This mysterious home, perched high on a hill above Chattanooga, Tennessee, has seen its fair share of drama. The lavish house, the vision of entertainment entrepreneur Billy Hull, was ultimately built in 1972. Photographer Leland Kent of Abandoned Southeast got breathtaking photographs of the home in all its dilapidated splendour three decades later. So, what prompted Hull to abandon his ideal home only a year after it was completed?
Eerie entrance
The sad Polynesian-inspired property, shown in 2017, bears no resemblance to its past magnificence. Uninvited visitors have ruined the two huge tikis flanking the entry, while the once-regal glass-paneled doors have been broken and the entrance obstructed by sheets of scrap plywood.
An extravagant vision
The ambition of Strip club owner Billy Hull was for a gigantic, tiki-style home equipped with luxurious marble baths, mirrored salons, and the crowning glory: a massive swimming pool with tiled tunnels connecting to the lavish bedroom suites. Billy hired architect Ed Ball to design the mansion, which took 14 months to complete and was celebrated with a lavish house party.
Time-ravaged interior
Leland Kent’s images depict an entirely different story: an exorbitantly priced abandoned estate, wrecked by time and decades of neglect. The worn red carpet in the living room is scattered with broken glass, outdated magazines, and discarded souvenirs. The magnificent marble-topped bar is still there, but it’s damaged and littered.
Faded grandeur
This living area would have been spectacular when the estate was initially built, with marble-clad walls enclosing massive floor-to-ceiling arching mirrors. Billy Hull, the proprietor of two successful clubs, the Lion’s Den and the Castaway Club, had no shortage of cash and planned to create the most magnificent mansion Chattanooga had ever seen, comprising an astonishing 5,600 square feet, three bedrooms, and four baths.
Letters from the past
The enormous property would host countless lavish parties and soirées in the year after its construction. This heartfelt message, discovered in one of the abandoned rooms, provides insight into the lives of two of the partygoers. Notwithstanding rumors about the nature of these parties, there are few images of the estate in its prime.
Opulent party house
Hull built the home with huge bars in mind, including this one with its stunning veined marble surface and crystal glass taps. You can almost see a stylish 1970s throng gathered at the bar to sip blue Hawaiians and pia coladas while Barry Manilow gently croons in the background.
Playboy pool
The opulent property’s main point is a massive 20-by-40-foot pool with undulating edges and tiered steps. The pool is electrically heated and 12 feet deep at one end, with independent humidity settings, a faux rock cascade, and even a diving board. It gained national attention after being published in an issue of an electrical trade newspaper in 1972.
Tiki-style decor
The vast pool space, the home’s core, is the first thing visitors encounter when they enter the property. A big, double-height space with a wood-paneled, domed roof; it contains a large, open-plan bar and a fireplace sitting area. Originally, the walls were covered in tiki-style palm matting accentuated with taxidermy animal heads, with palm trees flanking the poolside.
Architectural masterpiece
The odd tipi-shaped space’s crowning attraction is a stunning skylight inserted into the ceiling, which illuminates the spooky abandoned home below. Once upon a time, the eye-catching architectural element would have framed the lively parties held here, pouring light across the pool’s water while attendees moved around.
Vandalised and forgotten
The glitz of the mansion’s pièce de résistance has all but faded 35 years later. The sunken pool had turned into a gaping crater in the center of the house, packed with shredded furniture and garbage. The previously sparkling white tiles have been defaced with scribbled marks and slurs, and the area has been ravaged; stripped of its gilding and reduced to an empty shell.
Iconic emblem
Only the legendary Playboy Bunny has endured, leaving an unforgettable stamp on the site. The pool was also built to seem like a rabbit, with two tunnels at the shallow end representing ears. In the 1970s, this odd feature drew a lot of news interest and was one of the primary draws for young aspirants hoping for an invitation to a Billy Hull party.
A room with a view
A sheet of tinted glass separates the master bedroom from the main area, which was originally shared by Billy Hull and his wife, Gloria. One of the two swimming tunnels, with its circular bridge, may be seen from this viewpoint. Closed-circuit Video monitors with feeds from the pool area were installed in all of the bedrooms, apparently so Hull could keep an eye on what was going on at all times.
Extravagant master suite
The master bedroom, painted pastel pink with mirrored cupboards and gilded rafters, has an Art Deco atmosphere, yet despite the gloss and beauty, the place hides a terrible secret. In May 1973, only a year after the mansion was completed, a man named Roland Hargis was shot and murdered as he walked out of Chattanooga’s Tradewinds Night Club. Hargis had been having an extramarital affair with Billy’s wife, Gloria.
A ’70s scandal
His killer was a man named Larry Parker, a close friend of Billy’s who claimed Hull hired him to carry out the vengeance killing. William Hull was sentenced to 20 years in jail when all evidence pointed to his guilt. This was the first in a series of claims that led to his eventual bankruptcy in the 1980s following a tax evasion conviction. The now-infamous party home fell into disarray when no one was left to oversee the massive estate.
Deserted terraces
A copper-roofed bar with a bamboo frame and palm mat-lined walls remains empty on the deck. The terrace served as an extra entertainment space, welcome the many revelers that flowed out from the pool room and lounge. There was also a wooden sauna and a 12-person jacuzzi built into the decks.
Fall from grace
One of the few pieces of furniture that survived in 2017 was this fading leopard-print chair. It’s a striking reminder of Billy Hull’s fall from grace, the opulent nightclub entrepreneur turned washed-up jailbird, resting wearily on the worn boards. Records suggest that he then tried to contest tax evasion charges by alleging that his opulent lifestyle was sponsored by his grandmother’s bootleg whiskey business, which the courts rejected.
A discerning eye
Back in the day, this carved metal skull on the sauna door would have leered down at partygoers. Considering Hull’s vast criminal record, there is little doubt that he was detail-oriented. Every inch of the home was lavishly adorned and outfitted with all of the decade’s amenities, from a sophisticated intercom system to a self-cleaning oven.
Abandoned sauna
The original sauna, now abandoned, would have been a luxurious place for Hull and his visitors to relax and decompress. Following Hull’s imprisonment, the property was marketed for sale for several years before being confiscated by the city for unpaid taxes. It was considered beyond repair and fully dismantled in 2017, barely 45 years after it was erected, due to significant vandalism.
Reduced to rubble
With the once-opulent party palace reduced to a mound of rubble, the property’s dark secrets have been buried alongside it. Nothing is known about what happened to Billy and Gloria Hull after that, and while their previous dream house no longer exists, this is one frightening mansion that Chattanooga residents are unlikely to forget.