House Packed With Stuff Is Annual Draw in Nevada
LAS VEGAS — Sandy Hammargren is the definition of a patient, long-suffering wife, except when it comes to Big Bertha.
Her husband, Dr. Lonnie Hammargren, built Big Bertha, a black 10-foot-tall model locomotive, in their backyard from a disparate collection of parts: a rail car believed to have brought Howard Hughes to Las Vegas, part of a road girder, a piece of an 1890 steam tractor, a boiler “from something entirely different, I can’t remember what,” Dr. Hammargren said. The wheels were from castoff parts of old CAT scan machines.
“Oh, I just hate it,” Mrs. Hammargren said. “It’s awful to look at.”
That she wants Big Bertha gone is not surprising. What is astonishing is that Big Bertha is all that earns her wrath when nearly every inch of her vast home is overwhelmed by thousands of other bits of memorabilia, collections, bizarre shop projects and unadulterated junk.
The endless displays, which leave nary an inch of floor space inside or outside their home, in southeast Las Vegas, add up to a lifetime of acquisitions for Dr. Hammargren, a former two-term Nevada lieutenant governor and retired neurosurgeon.
Dr. Hammargren opened the home to the public on Sunday afternoon, as he does each year to observe the anniversary of Nevada statehood. Once a stately one-story house, it now has three floors and is attached to homes on each side that Dr. Hammargren bought over the years and loaded with his ever-multiplying collections.
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Her husband, Dr. Lonnie Hammargren, built Big Bertha, a black 10-foot-tall model locomotive, in their backyard from a disparate collection of parts: a rail car believed to have brought Howard Hughes to Las Vegas, part of a road girder, a piece of an 1890 steam tractor, a boiler “from something entirely different, I can’t remember what,” Dr. Hammargren said. The wheels were from castoff parts of old CAT scan machines.
“Oh, I just hate it,” Mrs. Hammargren said. “It’s awful to look at.”
That she wants Big Bertha gone is not surprising. What is astonishing is that Big Bertha is all that earns her wrath when nearly every inch of her vast home is overwhelmed by thousands of other bits of memorabilia, collections, bizarre shop projects and unadulterated junk.
The endless displays, which leave nary an inch of floor space inside or outside their home, in southeast Las Vegas, add up to a lifetime of acquisitions for Dr. Hammargren, a former two-term Nevada lieutenant governor and retired neurosurgeon.
Dr. Hammargren opened the home to the public on Sunday afternoon, as he does each year to observe the anniversary of Nevada statehood. Once a stately one-story house, it now has three floors and is attached to homes on each side that Dr. Hammargren bought over the years and loaded with his ever-multiplying collections.