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Thomas is very active in community affairs in the Quaker Hill section where Hammersley Hill is located; he lectures frequently at the Country Club to students, teachers and friends.
with his wife and son — and with his own private broadcasting studio 200 yards from his front porch. You think that he's an authority on just one thing, radio? Wrong once more — Mr. T. is a famous explorer of Africa and India, a traveler who has seen every corner of the world, the author of forty books, a ski expert . . . and in his past he has been everything from a gold miner to a college professor. He's also had a prodigious number of "firsts" — first man to broadcast from an airplane, from a ship at sea, from a submarine, and from a helicopter. Further, he's the first commentator who appeared on television. Convinced?
But you'd be convinced of anything if you visited his 2000-acre estate called "Hammersley Hill," where he lives and works. Certainly I was convinced when I first visited there, about a year ago. To start with, I will never forget my astonishment when I walked into his living room for the first time to meet my fellow guests — who were ex-President Herbert Hoover, General Jimmy Doolittle, and the famous explorer Roy Chapman Andrews! I might add that I was further astounded by Lowell's twenty-four-year-old son Lowell Jr., who is no mean explorer himself. He was home from Dartmouth College that weekend, and he sat around matching notes with General Doolittle and Mr. Andrews on such diverse places as Brazil, Alaska, and Turkey the way you and I would match notes on the
corner drug store. Pretty Mrs. Thomas joined in a lot too, because she's been around the world several times with her busy husband.
But fascinated as I was by the unusual guests and conversation, I was just as dumbfounded over the estate itself — most of whose 2000 acres Lowell showed me from horseback the next morning. "I'm always outdoors and exercising every morning, winter or summer," he told me as we rode. "I discovered long ago that there's no such thing as bad weather if you're dressed for it!"
So, mounted on Lowell's horses, we trotted up to a ski lift and a ski chalet. "Yes, they're my own," he admitted. "I built them because I love skiing — and now all my friends are up here skiing as much as I am." My jaw was still hanging at the idea of a private ski lift and chalet when Lowell guided me to a sparkling ninety-acre lake. "And this is my own lake, where I swim every morning in summer — along with all my friends," he said with the pride of ownership.
We spent the whole morning looking at the endless buildings and woods on his beautiful place. In the afternoon neither I nor anyone 'else in the household saw Lowell at all. He was hard at work in his four-room studio building, abetted by his four secretaries, a switchboard, a film-cutting room and a projection room for showing movies — these last two for his news-reel and travelogue film activities. Later (Continued on page 97)
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