Are you old enough to remember the fly-over of the fabulous villa at the beginning of the television show “Dynasty?” Or the mansion and huge sprawling garden in the movie “Heaven Can Wait?” Where are those places? England, or maybe some “old money” mansion back east?
It will surprise some of you to know that this elegant mansion and its beautifully manicured grounds are on the San Francisco peninsula a mere chip shot away from Interstate 280. The house at the Filoli estate in Woodside is a cozy 36,000 square feet with seventeen bathrooms and seventeen fireplaces – forty-three rooms in all. But most people come to see the sixteen acres of Italian Renaissance-inspired gardens. The floral headliners change from season to season, but the grounds are stunning any time of year.
I have visited Filoli and toured the gardens and the house several times. Things are ever changing there, so each visit is fresh, but I thought I had seen pretty much all there is to see. I was wrong.
Beyond the manicured gardens, the 528-acre Filoli Nature Preserve edges up into the forested slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains. As a board member of the Committee for Green Foothills, I recently helped host a day at Filoli for our supporters and had the opportunity to walk these trails for the first time.
At Filoli, even the ordinary is extraordinary. As our guide led us from the manicured gardens, we passed oaks that were impressive monarchs. If only these trees could talk. The stories they would tell are written in their massive trunks, deeply gnarled bark, and their huge arching branches.
Six different habitats of native California flora are here changing with the aspect of the slope or the presence of a stream. Past the massive oaks, we entered a thick broadleaf forest and stood at the edge of a stream that ran north along the toe of the slope. When we crossed that creek, we also crossed the San Andreas Fault, the tectonic boundary between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate. We now stood on rock that had traveled hundreds of miles north over millions of years.
The stories our guide told us on these trails were as much about the human history of Filoli as the natural history. The Bourn family, whose wealth came largely from the Empire Mine in Grass Valley, purchased the estate and moved into the house in 1917.
At one point, the trail crossed an old road that used to be Cañada Road, formerly the main thoroughfare up and down the peninsula, until Mr. Bourn had it moved to its current location. A beautiful pond, originally built by Mr. Bourn to supply water for the estate, lives on as a productive habitat for a variety of animals that live, drink, breed, and hunt there. We also visited the Bourn Family Cemetery hidden in the oaks.
The hiking trails of the Filoli Nature Preserve tell a portion of the grand story of prominent families who owned gold mines and shipping lines (the Roth’s, who owned Matson Shipping Lines, bought the property in 1937). Stories like that seem more suited to the industrial magnates of the eastern United States or aristocratic England. But tucked away in our rough and tumble California history, there’s a place where the table was set with lace napkins, crystal wine goblets, and fine china.
Call Filoli and make a reservation to take a docent-led hike. They take place on Saturdays at 10:00 am from mid-February through October (except August) by reservation only.
