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<div>Rick, Thank you for expanding the list. I know that your are a supporter of Filoli.<br></div><div><br></div><div><span>The building of the Carolands Chateau was described in one book. The history of Hayes family in San Jose was described in another. I will try to bring these to a future cabal. </span><br></div><div><br></div><div>Here is a link to the Pan Pacific Expo <a href="https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/ppie.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.nps.gov/goga/learn/historyculture/ppie.htm</a></div><div><br></div><div>Some pleasant day I will have to make a deliberate drive to see these places for myself. It is unfortunate that enormous sums were spent on amazing buildings that proved very expensive to maintain, not to mention deliberate neglect. <br></div><br><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>
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On Monday, February 18, 2019, 7:52:04 PM PST, Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> wrote:
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<div>Quoting Paul Zander (<a shape="rect" href="mailto:paulz@ieee.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">paulz@ieee.org</a>):<div class="ydp72faa7fcyqt3607568900" id="ydp72faa7fcyqtfd36776"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">> Two books about the Bay Area mentioned other manors built in the same<br clear="none">> era. One was Ralston, now part of College of Notre Dame in Belmont.<br clear="none">> What I hadn't realized before was that there was more than just people<br clear="none">> with lots of money from gold mines, banks or rail roads. The 1915<br clear="none">> Panama-Pacific International Exposition was a catalyst. The 1% of the<br clear="none">> 1% of San Francisco needed to have appropriate places to host private<br clear="none">> parties for the visiting royalty from Europe or the old-money from the<br clear="none">> East Coast.</div><br clear="none"><br clear="none">Yes, it was. My favourite example fo that is Hakone Gardens in the<br clear="none">hills just west of Saratoga. Isabel Stine was the surviving spouse of<br clear="none">Oliver C. Stine, who was a lawyer who made his fortune in post-Gold Rush<br clear="none">real estate and was an early Bohemian Club member. He was the most<br clear="none">important backer/planner of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition,<br clear="none">and just barely survived to see it happen, leaving Isabel with a pile of<br clear="none">money and some passionate hobbies -- one of which was all matters<br clear="none">Japanese. Ms. Stine adored the Japanese exhibits at the Exposition, <br clear="none">so during the Exposition, she decided to have perment a permanent-class<br clear="none">traditional Japanese garden of her own, buying those 15 hilly acres in<br clear="none">1915 and sailing with her son to Japan in 1918, where they commissioned<br clear="none">one of the imperial gardeners to replicate a famous garden at what is<br clear="none">now a national park near Mt. Fuji<br clear="none">(<a shape="rect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuji-Hakone-Izu_National_Park" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuji-Hakone-Izu_National_Park</a>), and buiit<br clear="none">up _her_ Hakone (and hosted Japanese cultural events there) util she<br clear="none">sold it to another real etate baron, Charles Lee Tilden, first president<br clear="none">of the East Bay Regional Parks (and namesake of Tilden Park). Tilden<br clear="none">continued to improve Stine's idea. His family eventually (1961) sold<br clear="none">the site to a consortium of six Chinese-American couples, who kept it<br clear="none">going as long as they could, and passed it in 1966 to the City of<br clear="none">Saratoga, who (like the six families) found the maintenance costs<br clear="none">difficult, and passed it to private non-profit Hakone Foundation, set up<br clear="none">for that purpose.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Hakone Gardens is a gorgeous and inspiring place, that I recommend<br clear="none">highly for visits. And yes, they do the tea ceremony.<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://www.hakone.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.hakone.com/</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">My own high school's (Menlo School's) main building, Douglass Hall, was<br clear="none">constructed in 1909, in a wdding-cake Renaissance Italian style, by<br clear="none">minng heiress Mary Payne, who'd inherited part of the Comstock Lode<br clear="none">silver fortune, and her husband Theodore Payne, who'd made a fortune as<br clear="none">owner of Payne Bolt Works in San Francisco. After the 1906 earthquake,<br clear="none">they decided to move down to their 55 acres in Atherton next to Menlo<br clear="none">Park, and thus commissioned the 52-room mansion -- - which, notably, was<br clear="none">one of the very first reinforced-concrete buildings in California,<br clear="none">something it shared with Filoli.<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://www.pastheritage.org/Articles/PayneDouglass1.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.pastheritage.org/Articles/PayneDouglass1.html</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none">Mary Payne lived there for seven years (Theodore died before it was<br clear="none">finished), and sold it to inventor Leon Forrest Douglass in 1921.<br clear="none">Douglass was among other things inventor of colour film and an improved<br clear="none">photograph, and co-founder of the Victor Talking Machine Company (later<br clear="none">renamed RCA Victor), which business made him very rich and was<br clear="none">supposedly named for his wife Victoria. The mansion he called Victoria<br clear="none">Manor. He and his wife sold the property to Menlo School and College in<br clear="none">1945.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://www.pastheritage.org/Articles/PayneDouglass2.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.pastheritage.org/Articles/PayneDouglass2.html</a><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://www.gracyk.com/leon.shtml" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.gracyk.com/leon.shtml</a><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://intertique.com/Who%20was%20Leon%20Douglass.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://intertique.com/Who%20was%20Leon%20Douglass.htm</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none">(Last link claims that Menlo Park, CA was named for Thomas Edison's<br clear="none">research site in New Jersey. That is a common misconception: The Menlo<br clear="none">Park town considerably predated Edison's lab, and was named in the early<br clear="none">1860s by a pair of immigrants from Ireland after Menlough, County<br clear="none">Galway, Ireland.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">There were _many_ other notable estates / mansions on the Penisula,<br clear="none">some of them still standing:<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">1. Frederick Sharon's house. When I was very young, the western half<br clear="none">of what is now Menlo Park ('Sharon Heights') was called the Sharon<br clear="none">Estate. It was unfenced forest and wild lands that I used to enjoy<br clear="none">exploring on foot, and in the middle of it was an old, large building<br clear="none">that *I* thought of as a mansion. This was a temporary house where<br clear="none">Frederick Sharon, son of Nevada Sen. William Sharon and heir to _his_<br clear="none">silver fortune. The 32-room Craftsman-style _cottage_ I remember was<br clear="none">the place where Fred and Louise Sharon lived<br clear="none">(<a shape="rect" href="https://stdenisparish.org/pictures/site%20images/OldMansion.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://stdenisparish.org/pictures/site%20images/OldMansion.jpg</a>) while<br clear="none">planning a truly stupendous mansion -- which was never built, because<br clear="none">Fred was a cocaine-head and died at age 56. <br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">2. 'Belmont', now named Ralston Hall Mansion and part of Notre Dame de<br clear="none">Namur University, built by William Chapman Ralston, yet another<br clear="none">Comstock Lode bandit and founder of Bank of California. This is the one<br clear="none">you mention. <a shape="rect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralston_Hall" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralston_Hall</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">3. Carolands Chateau, Hillsborough, built ca. 1912 in Beaux Arts style<br clear="none">by Harriett Pullman Carolan, of the Pullman Company family. It was<br clear="none">derelict for quite a while during the 70s and 80s, but is now run by a<br clear="none">foundation and used for various special events.<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolands" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolands</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">4. Uplands, banker Charles Templeton Crocker's estate in Hillsborough<br clear="none">-- grandson of railroad robber-baron Charles Crocker. Now houses<br clear="none">Crystal Springs Uplands Schuol.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">5. El Cerrito, Hillsbourough, the oldest mansion on the Pensula,<br clear="none">started in the 1850s, and owned starting in 1906 by PG&E founder Eugene<br clear="none">de Sabla. Razed and subdivided in 1930, but its iconic Japanese garden<br clear="none">remains and is sometimes open to the public during charitable events.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">6. Filoli, built based on a country home in Ireland by William Bourn,<br clear="none">owner of the Spring Valley Water Company, early supplier of water to San<br clear="none">Francisco, and named from Bourn's motto: 'Fight, love, live'. Bourn<br clear="none">was a nasty piece of work who regularly required Spring Valley employees<br clear="none">to work for free on his estate. After his 1936 death, it was bought be<br clear="none">William and Lurline Roth, part-owners of the Matson-Roth cruise-ship and<br clear="none">shipping company.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">The mansion and its incredible gardens survive thanks to the<br clear="none">stubbornness and foresight of Lurline Roth, who worked tirelessly to<br clear="none">find an arrangement to keep the grounds open to the public and not just<br clear="none">disappear into private ownership or be broken up for subdivision.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">7. Linden Towers, Menlo Park, built by silver magnate James Flood, 43<br clear="none">roooms and the largest house west of the Rockies, completed 1880.<br clear="none">Demolished in 1934.<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/12/matters-historical-the-gigantic-mansion-james-flood-built-in-menlo-park/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/12/matters-historical-the-gigantic-mansion-james-flood-built-in-menlo-park/</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">8. Thurlow Lodge, Menlo Park, built/renovated by California governor, <br clear="none">U.S. Representative, and U.S. Senator Milton Latham, in 1872. 50 rooms.<br clear="none">(Originally built in 1864 by early robber baron William Eustace Barron.)<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://district.mpcsd.org/Page/143" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://district.mpcsd.org/Page/143</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none">A huge fraction of Menlo Park from the current civic centre to the<br clear="none">Sunset Publishing buildings was Latham's estate. After passing through<br clear="none">a couple of hands, the US government built Dibble General Hospital on<br clear="none">the grounds (in 1943) to handle casualtiies from the expected American<br clear="none">invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. After the war (1946), 29 of the<br clear="none">_280 total acres_ (the part exactly where Dibble had been) became Menlo<br clear="none">Park Civic Center, some became SRI International, and some was carved up<br clear="none">for subdivisions. One of Latham's buildings, the Gatehouse, and its<br clear="none">elaborate outdoor fountain, still survive as part of MP Civic Center,<br clear="none">facing Ravenswood Road, plus some now-aged oak and monkey puzzle trees.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">There are actually many others I'm not bothering to include.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">_______________________________________________<br clear="none">conspire mailing list<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="mailto:conspire@linuxmafia.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">conspire@linuxmafia.com</a><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire</a><div class="ydp72faa7fcyqt3607568900" id="ydp72faa7fcyqtfd31560"><br clear="none"></div></div>
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