Inspiration can re-invigorate and illuminate the empty spaces in your life.
Of those people we know who have actively pursued various art forms, did you ever wonder how and where they found their inspiration to become so involved in that pursuit?
I feel I am so fortunate to live in California where there are so many opportunities to discover and enjoy so many art forms including ceramics, poetry, painting, photography, graphic art, theater, and writing, that I deeply appreciate and admire.
One of my biggest surprises came to me when I realized how few people I talked to in my own community have ever visited one of our greatest theatrical and educational treasures, a special jewel located in the Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site, nestled in the beautiful hills above Danville. This historic site preserves the O’Neill home, called the “Tao House,” which is a Monterey colonial style, hillside home, built by playwright Eugene O’Neill and his wife, Carlotta.
In 1936, O’Neill received the Nobel Prize for Literature in Portland, Oregon, but he was so besieged by newspaper reporters that he and his wife fled to the San Francisco Bay area to visit his wife’s family. Carlotta Monterey O’Neill had grown up in Oakland and was very familiar with the San Francisco Bay Area. When the couple lived on the East Coast and in France, they were so plagued by well-meaning friends that Eugene did not have the solitude necessary to do his work, so they decided to move to the Bay Area.
The Caldecott tunnel was in the process of just being finished when the O’Neill’s discovered the San Ramon Valley. In 1937, O’Neill wrote several letters. “It is absolute country… without a Tate of suburbia… yet only three quarters of an hour motor ride from Frisco.” Using his Nobel Prize award of $40,000, he and his wife purchased the 158 acre ranch land and hired architects to build the home to their specifications. The land, house and furnishings cost around $100,000. A long driveway, fencing and gate, helped provide them with total privacy in the context of serene, natural surroundings.
O’Neill was deeply interested in Oriental philosophy and Carlotta was intense in her focus on style, which provided them an opportunity to name the house with special meaning. “Tao House” (pronounced “Dow”) was the name selected which in Chinese means (at least as interpreted by the O’Neill’s themselves) “the right way of life.”
O’Neill’s plays were among the first to introduce the concept of “absolute realism.” In other words, plays, that in earlier times might have been associated with trend-setting foreign authors such as Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, and Anton Chekhov. In the quiet environment provided by the Tao House, O’Neill finally wrote plays that had been fermenting in his mind for years—plays that tapped into his own painful personal family memories and transformed them into masterpieces of theater. Three of the last four plays are now recognized as his finest and best plays, including: The Iceman Cometh, Long Day’s Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten.
He is considered America’s greatest playwright because he has not only won four Pulitzer prizes, but is the only American Playwright to ever win a Nobel Prize for Literature. O’Neill and his wife lived in the home from 1937 to 1944. By the time they had moved to the San Ramon Valley, O’Neill had already lived in over 35 places but had called this secluded home on the hillside, “my final home and harbor”.
After suffering with many health problems including depression and alcoholism over many years of trials and tribulations, O’Neill finally faced the worst of the diseases that he was to encounter, Parkinson’s, which caused tremors in his hands that made it nearly impossible for him to write during the last ten years of his life. He had tried dictation but found it near impossible to compose his work in the fashion to which he had been accustomed most of his life. He did manage to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943 just before leaving the Tao House and completely losing his ability to write.
During the last two or three years they lived in the house, they were pretty much alone, while our nation was at war, because it was very hard to find home servants and gardeners as most able-bodied men had signed up for military service. Also, neither of the O’Neill’s knew how to drive a vehicle, making it very difficult to live on this secluded estate.
They sold the house to the Arthur Carlson’s and moved to a San Francisco hotel until the war ended. Carlotta later recalled: “We stayed at Tao House for six whole years; longer than we lived anywhere else. Of course, there were many hardships, but it was a beautiful place and I hated to leave.”
Eventually, O’Neill died in room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel in Boston, on November 27, 1953 at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: “I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room.”
Over the years, I have been to many of the performances produced by the Eugene O’Neill Foundation, in the Village Theater in Danville and at the Old Barn Theater at the Eugene O’Neill National Historical Site in the beautiful hills above Danville. As of January of this year, I had no idea how involved and broad-based the Foundation was in its work to educate the Bay Area communities about this wonderful historic site and the man who built it. Nor did I know anything about its comprehensive programs to promote the training of high school aged actors and potential playwrights and photographers through their summer Student Day and Studio Retreat programs.
It has been observed over the past 17 years that this beautiful estate which inspired Eugene O’Neill to write great works, has also inspired the students mentored through the foundation’s education program.
More importantly, it is only in recent months that I’ve learned about the state-of-the-art, climate-controlled, valuable records depository and archive for O’Neill historical information, writings, manuscripts, and theatrical information, preserved in the Travis Bogard Library at the O’Neill Site.
The Travis Bogard artist-in-residence program, named for noted O’Neill scholar and former theater department chair and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, provides fellowships to scholars, critics, and playwrights from May until October of each year. They have full access to the site and a private working space within the courtyard of Tao House, thanks to the Eugene O’Neill foundation’s partnership with the National Park Service.
These days, one of my greatest joys is going up to the Old Barn Theatre adjacent to the home where O’Neill actually created many of his most powerful plays, to see performances at his old home site. It came to me one evening during the performance of one of his plays, while I sat looking up at his illuminated office study window in the Tao House, from my seat in the theater, that I was actually here, on the grounds where O’Neill worked, walked, contemplated, and wrote his magnificent, award winning plays.
After all, just walking on the grounds where O’Neill composed his great work, may encourage you to join in and serve the Eugene O’Neill Foundation. It’s a good place to start, with many wonderful people assisting in this process.
For more information visit www.eugeneoneill.org
The National Park Service (NPS) does not publish the address of the property because of an agreement they have forged with homeowners on the narrow private road going up to the Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site. This allows the NPS to manage traffic on the road appropriately. A locked gate prevents unauthorized vehicles from reaching the site, which today occupies 13 acres and is accessible only by private road, so advanced reservations are required in order to visit the property. Private vehicles are not allowed. Transportation to the site is provided by a twice daily free shuttle from Danville at 10 AM and noon on Wednesdays to Sundays and also at 2 PM on Saturdays. Reservations are required except on Saturdays, when tours are self-guided. Beautiful wooded trails wander from the Las Trampas Regional Wilderness Area to the site. Email is their preferred method for reservations. Please go to this website to make an email connection and to secure the dates and times that you would like to tour the site. A staff member will get back to you soon. https://www.nps.gov/euon/planyourvisit/hours.htm
Reservation Line: (925) 838-0249
I strongly encourage you to reserve a guided tour, transportation, and visit this beautiful site.
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