Hangover House

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The Hangover House (also known as the Halliburton House) was designed by William Alexander for travel writer and friend Richard Halliburton. Constructed in 1938 on a Laguna Beach, California hilltop, the house was built with three bedrooms, one each for Halliburton, Alexander, and Alexander's lover Paul Mooney, Halliburton's editor and ghostwriter.[1]

Alexander drew upon European modern architecture and created flat-roofed boxes of concrete and glass. He hoped to create a house that soared like the international modern spirit of Halliburton. Mies van der Rohe's work and his experimental concrete buildings of the 1920s, along with Le Corbusier's L'Esprit Nouveau Pavilion (1924-25) and his famous Villa Savoye (1928-29), influenced Alexander.[2]

Alexander befriended Ayn Rand and provided quotes for her book The Fountainhead (1943). Some of Rand's descriptions in the book of the Heller House are thinly disguised references to Hangover House.[3]

The nickname "Hangover House" is a pun on both the building's location overlooking the cliffs, and the alcohol consumed there.

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Max, Gerry. Horizon Chasers: The Lives and Adventures of Richard Halliburton and Paul Mooney. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., April 2007
  2. ^ Wells, Ted. "Hangover House: An Obscure Modern Masterpiece." Ted Wells' Living Simple: Architecture, Design, and Living (March 7, 2007): http://twls.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=190016
  3. ^ Wells, Ted. "Hangover House: An Obscure Modern Masterpiece." Ted Wells' Living Simple: Architecture, Design, and Living (March 7, 2007): http://twls.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=190016

[edit] Further reading

  • Austen, Roger. Playing the Game: The Homosexual Novel in America. Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1977