JUST A few years after his high school graduation in 1937, a Yakima resident named Harold LeMay did something unorthodox.

He purchased a garbage route in Tacoma; attached a wooden, hand-cranked dump box onto a 1935 Chevy truck to haul garbage; and started a refuse business.

Everyone chuckled.

The laughing turned into accolades, however, when the hard-working and determined LeMay rapidly built an empire that eventually employed 450 people and had holdings that included two landfills, two refuse companies, a recycling company, Lucky Towing, Lucky Sales, and the former Marymount Military Academy in Spanaway.

"Harold went 24/7," says Nancy LeMay, Harold's wife of 37 years until his death in 2000. "He was a good businessman and an innovator. We were one of the first in our business to use one-yard containers, and we went to Colorado to buy them. He didn't slow down ? our vacations were working vacations."

The success of LeMay's businesses was parlayed into an even grander passion. Many of the LeMays' working vacations were spent at car auctions across the country, where he accumulated a huge number of rare vehicles. LeMay's passion for automobiles began with the memory of riding in a 1914 Baby Grand Chevrolet at the tender age of three.

"He remembered that car vividly," says Nancy. "And eventually we drove to Chicago to buy one just like it. Harold was intrigued by the history of cars. One collection that fascinated him was Bill Harrah's collection in Reno. When we went there, he would spend hours and hours poring over it."

After William Harrah died, Holiday Inn Inc. bought his hotel and casino holdings for $310 million in 1980, including the famous Harrah car collection. They began liquidating all but 200 of the 1,400 cars in 1981. A dismayed LeMay grieved the loss.

"Harold loved that collection and saw its liquidation to various owners around the world as a real loss," says Nancy. "He was upset, and he began buying even more cars then ? I don't think he even really knew how many cars he had. He used to say, 'Oh, I don't know, I might have 2,500 cars ? I'm not sure.'"

Family members were sure, however, and in the mid-1990s, the LeMay collection was listed at 3,500 cars in Guinness World Records as the largest privately owned automotive collection in the world.

But unlike some vintage-car collectors, LeMay didn't attend the Pebble Beach Concourse de Elegance, or enter any of his rare cars in club shows or competitions. He drove a 1960 El Camino purchased new, and kept his show-quality cars quietly stored.

LeMay was a humble, unpretentious man, whose only indulgence was hosting a show at his properties once a year for two days. Enthusiasts could view the vast array of vehicles displayed on his two properties: his home and his property at Marymount. The show attracted over 10,000 people each year, drawn to the elaborate collection displayed with thousands of artifacts and automotive memorabilia. Shuttle buses operated by volunteers moved people back and forth between Marymount and the LeMay home.

"Harold loved people as much as he did cars," says Nancy. "Everybody was his friend, and the open house every year was so much fun for him. When the Harrah's collection was sold off, he said, 'Future generations need to see America's love affair with the automobile.' Our show each year was a way to do that."

Aside from the annual open house, LeMay shunned the national spotlight. For more than two decades, the LeMay name was known primarily for its business holdings in the Northwest and the rumors of an enormous car collection accessible to the public only once a year.

But in 1998, two years before Harold's death, the LeMay family determined that the collection should be preserved for the public. Harold and Nancy formed a nonprofit corporation and museum, and began conversations with the city of Tacoma about a possible site for a museum. A campaign to build one began with $15 million in seed money from the Harold LeMay Foundation and a small board of directors. But that effort quickly grew into an ambitious $100 million campaign to raise funds for an automotive campus that would set the standard worldwide.

"I was flying home to Illinois from Boston in 2001 when I picked up a Wall Street Journal and read an article about a man named Harold LeMay who had recently died," says David Madeira, now CEO of the Drive for America's Car Museum, the campaign to raise funds for the LeMay Museum. "It said a small museum board had been formed and this little group was dedicated to preserving this collection. So I went home to my wife and showed her the story. The Puget Sound was already on my list of places to move and I said, 'Here is a chance to build something from scratch.' We moved here in the summer of 2002."

With his lengthy résumé of consulting for nonprofits, Madeira knew the museum needed a broader vision to be self-sustaining. "The truth is, most car museums are boring," he says. "We needed to create a place for activities, a place with things to do."

With Madeira in place as CEO, plans for the museum took on a broader dimension, eclipsing the idea of a static museum and incorporating plans for an interactive, dynamic automotive campus. "We went out and looked at car museums all over the world," says Madeira. "We realized that Harold's collection really tells the story of the automobile from 1903 up to 2000. We have the entire scope here, which gave us the notion of telling the story."

To that end, a Smithsonian approach was developed, incorporating several interactive elements in separate buildings. The campus' primary structure is a glass-pavilion museum surrounded by additional buildings on a 9-acre site adjacent to the Tacoma Dome ? a location donated by the city of Tacoma. Slated for two phases of construction over a two-year time frame, the entire complex will feature the main pavilion; a separate restoration shop and educational center with a 200-seat auditorium, lecture hall and research library; a private clubhouse; restaurants and retail space. A 5-acre show field will host car shows and club events, an annual concourse and an auction.

The glass pavilion of the LeMay Museum includes a spiral exhibition tower showcasing 150 of the most valuable cars in the collection; a concourse of 100 cars with educational displays related to culture, speed, design and technology; a banquet hall available to private parties; and vaults for private storage of 1,400 vehicles. The entire project is estimated to cost $100 million. Groundbreaking is anticipated this year, with a national promotion tour in 2008.

"We want to create a gathering place," says Madeira. "A place for activities that is dynamic. People think of the building as the entity ? but it's not. The building is just the home. We are really creating a social network and a community more than just a building."

The building is being created by Grant Architects in Los Angeles, with LeMay Museum board member Edward Welburn, vice president of global design for General Motors, assisting. "I am a car designer, but I also love architecture," says Welburn. "I've helped with the building ? the space, the lighting, and all the elements of design. The early renderings were very sketchy. But I've spent a lot of time working on it, and now I feel like I've actually walked through the structure. I believed in it from the very beginning."

With Madeira spearheading the Drive for America's Car Museum, $48 million ? almost 50 percent of the total build-out cost for completing the project ? has been raised. Currently, the existing LeMay Museum is open on Harold and Nancy's property at Marymount, where the LeMays' open house took place for years.

"I'm more surprised by the vastness of this project than Harold would be," says Nancy. "Harold had the ability to see trends far into the future. This wouldn't surprise him so much. He was a visionary."

Laura Byrd is a freelance writer based in Walla Walla.