I suspect that one could choose any number of houses in Hollywood that have an illustrious past and celebrity owners but authors Robert Matzen and Michael Mazzone chose to document Mulholland Farm, built by Errol Flynn and lived in by him, Stuart Hamlin, and Ricky Nelson. The authors supply a lot of interesting information about the owners of this home as well as pictures that capture Hollywood’s Golden Era and on into today.

Flynn, who designed and built the house installed a number of secret passageways, two-way mirrors and other voyeuristic tools in order to spy on those he was entertaining. His bad boy reputation was well earned and he lived in this house through a number of marriages as well as his playboy bachelor years. Flynn left America due to his fading reputation, child support delinquency and tax issues, and around the time of his death in 1959, the house was sold to the Stuart Hamlin family. Hamlin was a very well known singing cowboy and Christian singer/songwriter. During this time, the famous visitors were Roy and Dale Rogers, Johnny Cash, Ronald Regan and Billy Graham. Finally the house was sold to singing legend Ricky Nelson who lived there until his death in a plane crash on New Year’s Eve, 1985. The house was torn down in 1988, the land purchased by actress Helen Hunt who had a new home built on the site, apparently today it is the home of Justin Timberlake.

The detailed story of this house spans 5 decades and the authors obviously interviewed many family members, friends and acquaintances of the various owners. Although some fascinating tidbits are revealed and even a ghost story is brought to light, I would consider this a rather mediocre read. The primary focus was on Errol Flynn and, in truth, I was uncomfortable learning about his peekaboo habits and mean drunken bouts. I would far rather remember Flynn as the boyishly handsome Robin Hood or swashbuckling, adventurer pirate, Captain Blood from his movies. ( )

I enjoyed this book. I am not a fan of the actor Errol Flynn but he was interesting and was attracted to this book. The fact it purports to be about his Hollywood home rather than him was interesting. Well, the parts about his time there is more about him than the home but that was fine by me. He was an interesting character that lived a larger than life life even before he was an actor. He was also deeply flawed and in some ways a tragic figure who died young. Certainly, the tales about Hollywood from the late 30's to early 50's are quite something.

The last 30% of the book covers the last two inhabitants of the home were the Hamblyn family who didn't interest me; then Rick Nelson and his family ('Hello Marylou') which I liked.

Glad I read this book. ( )

While Falcon Lair or Pickfair may be more well known as famous homes of Hollywood stars, the stories of Errol Flynn’s Mulholland Drive home with its two-way mirrors and secret passages, were always mentioned in Flynn biographies. Authors Robert Matzen and Michael Mazzone have written a fantastic biography of the Flynn home that was later owned by radio host/songwriter Stuart Hamblen and then by singer/actor Ricky Nelson. The book features biographical information on Flynn and the impetus behind the building of the home. Quotes from the many visitors during Flynn’s and Hamblen’s time are included as well as quotes from Flynn’s daughters, Hamblen’s children, and Ricky Nelson’s sons of their memories of the home. The book is well researched with a good bibliography and plenty of references. However, the best feature of the book are the numerous photos of the home in all stages, from the empty lot Flynn purchased to photos of the home during the time of the three owners as well as photos of the home as it was being demolished. Some of the candid photos taken during Flynn’s time were fantastic – I had never seen Gary Cooper in glasses before! For any fan of Errol Flynn, this book is a must have. My two suggestions for future editions – the photo captions that are printed in white print are difficult to read even though they are against a colored background. I would also have put the floor plans in the front of the book instead of the back. I did not know they were there until I reached them and it would have been nice to refer to them when reading the text. I would hope these two authors would select Falcon Lair and Greenacres as topics for future works. ( )