who was that just sitting there that was well hammerstein and still is and still is we've got the wonderful will hammerstein from the oscar hammerstein center in toils town pennsylvania and he's going to talk to us about his career what they're doing with the hammerstein farm in doylestown which is phenomenal and you what a story so i'm really happy that you're here well thank you so much thank you for inviting me eric thank you for coming on this morning my pleasure so tell us tell our audience like when i was graduating from george school in newtown pennsylvania my dad who also graduated from george school was picking me up to take me back after you know it was all done but beforehand he said do you want to go know i had a at least you know more than a vague idea that it was an historic place and it was important to my dad i knew that and this is the oscar hammerstein formulated yet this is so highland farm is is where my dad grew up  and oil styled so we went over and it was privately owned at that time and there was no one home so we helped ourselves walking around the property and into the barn where you know the oscar had put a basketball hoop for my dad to you know play basketball and and my dad told lots of stories about you know life on the farm and you know it was really interesting and i could tell that he was you know he was bottling up some emotions he wasn't a very expressive guy ok all the time but you know i got there was a feeling of up the moment here fast forward thirty years later i still had never had an opportunity to you know go inside it was now you kasian of my thirtieth reunion at george school and i had ninety s that had opened and closed well and i thought you know you never know this might be my last chance to actually see the inside of a business story place that so important my family and i decided to spring for it and that's where i stayed for the weekend and that's when that's when my life changed also i just graduated from from law school and i had studied she later found out oh i've got permission to do a better bed and breakfast i'll do that you know that to help pay the bills which you know all houses expensive to operate sure and as it turned out it didn't generate nearly enough money to you know keep the place up and renovate the barn and turn it into something and save it so she said you know if you have any ideas and i was like well you know what you know what people do is for an old bill to save an old building you either you know a building that's outlived the purpose it was built for there are two things you can do one is let it fall to the ground which you right so you know then we started you know having regular meetings to talk about what the use would be and you know it's like the story structure for a cliffhanger you know the protagonist wants to you know you know it's to solve a problem so there's like a ladder you know you go to the lowest rung on the ladder you know so many levels and it's like ok well what's easy so you know you know we can turn into a yoga studio  know or a lot of there are all these small you know an ambitious you know ideas that we entertained but you know they didn't stand up to any scrutiny in terms of being a practical solution because you know how much money would you made right you know it would cost a lot of money to renovate the thing so you needed to generate some some cash to pay for the renovation  so you know the you know the solution kept have me grow bigger and bigger and bigger or climbing the ladder so now this is all happening when it around to this is like two thousand and ten two thousand no this is not acceptable so that's yeah that was something i wasn't aware of in the beginning you know it started out what can we do the save the barn so there wasn't you know this feeling of impending doom and right right right later i found out you urgency now it's like oh god you know if we fail yeah you know it's not just going to sit there and fall down it's going to be the opportunity will be lost forever yeah you know and one of the reasons for the show is that you know musicians that come on they have i had just mentioned to with our last guest that they have a higher calling sometimes this is they want to do something that's greater and go beyond themselves and you especially want to do that because it's your family you know you want to keep the you want to write that in this in that not only historical factor but it's got to be for generations to come they have to have that yeah so it's good that you caught it when you did what faith is a weird thing that's like you know i a law school so i learned about you know property law and i happened to have taken historic preservation with no mind whatsoever about highland farm it was not on my radar i was busy it was but i was i think i was subconsciously in there well you can say that but i was more worried about passing the bar exam and you know i was yeah i wasn't thinking about you know anything you know that me getting a job  t i suddenly found myself as sort of the right person at the right place at the right time and yeah i'm a big believer in that the universal thing happens where you are something maybe i'm wrong but i love those kind of stirs i love those yeah me too but you know but the thing is i love the stories that you know it's all of a sudden you're there and i know it's got to be huge it's i can't imagine the undertaking it's got to be but it's like at least you're in that direction and that it's like somehow in this in all of the the lines lined up that you were able to be aware that this was going to happen right i think that the right law school and prepared me for this because it's a it's a massive sprawling volume in this undertaking and when i you know when i sat down to study for the bar and even earlier  you know you get these you get a stack of prep tiriel like literally like this is a foot high and then everything outlines and everything that you could be called upon to more more than any human being can remember literally no one can do it so you know if you if you sit down and you get up you get out of bed you have i had a couple of analogies one was just like like a shark just keep swimming this keep swimming you know swim or die you know the other way is an apple if you look at an apple and think about oh my god you know how my going to swallow that apple whole you know you will choke if you try to swallow the apple whole but if you take it a bite of the time chew it up and swallow it eventually you will consume the whole apple  so that's the mindset that you have to take so it's you know you sort of have an idea about where you're going and what needs to be done in the short term and you try to you know take little bites and once that kennedy but that's got to be in a men's sleeve like satisfying two that's got to be like with all of that hard work that you put into that to be passed that that's got to be a wonderful feeling and like it's so it's a you know because you know before i was just like any other you know just a regular dude regular guy and i mean it doesn't make me overconfident you know because i saw a lot of people that i didn't really respect do the same thing so now we're going to let's fast forward to the farm so now you've got now you're you've started this foundation yeah and tell tell our audience about that like what is your mission statement what you know what is your plans now you so obviously you were it was going to be a bed and breakfast but then well it is a bed and breakfast is now ok yeah ok but that that's not going to sustain you know renovate the barn so we're ideating were moaning over options and  asset for generating income at the oscar hammerstein you know home it's like now it's obvious you know you do a house museum you know people interested in his life you know and and build the theater right and we will because his shows are as popular as ever they're still winning tony awards totally and that's and one of the reasons we were talking about too is a lot of musicians jazz musicians have played your grandfather songs and then jazz i mean they're just jazz standards and right you know right oh well if that part of the legacy is always been there that is there for a long time it is often been said that oscar hammerstein songs will be remembered for as long as people saying yeah well they are forever and you know they're very adaptable very accessible music to that's the other thing because it's of them on the melodies are the main thing that catches people's well richard rogers was you know you had to two masters at their craft and the lyrical quality that those lyrics are things that people will recognize and they'll know and i'm a place that they were that they heard that song the first time that's how those lyrics are etched in granite so the museum is a no brainer it's a no brainer and and you can't have an oscar hammerstein museum without a theater to present his work it would be like you know a picasso museum with no paper here's his lazy boy here's actual manuscripts there you're going to have like all kinds in them or a billion you're going to have them that's the idea yeah so well the house we would put back so that you would see how a family lived how he lived  historic preservation ists you know that at the state level that's what they encourage and and it's a good thing you know you can see that he you know for somebody with his success he lived a fairly a relatively modest life the house is not this ostentatious mansion you know it's fairly modest and he was a man of considerable means once some of the successes started breaking out although i will point out now that when he arrived there in one nine hundred forty he was down on his luck broadway had given up on him hollywood had given up on him he had a he had gotten swept out to hollywood after the talkies  came in and you know did a lot of damage to live entertainment on broadway so the career that he had in the twenty's when he wrote showboat and rosemarie and a couple of other  know that sort of with the depression and the advent of talkies got washed away a little bit right and hollywood producers didn't know what to do with this new gimmicky technology you know so they came to new york they swept up all the musical talent brought out to hollywood and and he wasn't good it that they stuck him in a cubicle and they said they gave him a deadline and said we need these songs and you know for this movie a d anyway he was miserable and by the time he got back to the east coast the typical review was very nice fellow who can't write his hat w the the guy who would then you know go on to become the greatest lyricist of all time but i bet that's what that's probably what fueled his fire you know that's probably what fueled him you know i don't i get yeah that's me you know how you had those challenges like last show you  twenty seven redefined what a musical comedy could be it was a serious musical play that it was not twenty seven twenty seven it was a landmark it's still a landmark musical it will always  be so that proved what he was capable of then he went on he that was followed by some very modest successes you know relatively speaking he was considered washed up so and that and then the wonderful meeting with with richard rogers right came up saturday and now how did they meet was this after nine  larry hart was a closet homosexual and an alcoholic and the two are probably related well while i think he had a very difficult life while so he was a difficult partner to work with richard and his health was failing he was also a genius at what he did he he was like a freestyle rapper who you know you know rogers and wake him up out of his you know something the tune the need written and larry hart would just spit out the rhymes they were urbin and witty and smart and you know they pass out again well i mean sort of making that up but  morning the same time he had his breakfast yet in the saw age he was in his study at eight thirty he gave seven hours to the theater he had one hour to society and he was out of his study at four thirty in the afternoon and you know i asked my dad you want a game of tennis do you want to know who won the baseball game and he left all of his stuff you know and for richard rogers you know this was a breath of fresh air you know he went from a guy who  they had they had met and even worked together briefly when they both went to columbia oscar was a few years older and oscar had written two varsity shows for columbia and that was a big deal back then it was like a college play but that was like a college bowl game back then you know he had the equivalent the theater equivalent and you know the new york times would you know do big ride and it was a big social stories his father died in one nine hundred fourteen and on his deathbed this is willie made his his brother arthur oscar's uncle promise not to let oscar into the theater you know circumstances because father oscar's grandfather was an opera impresario he built the first theater in times square and for six of the first ten theaters in times square and he would have up and down he died broke there was all lawsuits all the time and willie was like the level headed money maker and he was a sick of you know the whole business that you want to hear that life was going to break the cycle oscar was going to be a lawyer and the whole theater thing was going to be in the past no more when it came time to looking for a new partner which he was soon going to need because he obviously still had you know half a career left and oh yeah sure and his his you know successful partner was on his way out  he he went for oscar first and so and everyone thought that he was being for hardy and why you you know you could work with anybody why yes picking this guy up off the trash and you know  well obviously he saw something and he and he was right you know he absolutely was he was right so we have a couple more minutes but let's let's let's tell the audience a little bit more about your land where they can find your information how in you know what we're going to hit this so we're go look at a video real quick and it'll it'll actually tell everybody exactly what is going on so great here's will hammerstein right here hi my name is well hammerstein and i'm the grandson of oscar hammerstein the second it was here at highland farm where he wrote his greatest musicals including oklahoma carousel south pacific the canyon i and sound of music this through the prism of our commonality and you know i often you know he had this you know sense of fairness and you know know it's a meritocracy may the best and you've got to throw the ball and you know when when when you know when when there are people cheating you know that defeats the whole purpose of the game and it's outrageous well this is why he's been in this in this musical mindset for years because of the integrity he's he had right he still has yeah so all of this is going to that's going to live on that's and that's no question but now people are going to be able to see i love the fact that you're going to make interior of the house from different periods and they're all different it's all like the curtains change the law of paper that's a typical that the pictures on the wall are different where can people find the website again hammerstein center dot org ok is the website  you know any information you know a lot there's a lot of information and there people can sponsor you know looking for there is a donation button pretty close to the top of the page i'm going to make sure that people see that so definitely take you know and i think it's a so this is great and i will help spread the word awesome thanks i look forward to hearing your dig here absolutely yes yeah all these instruments i can't wait to start playing i know the guys are out there but i want to thank everyone again for tuning in to talking jazz there can tell you could check  out online and talking jazz with eric intel on my facebook page and they're also going to be episodes on t v thirty obviously right here but they're also going to be on you tube video so will will also post all that information as well