Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
Encyclopedia
The Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site, located in Danville, California
Danville, California
The Town of Danville is located in the San Ramon Valley in Contra Costa County, California. It is one of the incorporated municipalities in California that uses "town" in its name instead of "city". The population was 42,039 in 2010. Danville is one of the wealthiest suburbs of Oakland and San...

, preserves Tao House, the Monterey Colonial
Monterey Colonial architecture
Monterey Colonial is an architectural style developed in Alta California involving two stories, porches, a hip roof, and adobe walls. It was supposedly originated by Thomas O. Larkin who had moved from New England to Monterey, California and built the Larkin House in 1835...

 hillside home of America's only Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

-winning playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

, Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...

.

History

O'Neill and his wife lived in the home from 1937 to 1944. At this home, O'Neill wrote his final and most memorable plays: The Iceman Cometh
The Iceman Cometh
The Iceman Cometh is a play written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939. First published in 1940 the play premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on 9 October 1946, directed by Eddie Dowling where it ran for 136 performances to close on 15 March 1947.-Characters:* Night Hawk-...

, Long Day's Journey Into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night is a 1956 drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play is widely considered to be his masterwork...

, and A Moon for the Misbegotten
A Moon for the Misbegotten
A Moon for the Misbegotten is a play by Eugene O'Neill. The play can be thought of as a sequel to the autobiographical Long Day's Journey into Night...

.

The house was saved from demolition in the early 1970s by the Eugene O’Neill Foundation through several fundraising efforts, including benefit performances of Eugene O’Neill’s play Hughie
Hughie
Hughie is a short two-character play by Eugene O’Neill set in the lobby of a small hotel on a West Side street in midtown New York during the summer of 1928. The play is essentially a long monologue delivered by a small time hustler named Erie Smith to the hotel’s new night clerk Charlie Hughes,...

featuring Jason Robards
Jason Robards
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...

. Through their efforts, Tao House was declared a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...

 in 1971, a National Historic Site
National Historic Sites (United States)
National Historic Sites are protected areas of national historic significance in the United States. A National Historic Site usually contains a single historical feature directly associated with its subject...

 in 1976, and passed into the management of the National Park Service
National Park Service
The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...

 in 1980.

Archive

The Foundation maintains an archive of Eugene O'Neill-related material at Tao House (including photographs, playbills, manuscripts, posters, and O'Neill's original phonograph record collection) and sponsors events such as productions of O'Neill plays, staged in the adjacent barn.

Visiting the house

The National Park Service does not publish the address of the property, but it is widely known that it is located near Kuss Road in Danville. A locked gate prevents unauthorized vehicles from reaching the site. The Site occupies 13 acres (5.3 ha) accessible via car only by private road, so advance reservations are required to visit. Private vehicles are not allowed. Transportation to the site is provided by a twice-daily free shuttle from Danville, Wednesdays to Sundays. Reservations are required.

Trails from Las Trampas Regional Wilderness
Las Trampas Regional Wilderness
Las Trampas Regional Wilderness is a regional park located in Alameda and Contra Costa counties in Northern California. It is part of the East Bay Regional Park District. It consists of two long, hilly ridges flanking a narrow valley which contains a horse stable and visitor parking. Some of the...

also lead to the site. Reservations are also recommended for those arriving for a tour via horseback or on foot.

External links

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