Beauty may be fleeting, sometimes unpredictably so, but while something continues to exist, we can cherish it.
Hi everyone, Ken here, welcome to "ThisHouse" Today we are exploring an estate planned around the San Andreas Fault Line in California.
When William Bowers Bourn was just 17 years old, his father passed away, leaving him ownership of Empire Mine, a succesful gold mine in California.
He continued growing the company and established a bank before commisioning Willis Polk, who would become his architect of choice, to design for him a towering red clinker brick townhouse in San Francisco's Pacific Heights Neighborhood.
He and his wife, Agnes, began starting their family, but only their daughter, Maud, would survive into adulthood.
William's companies continued making him a fortune, but he knew that one day the mine would run dry and the bank would go belly up, so he sold the companies for cash while he still could and founded the Greystone Cellars in Napa Valley, also designed by Willis Polk.
But the winery wasn't bringing in as much money as he had hoped, so he sold it and began exploring opportunities in natural resources playing a pivotal role in the merger which would create the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, meanwhile investing heavily in the Spring Valley Water Company.
These investments paid off, earning William a fortune, and with that fortune, he, one again, hired Willis Polk to design for him a lavish country estate.
He purchased 654 acres in Woodside, California to build a 54,000-square-foot Georgian-inspired mansion with a clay tile roof.
The house was surrounded by 16 perfectly manicured acres of Gardens gardens including fountains and pools connected by winding paths and separated by stretching lawns.
