Filoli

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Filoli is a famous American country house set in sixteen acres of formal gardens surrounded by a 654 acre (2.6 km²) estate, located about 25 miles (40 km) south of San Francisco, at the southern end of Crystal Springs Lake, on the eastern slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Its address is 86 Cañada Road, Woodside, California 94062.

A garden pool at Filoli

Filoli was built between 1915 and 1917 for William Bowers Bourn II and his wife, Agnes Moody Bourn. The principal designer, prominent San Francisco architect Willis Polk ^[1] , used a free Georgian style that incorporated the tiled roofs characteristic of California. Polk had previously designed Bourn's houses in Grass Valley and on Webster Street in San Francisco. Bruce Porter was commissioned to collaborate with the Bournes in planning the gardens, which were laid out 1917-22.

Filoli served as one of the Bourns' residences from 1917 to 1936. Mr. Bourn was president of the Spring Valley Water Company which owned Crystal Springs Lake and the surrounding area. 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."

The estate was sold to Mr. and Mrs. William P. Roth, owners of the Matson Navigation Company, in 1937. The Roth family built Filoli's botanic gardens. In 1975, Mrs. Roth donated the estate in its entirety to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.^[2]

The sixteen acres of gardens are structured as a series of garden spaces that open one from another, providing long axial views,in which profuse naturalized plantings of hardy and annual plants contrast with lawns, paving, formal reflecting pools, framed in walls and clipped hedging (illustration, right) and punctuated by many narrowly columnar Irish yews, originally grown on the estate from cuttings. Filoli is an outstanding example of the Anglo-American gardening style that was pioneered at the end of the nineteenth century by Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll in British gardens and exemplified in the US by designs of Charles A. Platt and Beatrix Farrand.^{[citation needed]}

Today, Filoli is open for public tours. Attractions include self-guided tours, guided tours, and nature hikes. Several areas of the formal gardens include some especially designed for weddings. The largest gardens are working gardens for the production of cut flowers for the mansion and for the growing of some vegetables. The gardens are largely maintained by local volunteers, one of whom may be seen in the image above carefully trimming the boundary hedge.

Filoli has served as the set for many Hollywood movies.^[3] Most famously, it is the mansion seen from the air in the opening credits of the television series Dynasty. The mansion's plush interiors were also featured in the first episodes of the series but were subsequently replicated on soundstages at the Fox Studios, Century City.

Among the many striking mature trees on the grounds are a row of immense Italian Stone Pines and scattered specimen native Coast Live Oaks over 250 years in age, the latter of which are the backdrop for Warren Beatty's outdoor scenes in Heaven Can Wait.

The Filoli estate recently went through extensive rehabilitation and a new visitor center and café were built. San Francisco architecture firm, Architectural Resources Group designed the new visitor and education center as well as oversaw seismic strengthening of the historic main house. The new facility includes a 255 seat assembly room, main lobby orientation room, a café, offices and a catering kitchen.

Filoli was featured in Bob Vila's A&E Network production, Guide to Historic Homes of America.^[4]

Coordinates: 37°28′13.44″N, 122°18′38.53″W