The Harold Lloyd Estate, also known as Greenacres, is a large mansion and landscaped estate located in the Benedict Canyon section of Beverly Hills, California. Built in the late 1920s by silent film star Harold Lloyd, it remained Lloyd's home until his death in 1971.
The estate originally consisted of a 44-room mansion, golf course, outbuildings, and canoe run on . Greenacres has been called "the most impressive movie star's estate ever created." After Lloyd died, the acreage in the lower part of the estate along Benedict Canyon was subdivided into approximately 15 large home lots. The mansion, on top of its own hill, retained approximately 5 original acres of flat land. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
Planning and construction
In May 1923, Lloyd purchased land located at the mouth of Benedict Canyon in Beverly Hills from P.E. Benedict. The property had been owned by Benedict family for more than 60 years. Lloyd paid $100,000 for the property. The site was close to the spot where Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks had built their famed Pickfair estate.
In August 1925, Lloyd announced plans to build a $1 million estate on the 15-acre site, including a three-story French-Italian Renaissance home, a nine-acre golf course, a 50' x 150' swimming pool (the largest in southern California), an open-air theater, dance pavilion, tennis courts, and bridle path. Sumner Spaulding (Webber, Staunton and Spalding) was hired as the architect. Lloyd also hired landscape engineer A.E. Hanson to execute plans for the "largest initial private landscaping project ever attempted" in the Los Angeles area. The plans included extensive gardens, a children's playground, and a stream fed by a well with water pumped to the top of a hill and then cascading through the property and creating water hazards in the golf course.
Final plans for the house were published in the Los Angeles Times in July 1927. The home was described as French-Italian Renaissance design with interiors inspired by the Villa Palmieri near Florence. Construction of the mansion began in July 1927 and was completed in 1928.
The 44-room, house and estate was said to have cost $2 million.
Features
A.E. Hanson, Lloyd's landscape architect, transformed the site with the Villa Lante and Villa Medici as inspiration in Mediterranean Revival and Spanish Revival style motifs. The Los Angeles Times published a full-page illustrated article describing it as a "gorgeous fairyland playground" and a "Modern Eden of groves and gardens." The elaborate design of the grounds' landscape and gardens included the following elements: A private nine-hole regulation golf course. A canoe stream stocked with trout and bass, and a waterfall that plummeted into the canoe stream. The largest swimming pool in Southern California, measuring by , and said to be "one of the finest swimming pools in the west." (The pool was surrounded by a tunnel with underwater windows to view and photograph swimmers.) The technology of filtering water and adding chlorine for swimming pools was very new at the time of construction and this huge pool at Greenacres was a modern marvel. Lloyd famously photographed Marilyn Monroe several times at this pool. Numerous gardens, including small tropical forests, sunken gardens, formal gardens, rose gardens, Italian gardens, and terraced gardens.
Stables for horses, cattle and sheep, and a small farm for the estate's fruits and vegetables, including greenhouses for growing flowers. An open-air theater and dancing pavilion. Two film vaults within the grounds to store original copies of Lloyd's works, prints and negatives. Tennis courts, an outdoor bowling green, and a handball court. (Lloyd was a national handball champion and reportedly spent many hours there.) An automobile entrance court designed as a square, surrounded on two sides by a cloister.
The landscaping project was so large that 3,500 tons of sandstone were taken from quarries in Chatsworth and trucked to the site for use in building the steps, terraces, and waterfalls.
An unusual feature was the separate fairyland estate that Lloyd and A.E. Hanson designed for Lloyd's four-year-old daughter, Mildred Gloria. The play village had its own private gate with a sign reading, "Come into my garden and play." The fairyland estate included a four-room miniature old English house, a miniature old English stable with a pony and cart, Great Dane dogs, a wishing well with water for the daughter's garden, a slide, acrobatic devices and a swing. The miniature house had electricity and a kitchen and bath with running water, where the Lloyds' daughter played with friends, including Shirley Temple.