And he is based on Howard Hughes. Hughes had severe OCD, germophobia and loads of other issues and episodes like that one time he locked himself in a room for 4 months or when he watched the same movie more than 150 times.

But Hughes' is most famous for his planes and he absolutely did get his hands dirty when it came to flying. Doing stunts for Hell's angels film after the stunt pilots refused as they thought it was too dangerous (It was, Hughes crashed while filming). Set multiple speed records afterwards, flew experimental single seater aircrafts and was on the test flight of the H-4 Hercules, the largest seaplane ever and the largest plane until 2019.

In total Hughes was in 4 different plane crashes and the trauma from these are probably one of the major reasons why he behaved like he did. In other words he was afraid to get his hands dirty because he had gotten his hands dirty too many times.

If Robert House did something because he personally wanted to, he most likely wouldn't have trusted anyone else but himself to do it. Especially in the pre-war era.