Classics, Chaos, and Curiosities: Inside LeMay Collection at Marymount

Vintage cars fill the gymnasium. They straddle bleacher seats and occupy the showers. They fill room after room of the main building. There are cars in the woods, cars under tents, and cars in garages undergoing restoration. More cars pack a vast storage building literally to the rafters. If you think car museums are all alike, then you haven’t seen the LeMay Collections at Marymount.

The sprawling car museum showcases Harold and Nancy LeMay’s collection of 20th-century vehicles and other things at their former home outside Tacoma, Washington. LeMay collected vehicles from the 1960s until his death in 2000. Once a boys’ military academy, the property spans 88 acres and includes five buildings. Harold LeMay filled all but the main house with cars. At its peak, his collection contained more than 3,000 vehicles and earned him a spot in the 1997 Guinness Book of World Records.

Hidden Gems in the White Building

Cars are packed to the rafters in the White Building Photo Credit June Russell Chamberlin

I’d heard about the museum before my visit, but I wasn’t prepared for the sheer number and variety of cars on display — nearly 500, from the late 1800s to the 2000s.

My extended tour started in the White Building, a large, unheated, football field-sized warehouse. As my guide, Mike Ragan, explained, the building stores vehicles that are currently not on display. I’d never seen anything like it.

An enormous garbage hauler occupied a prominent place near the door, a tiny 1914 Chevrolet Baby Grand tucked inside. It reminds guests that Harold LeMay made his fortune in waste management. The garbage truck shared the central aisle with an assortment of larger vehicles, including a British double-decker bus, a vintage police transport van from Los Angeles, and several firetrucks from all over.

“Harold bought a lot of very large things,” Ragan said. “He liked fire trucks, so he purchased a lot. They were pretty easy to buy but are harder to store.”

“The faded red double-decker bus offers the best place to take a photograph,” Ragan said. “Harold bought three of these double-decker buses in his collecting career, all on the East Coast of the United States. He drove each one of them back, and each one of them broke down.”

Cars filled one wall, parked one above another all the way to the ceiling, like a giant bookcase filled with 120 vehicles instead of books. A shelf tag carefully labeled each one. More cars cozied up to the fire trucks and vehicles in the center, their fenders only two or three inches apart.

TV Cars and More

UPS trucks in the woods at Marymount Photo Credit June Russell Chamberlin

As we walked down the narrow aisles, we passed a Ford Pinto, a “General Lee,” (one of 300 orange 1969 Dodge Chargers used on The Dukes of Hazzard television show), and a long black Mercedes from the chase scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

When we reached the Army green tank, I realized Harold LeMay hadn’t just collected vintage cars. He’d collected whatever vehicle caught his fancy. Where else would you find a police transport van from the 1940s, a car shaped like an automotive muffler, a Formula One race car, and trucks of all kinds (with smaller vehicles in the beds behind the cabs) all crammed together? And did I mention the small homemade Sherman tank?

Before we toured the next building, we hopped in the golf cart. Ragan drove around the buildings, zipping past the original lighted letters for Tacoma’s Union Station, a Hooters sign, and two tents sheltering a herd of Model Ts (part of the museum’s Model T driving school). We paused in the woods, where rows of old UPS trucks, their paint peeling and roofs festooned with thick layers of moss, quietly decomposed. A curve in the road brought new wonders: a sculpture park in the woods that included a copy of Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker.

Next Up – The Green Building

Cars from 1896 to the 2000s fill the Green Building in chronological order Photo Credit June Russell Chamberlin

Next, we toured the Green Building, also known as the Union Station Building for the letters on the side. In contrast to the White Building, here the cars were meticulously arranged in chronological order, starting with a replica of the first patented motor wagon from 1886.

The oldest original car in the collection is the 1899 Baldwin steam car, which features a boiler under the front seat and a tiller for steering. Essentially, early drivers maneuvered their vehicles with a bent stick. When, I asked, did the steering wheel replace the tiller?

“Around 1915,” Ragan answered. As he explained, the Packard brothers (of the Packard Motor Company) were riding along in their car when they hit a bump. The tiller popped out of the driver’s hand, whacked his brother’s leg and hurt him. Thinking there had to be a better way to steer, they developed a steering wheel for their cars.

The new contraption confused drivers. “People would go, ‘Well, how do we know which way we’re going with the steering wheel?’ With the tiller, you just aimed it the way you wanted to go,” Ragan said.

He pointed out a handsome midnight blue 1911 Ford Model T Runabout with brass trim, a steering wheel, and a surprising feature — a mother-in-law seat outside the fold-down top. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“I thought it was something that somebody did to irritate their mother-in-law, right?” Ragan said. “But as it turns out, you could have bought that from Ford. Just check the mother-in-law seat box.”

Early Electric Vehicles

Early car manufacturers also produced electric cars, such as the 1914 Detroit Electric Pricilla Coupe. The charging station looked like something from a Frankenstein movie, but the vehicle resembled a tall Model T. The height accommodated ladies’ big hats. Marketed toward women, the Pricilla Coupe was quieter, didn’t smell, and didn’t need a crank to start.

“This drives with a tiller, and then that upright rod by the window, that’s the accelerator. You drive from the back seat,” Ragan explained. “The hilarious part to me is that it has a front passenger seat that swivels so you can turn around and yak at the driver, which was not a good plan, of course.”

As we walked, the cars visibly evolved. Buggy-style bodies gave way to the roadster bodies of the Model Ts, which morphed into the elegant, swooping curves of custom-built vehicles of the 1920s and 1930s. The 1940s and 1950s saw cars get bulky, then gradually stretch into fins and rocket details. As gas prices rose in the 1970s, cars shrank. To my eye, the smaller, more modern vehicles seemed, well, ordinary.

The Main Building

The 1899 Balwin Steamer is the oldest original car in the LeMay Collections at Marymount Photo Credit June Russell Chamberlin

Our final stop, the Main Building, proved the museum still had a few surprises. Once the recreation hall for the boys’ academy, the Main Building was full of collections — and not just cars.

Nancy LeMay collected dolls. Harold LeMay collected all sorts of things. We walked through room after room, finding displays of dozens of outboard motors, radiator caps, salt and pepper shakers, toy cars, motorcycles, automotive memorabilia, and, of course, more cars.

Brightly colored small cars filled the auditorium, with more vehicles on shelves near the ceiling. More cars sat atop the now-covered pool and packed the rifle range. Novelty cars, including a dragon-like vehicle, a Frankenstein car, and a cherry-red high-heeled shoe, occupied another room.

In the gym, cars rested in the bleachers, nose down across the old wooden seats. The museum staff was preparing for an event, and the vehicles that would usually be displayed there had been stuffed into the first building we’d toured.

One of the last rooms we toured was the boys’ shower. A gleaming coral-colored 1950 Studebaker Starlight Coupe sat in the middle between the showerheads. It almost perfectly matched the shade of the tiles. It shared the space with an ordinary bicycle, a waitress cardboard standup figure, and two camel statues standing in the corner.

To me, it perfectly encapsulated the museum at Marymount: Gorgeous cars displayed in the most unusual spaces. Throw in the element of surprise — you never know what the next room might hold — and the museum becomes an irresistible destination. I can’t wait to go back.

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