Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Feb 15, 2007

History Nuggets: Filoli

Cañada Road, closed to traffic on Sundays to let the bicyclists have a field day, stretches out from Woodside out towards highway 92. Hiding behind an ornate gate can be found Filoli, the mansion used as the Carringtons’ home in Dynasty, and its 654 acre estate. A single lane road takes you through a landscape reminiscent of English stately homes and on towards a vast parking lot, under the shadow of mature trees. Then you wander up to the house, where if you’re anything less than pristine you’re likely to get odd look from the staff. National Trusts, it would appear, are the same the world over: “genteel.”

The house was commissioned from Willie Polk, famed San Francisco architect, by the Bourns–William Bowers Bourn II and Agnes Moody Bourn. Mr. Bourn was president of the Spring Valley Water Company which owned nearby Crystal Springs Lake and other areas. Started in the 1860s, the company had about 40,000 acres of holdings in Alameda and Santa Clara Counties until it was bought by the City of San Francisco in 1930. Even now, it still has 23,000 acres of holdings. Polk had already built two homes for them, so they must have figured that it would work out just fine. They used Filoli as one of their residences from 1917 to 1936 and then sold it a year later to Mr. and Mrs. William P. Roth.

Mr. Roth was the president of the Matson Navigation Company and had been paid accordingly. In 1862 one Captain William Matson had started a shipping line between San Francisco and Hawai’i and it made him, and those who followed in his footsteps, a small fortune. The Roths decorated accordingly: the house contains nautical pictures, models and other artifacts.

The Roths held onto the place until 1975 when Mrs. Roth donated the entire estate to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. If you’re a member, you can get in for free. If you want to visit their charming garden shop, you can get a garden-only pass at the visitor center (but woe betide you if you’re caught without your sticker: the entry fee is quite steep and will be extracted from you.) Several gardens with different purposes (for cut flowers, vegetables, even a beautiful venue for a wedding) are for the most part maintained by volunteers. No matter what time of year you go, it’s always different as something new is coming into leaf or bloom.

And the name? It is a contraction of Mr. Bourn’s credo for life: “Fight for a just cause; Love your fellow man; Live a good life.”

Not a bad credo, really.