Every Nevada Day – October 31 – Lonnie Hammargren has opened up his house to the public.
This is no “day in the life” tour of the house of a former Lt. Governor and well-regarded neurosurgeon.
Lonnie Hammargren has built an impromptu museum. He has collected old neon signs and mockups of space capsules. He has inflatable airplanes hanging over his pool. He also – somehow – built an underground mine.
A visit to Hammargren’s house is a walk through the kitsch of old Las Vegas. John L. Smith says it’s also a walk through Lonnie Hammargren’s mind.
“I think Lonnie Hammargren harkens to an era of Las Vegas when Las Vegas not only had great characters but really encouraged their existence,” Smith said.
Smith said the house was something you just had to see.
“It was a thing to behold. It was festooned from wall to floor to ceiling with memorabilia, with artwork with themed rooms,” he said.
From a piece of an old roller coaster that once sat on top of the Stratosphere Hotel-Casino to Egyptian-themed rooms and pictures of Hammargren meeting dignitaries and sports figures through the years, the house was loaded with whatever was interesting the doctor at the time.
“In conversations with him over the years, he’s just been a guy who has had interests and unlike most of us whose level of interest doesn’t exceed what they’ve read in the newspaper or watched on television. He would become fascinated with something and really want to get to know that issue, item, era, historical moment or what have you,” Smith said.
Smith said Hammargren collected NASA-related objects because he was part of a flight surgical team, but some of the other items are a mystery.
“You just know that one of these days when E.T. is discovered Lonnie would have had him for 20 years in the backyard by the pool and people just thought he was one of the dogs,"
Now that the house is in foreclosure, the big question is what will happen to all of his stuff.
“I think there has to be room somewhere at the state museum for some of it,” Smith said and he hopes there is a "charitable heart" somewhere in Las Vegas that will help preserve it.
John L. Smith, contributor
