Bill Hammerstein bought his home and garage in Beverly Hills in 1989, but it looked nothing like the structure today. “At that time, it had this funny little garage that was half garage and half little pool house, and you entered it from the street, not the alley.” Shortly after, Hammerstein (known as “Hammer” to his car buddies) remodeled the little single-car garage so that the door opened onto the alley. Then he closed off the driveway leading from the street and turned it into a garden. Between the little garage and the pool was a small pool house, “this old rickety place,” he recalls. To make space for his then-high school age daughter to have friends over, he completely remodeled the pool house and added a bathroom and a snack bar. Then he filled the garage and the pool house with car memorabilia and photos of Hammerstein and his wife and daughter on sports-car drives with folks like Carroll Shelby, Dan Gurney and other famous car guys.

The pool house didn’t see much use, however, so he expanded it into a new two-stall structure, but kept the French doors and windows from the pool house. He had to lower the floor, so a lift would fit on one side, and added a double door that opens into the alley. Black and white checkerboard floor tile covers the lowered floor, and the vaulted ceiling contains large, threaded steel tie bars, so the structure will survive an earthquake. “Now I put three cars in there and four or five over at my other storage area. I keep at home what I think are the show cars, the Cobra, the Daytona, the SL. I drive them all—last Sunday we went up the coast for a drive in the SL.”

The cars Hammerstein stores are a ’62 327 Corvette he’s owned for more than 20 years. “That’s the car I wanted when I graduated from college, but my parents gave me GM stock instead. So I bought it twenty years ago. I have a ’64 Porsche SC Cabriolet. Then we have a ’39 Ford street rod with a 350 Chevy engine in it. Then I have a Typhoon that was my daughter’s car here. It’s bright yellow, and I’m going to restore it. When she went to college, we got her a 3-series BMW to use. She’s the third one to go to Colorado University, and she’s having a ball.” he says. The license plate on his Corvette reads “CU 62,” because the school is his alma mater also. “About every two years, I have all the cars detailed.”

Hammerstein has toyed with plans to put another two-car garage next to the existing one, but that would mean taking out the pool and replacing it with a small lap pool. To avoid that, Hammerstein has considered, very briefly, other options. “My wife told me we should buy the house next door and turn the whole house into a garage. Gut the whole thing and have one house and a garage next door.”

He passed on the plans to expand his garage space at home. “I would love to put all of my cars in a garage at home. But I figured if I ever wanted to sell the house, a second garage would be too much garage space for the person who would want to buy the house.” Additionally, his other cars are stored just five minutes away, which is also five minutes from his office. “Living and working five minutes apart makes life very simple. I don’t have to look at a commute. You tend to work longer and smarter.”

Hammerstein is an active member of a group called the Checkered Flag 200, which was originally formed to organize car events and fundraisers for the Petersen Museum. The name refers to how many people they initially thought would join them, although membership is now about 350, says Hammerstein. Every month these guys drive somewhere, too. “When you live in this weather, you can take your car out every weekend,” he says.

This list of drives Hammerstein has planned rivals the NASCAR schedule. He’s two organized drives each month, and then he does four large, 1000+-mile drives every year. “The June California Classic we do, then the Concours on Rodeo. Then we do the Copper State rally in Arizona. We’re planning a Corvette thing at the Petersen, too. We’ll have about five hundred Corvettes, one from each year, and some special GS models. Then I’m hoping I get accepted to the Colorado Grand this year. If I don’t get the Colorado Grand, we’ll do the Texas 1000. It’s a fun group of guys. I just like to drive my cars. I’m driving all the time.”

Originally from Kansas, Hammerstein has lived in California for more than 45 years. “When we consider moving, we always reconsider. Where would we go where we could find car guys like this so close?”