Filoli
Filoli | |
---|---|
Georgian Revival | |
Governing body | National Trust for Historic Preservation |
Official name | Bourn-Roth Estate |
Designated | August 28, 1975 |
Reference no. | 75000479[1] |
Designated | February 8, 1977 |
Reference no. | 907[2] |
Filoli, also known as the Bourn-Roth Estate, is a
History
Bourn family
Filoli was built between 1915 and 1917 for
Filoli served as one of the Bourns' residences from 1917 to 1936. The name of the estate is an acronym formed by combining the first two letters from the key words of William Bourn's credo: "Fight for a just cause; Love your fellow man; Live a good life."[4][9]
Bourn's Spring Valley Water Company owned
Bourn also owned Muckross House in Ireland and is reputed to have used Muckross as a model for Filoli.
Roth family
Following the deaths of William and Agnes Bourn in 1936, the estate was sold the following year to Mr. William P. Roth and Mrs.
Current status
In 1975, Mrs. Roth donated the estate in its entirety to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, with an endowment that helps support annual operating expenses.[12] The estate operates as Filoli Center, a private, non-profit organization with its own Board of Governors, staff, and volunteers.
As of 2022, Filoli was drawing about 400,000 visitors per year.[4]
In 2023, Filoli hosted the first meeting on U.S. soil in several years between U.S. President
House
The house is 54,256 square feet in size, and has a total of 56 rooms.[4] This includes a ballroom, a reception room, a dining room, cozier family rooms, and servants quarters. While the home was empty when it reached the National Trust, much of the original furniture and art has been donated, to help recreate the original appearance of the home.[14] This is an ongoing effort; in 2022 the gentleman's lounge was restructured to include new period-typical additions to the room and add a re-creation of the original wallpaper.[15]
Library
Filoli houses two libraries with resources related to the families and the estate: the Friends Library Collection and the Sterling Library Collection. The Friends Library is a circulation library that holds 1,500 books, 125 videos, lectures, or oral histories, and several copies of movies filmed on the estate. The Sterling Library is a research library with 1,800 books and 40 journals. Both libraries are only open to Filoli members or to researchers.[16]
Gardens
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Reflecting pool and former carriage house.
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The Chartres Garden
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The Sunken Garden
The 16 acres (6.5 ha) of gardens are structured as a series of formally enclosed spaces framed by brick walls and clipped hedges, which open one from another, providing long axial views, in which profuse naturalized plantings of hardy and annual plants contrast with lawns, brick and gravel paths, formal reflecting pools, framed in walls and clipped hedging in box, holly, laurel, and yew (illustration, right) and punctuated by massive terracotta pots and many narrowly columnar Irish yews, originally grown on the estate from cuttings. Filoli is an outstanding example of the Anglo-American gardening style reintroducing Italian formality, that was pioneered at the end of the nineteenth century by Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll in British gardens and exemplified in the U.S. by designs of Charles A. Platt and Beatrix Farrand.[17]
The gardens extend southeast of the house running up an easy slope. The sunken garden is the first of four main rooms; the rectangular pool at its center that houses hardy and tropical water lilies is flanked by twin panels of lawn and two olive trees, within the hedge of clipped Japanese yew. The walled garden consists of a series of enclosures, including the stained glass window design outlined in clipped box.
After it was acquired by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1975, Filoli has been open for public tours. Attractions include self-guided tours, guided tours, and nature hikes.
The formal gardens include several areas, including the Wedding Place, named for Berenice Roth's wedding location in 1941. Lurline and Berenice both had their wedding receptions at Filoli, but Berenice's wedding is the only one that has ever taken place at Filoli when it was a private home. The largest gardens are working gardens for the production of cut flowers for the mansion and for the growing of some vegetables.
Orchard
Filoli Gentlemen's Orchard was started by Bourn family in the early 20th century, however the Roth family did not maintain the orchard and by the 1970s it was in poor condition.[18] In 1997, the California Rare Fruit Growers began donating rare plants to restore the orchard.[18] Many of the current 650+ trees in the orchard are lost varieties of fruit and include: 275 varieties of apple trees, 59 pear varieties, 42 peach varieties, 6 medlar, and many more.[18][19]
Ecology and conservation
San Mateo County historian Frank Stanger cited sizeable groves of
Estate Trail
In 2017, Filoli added The Estate Trail, which gives visitors the opportunity to walk through the outer nature preserve of Filoli. This trail passes through the horse pasture, a field of native plants, the former horse barn, and a former barn that has been turned into the Sally MacBride Nature Center.[24] It also leads to a bridge over the San Andreas Fault, which cuts through the property.[25]
Film location
Filoli has served as the set for many
Among the many striking mature trees on the grounds are a row of immense
Filoli was featured in
The house also served as the Stanhope residence in the 1997 film George of the Jungle, and was featured in The Game in the same year.
Gallery
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Reception Room
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Kitchen
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Drawing Room
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Library
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Dining Room
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Ballroom
See also
- National Trust for Historic Preservation – historic sites
- List of botanical gardens in the United States
References
- ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ a b "Filoli". Office of Historic Preservation, California State Parks. Retrieved October 14, 2012.
- ^ "Filoli Mansion and Gardens". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Rogers, Katie; Sanger, David E. (November 16, 2023). "Biden and Xi Meet at a Backdrop for Hollywood and Tech-Titan Weddings". The New York Times. p. A10. Retrieved January 14, 2024.
- ^ McDermott, Jeanne (March 1984), "Filoli", Horticulture, pp. 28–35
- ^ a b McDermott 1984:30.
- ^ Papoulias, Alexander (April 28, 2008), "'Country Elegance' in Woodside", Palo Alto Online
- ^ Weinstein, Dave (January 3, 2009). "Architect had designs on San Francisco". SFGate. Retrieved May 4, 2020.
- ISBN 978-1-78442-155-7.
- ISBN 978-0-520-24217-3. Retrieved March 20, 2012.
- ^ McDermott 1984:31.
- ^ Seehaus, Karen (March 9, 2005), "Spring Fling: Ring in spring at one of the Bay Area's own historic treasures", The Wave Magazine, vol. 05, no. 5, San Jose, California, p. 30, archived from the original on September 27, 2007, retrieved July 18, 2007
- ^ Li, Han (December 6, 2023). "Joe Biden and Xi Jinping's APEC Visit Becomes a Selling Point at This Bay Area Garden". The San Francisco Standard. Retrieved January 14, 2024.
- ^ "The House | Filoli". September 3, 2020. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
- ^ "Gentlemen's Lounge Restoration | Filoli". March 19, 2022. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
- ^ "About Library | Filoli Historic House & Garden". collections.filoli.org. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
- ^ McDermott 1984.
- ^ a b c Chapman, Robin (January 18, 2017). "Silicon Valley Orchardists 2.0". Edible Silicon Valley. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
- ^ Lee, Christine (2018). "From apples to oranges". Palo Alto Weekly. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
He volunteers at the Filoli estate in Woodside, maintaining its orchard of more than 650 fruit trees
- ISBN 978-0-89863-056-5.
- ISBN 978-0-87417-319-2. Retrieved March 20, 2012.
- ]
- ^ Frank M. Stanger (1967). Sawmills in the Redwoods: Logging on the San Francisco Peninsula, 1849–1967. San Mateo County Historical Association. pp. 56–51.
- ^ "Explore Native Plants and the San Andreas Fault on Filoli's Estate Trail | National Trust for Historic Preservation". savingplaces.org. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
- ^ "The Estate | Filoli". September 3, 2020. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
- ^ It was the mansion featured in Heaven Can Wait and The Game. The garden was used as a set in George of the Jungle, The Joy Luck Club, and The Wedding Planner.
- A&E Network.
- ^ America's Castles "Garden Estates" was filmed at Filoli from April 14 to 18, 1996. It was first aired on A&E November 24, 1996, Sunday, at 10 p.m. EST. The show featured three homes — Filoli in Woodside, California; Bellingrath Home and Gardens in Mobile, Alabama; and Maymont in Richmond, Virginia. America's Castles was produced by S. Alex Alexander at Cinetel Productions.
External links
- Filoli website
- Beyond the Back Gate: Filoli's "Wild Garden", a book on the nature preserve surrounding Filoli
- Beyond the Back Gate: Filoli's "Wild Garden", a seven-minute film documentary discussing the nature preserve surrounding Filoli
- ISSN 0024-3019. Retrieved March 29, 2015. Features photographs of Filoli during William P. Roth's ownership.