(2 of 3)
Lummis' housecleaning began with the ouster of many old Hughes aides. Using his court-appointed power as sole stockholder, Lummis fired three company directors, including Davis, whom he also dropped as general counsel. Last year Lummis filed a suit against Davis and eleven other former Hughes employees, charging them with bleeding $50 million out of Summa through extravagant salaries, interest-free loans to themselves, questionable investments and perks like company-built homes. Robert Maheu, Hughes' chief lieutenant until 1970, says bluntly: "There has never been any doubt in my mind that Davis and Gay were trying to steal an empire."
After ousting the cronies, Lummis moved to stop the excesses that were squeezing Summa dry. He has sold off Hughes' personal fleet of planes and several holdings, including the Landmark Hotel in Las Vegas, the Xanadu Beach Hotel in the Bahamas, the TV station in Las Vegas, the ranches, Football Today and 3,000 inactive mining claims. Summa has even been able to unload the Spruce Goose without having to break it in pieces, as once threatened. This week the plane will be given to the Aero Club of Southern California, which will put it on display in Long Beach next to the once glamorous Queen Mary ocean liner.
Summa's new boss has organized the remaining properties in three broad groups—hotels and casinos, aircraft construction and real estate. Lummis hired Phil Hannifin, former chairman of the Nevada gaming-control board, to run the company's hotels and casinos. Hannifin's first project: to finish a $55 million overhaul of the dilapidated Desert Inn, where Hughes had lived as a recluse for four years. Jack Real, a former Lockheed executive, was put in charge of Hughes Helicopters. The company, which lost money in the early '70s, is now in the black, and Real expects it to be twice as large as Summa's hotel and casino business by 1985. The Summa real estate holdings are a potential jackpot. The company owns 29,000 acres in Nevada; only the Federal Government has more land in the state. Summa is about to sell 12,000 acres in Tucson and is sitting on an additional 1,200 acres in the affluent Playa del Rey section of Los Angeles.
Lummis, who favors Brooks Bros, suits and Dunhill Montecruz cigars, lives in a three-bedroom condo in the fashionable Spanish Oaks section of Las Vegas. He drives his own 1975 Chrysler New Yorker. He often lunches alone, reading a newspaper at the Desert Inn and Country Club or in the coffee shop of the Sands Hotel, which Summa owns. His $225,000-a-year income derives from his position as court-approved administrator of the Hughes estate. Lummis has no plans to expand Summa into new fields, seeing his job as one of pulling the company together. Said he last week: "We don't have a charter to build a big empire. Our job is to conserve."