What Happened to the Carolands Mansion?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ธ.ค. 2022
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It is known as the last great Gilded Age Mansion in the United States.
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Public Domain Photos from: Library of Congress
CC2.0(creativecommons.org/licenses/... Burlingame Library,
CC3.0(creativecommons.org/licenses/... Gary gary gary, A.R. Deer, Sanfranman59
CC4.0(creativecommons.org/licenses/... Gerald Farinas
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Many thanks to Dr. Ann & Charles Johnson for saving & restoring Carolands to her original state. Dr. Ann's desire to leave this beautiful piece of history as an art museum in perpetuity must be accepted with grace & great appreciation. ❤️🙏
It is amazing how so many of these gilded age estates have the same story. "Rich couple builds elaborate mansion and estate, rich couple lives in it briefly, rich couple splits up, rich couple tries to sell estate, no one can afford asking price or maintenance costs, estate sets vacant for years, developer buys estate for pennies on the dollar, developer tears down house and builds cheap houses on estate land. " At least this one was saved from the landfill. Thanks for the video.
Money can't buy common sense, but apparently just about everything else.
It proves that money doesn't provide love or happiness.
It's just easier to pay bills and to have fun via spending.
1
Ist gen makes the cash
2nd gen squanders the inheritance
3rd gen has only the house to sell
If you don’t make the cash, you won’t keep the cash
These huge house's became white elephants with huge upkeep cost and feel like musiums not homes and people wanted something different, not so ridiculously big
My husband and I were fortunate to have toured this mansion today and I’m telling you that it’s details are truly magnificent and I owe it all to “This House”, the best channel on TH-cam! You would not believe the many incredible architectural details that this mansion contains. I asked our docent question after question because I was so fascinated and intrigued. Thank you so much for sharing this incredible place that is only 30 minutes from our home!
What a quintessential beauty of a mansion!! Thanks, Ken!!
I'm so glad that Dr. Johnson had the willingness ( and the money), to buy and restore this beautiful mansion! The sad story behind it goes to show that money doesn't buy happiness!
I don`t think she had the money, but being married to a billionaire sure helped. If he had to spend ten or fifteen million dollars for renovations, to him it was like spare change. 🤔
Well this was during the gilded age era. There was no technology like today. Buy mansions and homes were built as they should be grand and big. In reality ppl should feel happy owning such a home. Unlike the small overpriced cardboard boxes ppl live in todays world.
That four story domed entry is unbelievable. I’m glad to reach the end of the video to find the mansion was saved.
Mario Buatta , the famous late interior designer, did all of the interiors. It is fantastic.
That’s right! He was in the video done on the house
If I could afford it, I would definitely love to own this place. Beautiful, beautiful "home". I'm glad they gifted it to a preservation society.
I know what you mean, although I suspect the old saying of "the least expensive thing you do is buy it" probably holds true, as ongoing costs of staff and maintainence quickly adds up. But on the plus side, you are employing people, right?
Wow!!! Can you imagine owning 554 acres in Hillsborough, right near San Francisco??? Wow!!!
I remember driving by it in 1988. It had one light bulb on inside. Amazing house for the west coast. It was I bad shape in 88. I haven’t drove by it since 90, I just happened on it looking around the area
I love this house! There was a huge push for funds to help with the restoration in the 80s and I was lucky enough to go on a tour.
I grew up around here - when I was a teenager, something happened there that made the news. We called it the Pullman house back then.
In 1985 it was the scary haunted murder house. Good to see it cleaned up and alive.
Thanks. I will research that.
Ahhh I’m getting very used to my daily dose of Kens voice. ☺️ listening to your perfect articulation settles my cray cray brain.
Fantastic architectural style, I still admire baux style as elegant and balanced. I hope it remains for future generations to enjoy. thanks for featuring this magnificent mansion.
Thank goodness this beautiful house was saved!
A truly beautiful house, as all houses built according to the French Beaux-Arts classical style are. This style is based upon the work of great XVII century French architects like Jules-Hardouin Mansart, Francois Blondel and Louis Le Vau, who combined the grandiose and imposing Baroque style with the sober elegance of Roman classical architecture.
I am very glad that this magnificent mansion was saved from certain destruction. For once the story had a happy ending! Great work Ken! Bless Ann Johnson and her husband for their fantastic work.
Ernest-Paul Sanson, who designed the previously featured Belmont manse in Washington, sure knew how to deliver Beaux-Arts grandeur.
I absolutely love the homes that were built in the past. So many amazing details were built into the homes. You don't see architecture like this today. Some of the most amazing homes are considering outdated and outlandish. Thankfully the home is restored and will be their for people to treasure.
The house is more like a museum in some ways with its big entrance gallery! Although some of the rooms are very nice. So glad its been preserved! I would love to tour it or see photos of what it looks like now inside! Thanks Ken
I totally agree with you! With its generous proportions it's easy to imagine it serving the public for just about any purpose. If you're ever in the Bay Area, make sure to apply for a reservation well in advance of your trip as they choose who gets to tour the house (for free) using a lottery system.
There is a book available from either the Carolands foundation or the Burlingame historical society. The book runs about $75 but it is well worth the price having many fold-out pages of the design plans for various aspects of the chateau.
Yaaay! Its still standing and being taken care of!!!
All the rooms are gorgeous, the grand staircase hall, any room with a crystal chandelier, and fine furnishings. If I had unlimited monies I'd have something similar.
So awesome that it is saved!!! Glad that it will live on!
I don't remember what year it was, maybe 20 years ago, but The Carolans was the designer showcase home and I went there with my mother and her sisters. My favorite room was the library but I recall the whole building was impressive.
It was, I believe, 1992, or shortly thereafter, maybe 1993 or 1994, so a lot more than 20 years ago, although clearly time flies. The design firm I had hired to do my own house (before I became a designer myself), Sanchez-Ruschmeyer, did the library for that showcase, which is why I remember the approximate date. The curtains were made by the same company that made my own. It really was spectacular, as was the rest of that house, although my favorite room, and certainly the one I remember best, was also that fabulous library.
@@wendyannh Thanks!
I was at the showcase as well - that was just before the Oakland fire
I was a kid and I remember the library with a large train set. Some of the secret hall ways for service workers. Amazing house!
It's nice to see that this opulent mansion has been restored & can be viewed by the public!!! My favorite room is the gorgeous dining room!!! Thanks for sharing another exciting video!!! 👍👍🎄
My favorite: the library area. I could spend a lot of quality time there with a good book!
This is one of my favorite home. I would live in a house like this today if I owned it.
This house looks way bigger in person. The bay area still retains most of its prewar mansions. We never had a period of serious decline. so, they all stayed occupied for the most part. The only ones lost were lost in the earthquake. We still have most of them though.
So nice and light, high ceilings… seems quite livable compared to the dark interiors of many NYC mansions of the era. I always wonder if the divorces of so many of these folks is directly related to the nightmare of building a new house! It’s bad enough for a 5000sqft home, so 40ksqft must be… supremely challenging.
ONCE AGAIN, THANKFULLY, ANOTHER GLORIOUS NON-DEMOLITION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE, LONG LIVE THIS HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Favorite room? I would have to say the central hallway with the grand staircase and glass dome.
This place is gorgeous but it baffles me who would need that many rooms to live in. I'm a two room cabin kinda gal. Great video as always.
Especially when they had no children. I guess people like that have so much money they don't know what to do with it.
I'm the same way. I enjoying seeing and learning about these mansions and the people involved with them but, even if I could afford a mansion, I'd be happy with a one-bedroom apartment.
I`m the exact opposite. I couldn`t see himself, unless having no other choice, living in a two room cabin. Way too small, I`d get claustrophobic. 😒
Such a beautiful house but it seems to have spent it`s whole life unloved and unwanted until now.
This is like a dream home. If I was a billionaire I’d buy it in a heartbeat and keep it and make it even more beautiful
Yep...the previous owner wanted to leave it to the town but they didnt want it. Extensive library, learning center.
It's fantastic when these grande dames can be seen by the hoi polloi gratis.
The problem with a "house" this size is that it's too big for most people to live in both on a practical level, and also a financial level. It really should be a hotel, or library, or office building, or something like that. Not many people out there have a need for 46K square feet of living space. And also, most people can't afford it either.
I agree but would hate to see it turn into an office building. I think it would be beautiful for a library.
@@kimberlyearly8918 Yes, a library or school would be amazing.
Or an art gallery.
This is KINDA like a car I once owned. It was a 1970 Cadillac. It was bought new for the wife of the original owner, 1 year later they had split. The car sat unused from 1971 until 1976 when it was sold to the second owner who used it until the second "gas crunch" in 1979. I bought it in 1984 as the third owner and used it AS A CAR (It was "just" a Sedan DeVille, NOT a rare car at all then, just a "used car"). I was the happy buyer of an 18 year old car that had only six years of use for $700! I sold her in 1992, (Bad move!) I got MORE use of her than all the previous owners combined. She might STILL be out there!
I do enjoy watching your videos but this is the first time I have been compelled to really comment as this is, by far, the most elegant, refined, tastefully decorated and conceived American mansions that I have seen. I lived in France and everything in this building seems faultlessly executed. Here is a fortune well spent.
I love the aesthetic look of the building, and I love that they copied the Versailles gardens.
I was privileged to tour the house, prior to restoration, for one of SF.'s "Decorators' Showcase" events. I was the daughter of two schoolteachers who took me to quite a sampling of great houses around the world as a kid, from The Alhambra to Neuschwanstein to Peterhof near Leningrad, and we have Filoli not a great distance from Carolands. Carolands is my favorite of them all. Of course, it isn't on the scale of the European palaces. For the considerable scale it has, though, the spaces, the plan and the architectural detail all felt harmonious. Even the great central hall seemed comfortable. I remember it as beautiful.
ps. I may have seen it at the 1991 event. That was post- the 1989 'quake, and I remember earthquake damage cracks very noticeable on the exterior.
there are other amazing houses in that area, one called Green Gables a few miles over in Woodside recently sold for $125 million and has an amazing Italian styled pond with columns.
$125 m ! Wow, that`s quite a chunk of change.
Early February 1973 two friends of mine from college in San Francisco and I drove up to the front door of the mansion and yes, we knocked. A bit naive. Out came " Bob". We asked if it was possible to see the mansion's interior? Mind we were 18-19 years of age. He said, "You'd have to call the Countess Dandini herself. "She's in the phone book." We drove off and by the corner fire department was a phone booth (1973 of course). In the directory her name was listed. We called. She answered. We asked for a walk-through and she said come Thursday, 3:00pm. I went to the library to look her up. I found a beautiful portrait of this woman with an emerald, diamond necklace and sitting very regal like in the portrait. Come Thursday, we bought her Red Roses, a collector's tea cup and chocolates. The three of us arrived at 3:00pm. Bob invited us in through the driveway entry hallway. He asked we wait as The Countess Dandini was coming down the elevator and wanted to meet us. She was going to be leaving to have her photo taken with a group of children to save a tree in San Mateo. So, we would not have anytime alone and that was disappointing to us. The elevator opened and out stepped a far older woman that I expected from the portrait. Wearing an ill fitted wig, argyle socks and as tiny as you can image she greeted us. She was adorable and of course being young ourselves time traveled faster than we had realized. Off she went. Bob started us off in the wine cellars, into the kitchen then toured us throughout the first 2 levels. Not the top two as those were either boarded off doors and personal apartments for her and Bob. She had memorabilia of the Great Crown Heads Of Europe on tables and easels from letters to photos. All the rooms shown in your video Bob walked us through. I do remember asking Bob if they were doing construction as I heard buzzing such as skill saws. He said, no what you hear are all the windows vibrating from the wind hitting them. It had been like that from day one inherit of the poor building he said. ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz. Everywhere you walked. The house did suffer from neglect over time, but still was a magnificent place to see. After the tour and having left we three did discuss the feeling he did not want us there. Cordial, yes, but when we left we all felt the coolness of him. As though there was a secret in the walls. About a week had gone by and I get a phone call from Bob. I said, how did you find me. He said not hard, The Countess found you in the phone book. She'd like you three to come this week for a 100th Celebration of the birthday of Enrico Caruso at the Mansion. Two of us attended Teresa and I. The event was a slide show presentation by the College of San Mateo in the Music room. Double screens went back and forth while narration of his life played. A few local operatic performers were included. Many do not know but young Lillian Remillard was in NYC studying to be an operatic singer when the 1906 earthquake hit San Franciso. She returned to help her father run the Remillard Brick Company business in Marin County. She never returned to NYC to continue her study. That night, we drove up onto the parking lot of gravel. It was full and you were ushered where to park and could see the Mansion lit was like a jewel. After the tribute all were invited for refreshments into the Dining room. At least 200 people. The dining room table was set as a buffet and at the head of the table were two magnificent gold gilded chairs. Teresa and I filtered through the crowd. I think the cookies were boxed Stella Doro like my mom would buy (mmmm)...CSM paid for the evening. Budget I am sure. She lent the mansion out for Charitable work. Then suddenly it was announced...THE COUNTESS LILLIAN REMILLARD DANDINI! Almost as though trumpets call you to attention. There she was as all became quiet and applauded as this peanut of a lady with tiara was helped to one of the Golden Chairs. Teresa and I hoped to be able to talk to her but it was crowded and to see if she remembered us from the week before was not going to happen. Then suddenly, "There's BOB" coming towards us. Oh, hell Teresa, what's he want now? He comes to me and says, the Countess Dandini would like you to sit with her. I LOOKED AT TERESA, she looked at me and we both looked at BOB! Why me? And he said, Paul, she's a DandINI you are an AndreINI. Follow me. So I left Teresa in the dust and Bob reintroduced me to The Countess. She asked I sit with her for the buffet festivities. She leaned over to me and pointed to an older man across the room and said to me, "That's my bow over there but for tonight you are my bow Mr. Andreini." I remember nothing after that.
What a great story!
Gotta love it, the city of San Francisco was given the opportunity to own this beautiful and magnificent home and just because they weren't also handed millions of dollars to maintain it they rejected it. A true portrait of Californian waste.
The house was willed to Hillsborough, not San Francisco.
Many, many years ago when this mansion was rotting away, I saw it from the road.
With good luck, the security guard on duty, let me walk around the outside grounds and take pictures. I was amazed!!!!!
When suddenly loud noises came from the building. I was able to follow the guard trying to find the source of the noise.
We never found where the sound came from?
But, I will never forget the running up and down stairs of this HUGE building.
What amazed me was how many secret passageways there were. For example in the video showing the first entrance hallway. There are two identical "arch" areas. The right side shows a built doorway and the door open. but on the left side, is NOT a door (you can see) but a secret passageway. Another time, we went down a tiny little stairway steps, that ended when you stepped out of some furniture cabinet.
I was "so happy" to learn this was restored!!! I had assumed from the size and scope of the damage and decay, this amazing building was doomed.
Really glad it was saved and restored.
It's wonderful what you are doing. I looked thru your videos for The Lake Norconian Resort, and then realized, oh, wait, it never was a "house." Cool and sad, though.
Wow!!! What a beautiful home!!!
Loved the Music Room
And Dining room❤
Great video
The chateau was the site of the horrific McKenna and Grinsell case where the Carolands' caretaker abducted and tortured two young women looking for a mansion tour. Laurie Grinsell survived the ordeal. The caretaker remains on death row. Beautiful places can hide horrible things . . .
He was a security guard, not a caretaker.
@@pauljandreini5967 Semantics. He's a killer. Period.
CA death penalty moratorium
Jeanine Grinsell did not survive. Laurie McKenna (now VanLandingham) survived.
90+ rooms, what would a person do with all the rooms? It's so lovely.
Thank you for sharing these wonderful homes with us...your voice is so relaxing
46K square feet!!! Wow!!! That's like an office building, hotel, or resort!!!
Yeah, you'd have to be almost a billionaire to own that. Just think of the yearly maintenance, property taxes, and insurance. But definitely exquisite taste. Beautiful, beautiful home!!!
I wonder how much money it cost to initially acquire all the land, build it, and maintain it over the years. I bet it was a small fortune, even in that day.
An incredibly beautiful house! Thanks again!
Wonderful.
Reading comments here, there are many things commented on which are untrue!! The reason the town of Hillsborough was incorporated was because after the SF earthquake, people were displaced with nowhere to live so they migrated down to Burlingame where they began camping on the grounds of the wealthy weekenders property. The local constable said there was nothing he could which infuriated the wealthy weekend landowners. They all got together and came up with the idea of buying up the property to the West, of which Harriet bought 500 acres which included the highest point there. After buying property, the wealthy founded the town of Hillsborough making their OWN RULES for the township! One of the first rules made was that property owners could only build single family homes, obviously, that didn't include a size limit!! Some Hillsborough city charter rules: no libraries, no churches, no public telephone booths, no service stations, no hospitals, pretty much anything public was not allowed because that meant that we, the poor and middle class, could have used those facilities!! They didn't want the public wandering around their town! One of the strangest new laws was that there would be no cement city sidewalks!! WHY NO SIDEWALKS.?? Not allowed because they felt there could be a danger of their polo ponies slipping and injuring themselves on them!! There were also requirements for their new police force, a certain height/weight, and they must also be of good looking character!! Fortunately, i was invited to Countess Dandinis Chateau Carolands several times and had chats with her at them as well as on the phone if she was up to it.
It was at one of these white elephant showcase fund raising events that Dr. Johnson attended, and even though they, as well as the Hearst's lived there, Dr. Johnson had never been up to the Chateau. In the documentary, "three women and a Chateau", Dr. Johnson is quoted as saying when she walked into the library, she thought it was the most beautiful room she had ever seen and that led to her interest in saving /restoring the Chateau and forming a foundation to support the costs of maintaining the Chateau into the future. As she said, if someone has the wherewithal to save something like the chateau, it is incumbent upon them to do so...fortunately, with her wealth, coupled with the wealth of her husbands from ownership in Franklin Templeton Investments, the $20 Million restoration cost was easily paid for!!!
Rest in Peace dear Countess Lillian!!!
My mother was a friend to the Countess Dandini. I have fond childhood memories of her and the mansion which I visited often in the 70's. It was sad to see it fall into disrepair for so many years but was elated that Dr. Johnson restored it to its beautiful self !.
Beautiful ❤️
absolutely gorgeous house!
That's beautiful.
I wonder if people today plan estates the same lavish ways?
It's a beautiful estate!
It really looks like it would fit right in France.
There was also the important roll the 1906 San Francisco earthquake played in driving the wealthy south to Hillsborough after they lost their Nob Hill mansions. Pullman was determined to have the largest most elaborate home looking down on everyone else.
I think this one really is beautiful inside and out, and the original garden! How wonderful. I've seen many pictures of the inside. Don't have a favourite room, but as always it's the small rooms that I love in grand houses. Walk up the grand sweeping staircase, and sit in my small private study, would be about right for me. Wouldn't mind a throne room though, just for laughs.
Ken! Superb content!
Great job.
since carolands is in the town of hillsborough, (san mateo county) saying it’s “near san francisco’s bay area” is incorrect…it’s IN the bay area..
Nice. I'd love a tour of this one.
This house has one of the most beautiful staircases I've seen.
Staircases are my favorite thing about a mansion like this. I mean, obviously all of the rooms are spectacular but I love seeing a grand staircase first thing when seeing inside these houses.
So----, what did they use all this space for?
Truly beautiful staircase!
My copy of Architectural Digest covering this residence is treasured.
I believe Bing Crosby and his 2nd wife and family lived in Hillsborough, it's a beautiful area with wonderful weather
I had to stop and laugh just a little when you said, .. after a year the couple separated...
My mind added, for the couples arguments over where to place the furniture, never ended.
Funny you should mention that, I just finished reading "Without Drums" by Peter A.B Widener ll where he recounted that when he got married in 1924, his fatherJoseph turned the carriage house at Lynnewood Hall into a home for him and his new wife. He also decorated and furnished it, except his daughter-in-law didn`t like where he placed the furniture, so as soon as he would leave she and Peter would place it to their liking. Then the father would visit a few days later and put things back the way he liked it. They did that a few times until the father relented, for he realised his d-in-law was just too hard headed and gave up.
So it wasn`t a husband and wife arguing but still pretty amusing. The father was so used to being the boss and not have his decisions challenged, until then. Lol.
just drove by this today. Wow. Its HUGE. I felt super poor but were gonna make it 🫡
I can't help but wonder if Harriet ever stayed at The Biltmore Estate and used it as an inspiration for Caroland.
Love the show btw
My favorite area is the mezzanine!
Money doesn't buy happiness...just look at every picture of the woman who built this beautiful home...no smiles, no emotion, just a shark like stare. Sad...
This reminds me of the new rich family’s home from HBO the gilded age 😳🤨
I wonder what they spent on earthquake retrofits. The frame was toothpicks relative to the way things are built in the Bay Area today. Masonry is deadly in a quake. I imagine code requires improvements.
I lived in S.F. for the whole 90s. Never imagined something like that down there around Burlin-game. It's magnificent. Now I know what Beaux-Arts architecture is.
Side note, no one stops to think Burling-game is no more correct than Long-g-island. We pronounce the G twice.
I love a happy ending!
It seems so strange how these houses are built so well and now we have these ugly boxes that cost 100 million dollars?
Yes, now thin cheap looking materials with marble thrown at the bathrooms and kitchen. Awful.
Like that one
It was horrible growing up watching this beauty decay, on an interesting note this is believed to have shared a common driveway at a point with the large property owned by Sarah L Winchester in Atherton to connect to El Camino Real
The Winchester House! Got a tour of it in 1989. Sarah had some issues.
@@esteban1487 well that's the way they make her out to be, most of what they say on the tour and on TV is complete BS
@@flashback0978 she was a nutty Californian before nutty Californians was a thing. I suppose you have the "real" story though, right?
@@esteban1487 the real story has been published by several historians and anyone that actually knew her personally or worked for her, what is told is all folklore passed off as fact to sell tickets, and you fell right into the tourist trap clearly
@@esteban1487 and BTW she was a native of CT not CA
Pullman's employees had a horrible life being forced to live in company homes and paid with Pullman money which could only be spent in overpriced company stores.
How many bedrooms and bathrooms?
We didn't see much in way of rooms so can't say which was favorite.
Wish we could have seen all in color
No mention of the 2 women who were attacked in the home, 1 being murdered by a security guard?
you asked which room I liked , .............. the one we didn't see and the one you don't know about ,,,,,,,,,,,, Shadow
Glad it hasn't met Mr Fire.
We used to drive up there as teens and drink beer and peek in the windows. In the 1970's a security guard invited a curious teenaged girl inside for a private tour and killed her.
i lived in SF and was driving around the backstreets of Hillsborough when I chanced upon this beauty...got out of my car and meandered around. Wow. A few years later a security guard murdered and raped a woman who had done what I had done. It is a spectacular place, in spite of this tragedy.
I’m surprised that they didn’t mention the attempted murders that happened in that house in 1985.
The murders didn't happen in the house. The security guard locked the girls in the safe then took them elsewhere. They mention what actually happened in the DVD. ❤️🙏
oh that's scary, i was just looking this one up yesterday!
Just after the Johnsons bought the house, I was invited to a Halloween party there because I knew the family. The house was still dilapidated and was appropriately spooky. A fun place for a party before they began the renovation. We all owe a big debt to the Johnsons, who founded Franklin Fund, for restoring this treasure.
Seems like the house that nobody wanted.
And now you can lay in bed in your gilded age mansion and listen to your neighbors tv and the constant howl of the 280.
Everyone wants to buy it and give it away...it's like the real estate equivalent of a hot potato
I worked in the project of the Carolyn mansion in 1999 found old news 📰🗞️ paper s behind the walls from 1915 and bottle of booze the news 📰 paper 📜 was the San Francisco chronicle