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O’Neill’s Final Creative Agony at Tao House
Eugene O’Neill spent his Nobel Prize money on pain.
In 1937, America’s only Nobel-winning playwright used his $40,000 to build Tao House in Danville, California after bouncing between 35 homes. He called this hillside spot his “final harbor.”
Between 1939 and 1943, O’Neill wrote his greatest plays here, including Long Day’s Journey Into Night. The work broke him daily…