project. Consequently, Levy was forced to act as a contractor him- preservation. The fact that the responsible authorities failed to purchase the house when
self. Unexperienced workers and the lack of heavy equipment made the building an it was for sale in 2010, or at least to oblige the new owners to maintain essential elements
adventure. The transport of the building material to the impassable construction site of the interior design, may be regarded as a tragic mistake.
alone was an enormous effort. Below the narrow mountain ridge, a retaining wall was
first driven into the slope and an access road was built. Only then the construction of the
concrete formwork could start. Every socket outlet, every power and water supply line Der Grundriss des Hangover-Hauses besticht durch eine klare räumliche Ordnung.
required detailed preliminary planning and precise implementation. The strenuous con-
struction work pushed everyone involved to their physical limits. The fit-out and furnish-
ing was no less complex. All door and window elements and every piece of furniture
was created according to the architect's precise designs. The Hangover House was finally
completed in 1938. The terrace overlooking the Aliso Canyon gave the house its name.

A tragic ending

Photographs taken after Halliburton, Mooney and Levy's had moved in give an impres-
sion of how the three "bachelors" lived together. In the bedroom closest to the living
room is a world map with the stations of Halliburton's journeys marked on it. It is his
room, while Mooney and Levy lived in the middle and the outside room. Another picture
shows Russian-born New York writer Ayn Rand visiting the Hangover House. Levy is said
to have inspired her to write her famous novel "The Fountainhead" from 1943. Another
photograph shows the bookcase designed by Levy in the large living room. On the top

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