What does Bugsy Siegel’s toilet have to do with Nevada Day?
It was a Nevada Day tradition for more than two decades.
Each year on the date, or thereabouts, when Nevadans celebrate our statehood, neurosurgeon and former two-time lieutenant governor Dr. Lonnie Hammargren would open his home to the public. It was the one time each year that he showed off the spoils of his decades of collecting — some neighbors would say hoarding — pretty much anything that caught his eye. The celebrations were part Willy Wonka, part Fred Sanford.
“It makes me unique in the whole world,” he once told us about his collection of thousands upon thousands of items. “Nobody has done what I’ve done.”
Hammargren moved into a home near East Flamingo and Sandhill roads in 1971, and his obsession eventually overtook the two houses north of it. Together, the properties were known by a variety of names, including Castillo del Sol, the House of Hammargren and The Hammargren Home of Nevada History. It also was deemed The Principality of Paradise, a sort of micronation, and Hammargren would hand out coins with his face on them. In 1997, Review-Journal readers bestowed upon it the title of “worst eyesore.”
Over the years, locals would come to gawk at his remnants of casino history, including part of the Stratosphere roller coaster, a pink egg-shaped doorway from a Liberace show, seats from the motion simulator ride at “Star Trek: The Experience,” the time machine from the MGM Grand show “EFX” and signs from the Boardwalk, Castaways, Hacienda and Showboat, among a dizzying array of others.
“I’ve got the largest collection of Russian space art in the world,” Hammargren told us in 2012. That was displayed proudly, as was his Apollo space capsule.
Other highlights that barely scratched the surface of his lifelong haul included a replica of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, a 36-foot Venetian gondola that may have been the oldest in the world and Bugsy Siegel’s toilet.
Tours sadly came to an end in 2017, when Hammargren lost the original home with its planetarium and underground room resembling an ancient Egyptian tomb where he hoped to be buried, to foreclosure.
Hammargren passed away on June 13, 2023.
Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4567. Follow @life_onthecouch on X.
