History During Lloyd's Lifetime
Lloyd named his estate "Greenacres," and it became a gathering place for the Lloyds' family and friends. Sundays were known as "at home" day at Greenacres:
"The 'at home' day at Greenacres was Sunday when 30 or 40 friends would gather in the afternoon, amuse themselves with golf, tennis or handball, swimming, or with leisurely strolls through the gardens. A buffet would be set in the formal dining room and in the evening Lloyd would show a movie. Then he would wave everyone goodnight."
In 1937, Mrs. Lloyd hosted a bridal shower at the estate for Jeanette MacDonald attended by Hollywood's elite, including Ginger Rogers, Mary Pickford, Irene Dunne, Fay Wray, Norma Shearer, Dolores del Río, Loretta Young, Irving Thalberg, Mervyn LeRoy, Ernst Lubitsch, Hal Roach and Darryl Zanuck.
By the 1940s, Lloyd's movie career was at an end, and he had difficulty affording the upkeep of the enormous estate. He petitioned the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 1943 to reduce his property assessment, claiming he would like to continue living there, but the high taxes were "eating them out of house and home." The Board refused to reduce the $58,730 assessed valuation of the 15 acres (61,000 m2) of land, but did reduce the $119,840 valuation of the improvements to $100,000. Lloyd was forced to reduce the staff working at the estate, and parts of the estate began to deteriorate out of neglect.
One of the two film vaults on the estate, located safely away from the main house, caught fire in 1943 and destroyed many of Lloyd's valuable negatives and prints. According to his granddaughter Suzanne, Lloyd rescued as much material as he could from the vault before it became engulfed in flames.
In his later years, Lloyd lived a private life at his estate, jogging around the estate each day following a swim in the pool. He was also said to have developed an "addiction to stereo that shook the mansion at 3 a.m. with the force of 10 speakers in unison," causing the gold leaf to fall from the ornate living room ceiling.
Lloyd lived at the estate until he died of cancer in 1971, at age 77. One of Lloyd's longtime staff reported that he had a superstition about never allowing himself to be driven around the Italian fountain in the estate's front court, always making his chauffeur back up rather than circling the fountain. According to the longtime worker, "The only time he ever went around that fountain was the night he died."
Read more about this topic: Harold Lloyd Estate
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