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Mortimer Fleishhacker House

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Coordinates: 37°25′58″N 122°16′07″W / 37.432792°N 122.268711°W / 37.432792; -122.268711
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Mortimer Fleishhacker House
Mortimer Fleishhacker House (1933)
Location329 Albion Avenue, Woodside, California
Coordinates37°25′58″N 122°16′07″W / 37.432792°N 122.268711°W / 37.432792; -122.268711
Built forMortimer Fleishhacker Sr.
Bella Gerstle Fleishhacker
ArchitectGreene and Greene
Governing bodyNational Trust for Historic Preservation
Official nameGreen Gables – Fleischhacker
DesignatedSeptember 26, 1986
Reference no.86002396[1]
Mortimer Fleishhacker House is located in San Francisco Bay Area
Mortimer Fleishhacker House
Mortimer Fleishhacker House
Fleishhacker House
Mortimer Fleishhacker House is located in California
Mortimer Fleishhacker House
Mortimer Fleishhacker House
Mortimer Fleishhacker House (California)
Mortimer Fleishhacker House is located in the United States
Mortimer Fleishhacker House
Mortimer Fleishhacker House
Mortimer Fleishhacker House (the United States)
Mortimer Fleishhacker House Roman Pool (1933)

The Mortimer Fleishhacker House, also known as the Green Gables Estate, is a historic estate with an English manor house, built between 1911 and 1935, and located at 329 Albion Avenue in Woodside, California.[2] The house has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since September 26, 1986.[3][4] The property has been used to host family weddings, corporate retreats, and historic summits including a United Nations 20th-anniversary gala in 1965.[5] The estate is now 74-acres in size.[6][7][8]

The main house is two stories tall, and was created in an English manor-style with an imitation thatch roof, a gunite exterior, and consisting of ten bedrooms.[9][10] The garden is Italian style and features four levels of terracing and a lily pond, a Roman reflecting pool, and a piano-shaped swimming pool.[9][11] The estate was used and remained in the Fleishhacker family for five generations.[12][5] Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes rented a house on the property with her partner from March 2021 until November 2022.[13][14]

History

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The Fleishhacker family

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Mortimer Fleishhacker Sr. (1866–1953) was an entrepreneur who co-founded (with his brother Herbert Fleishhacker) Great Western Power, which later became part of Pacific Gas and Electric and the City Electric Company.[15][16][9] He served as a director of the San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Symphony, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Temple Emanu-El.[17] Fleishhacker also had a home at 2418 Pacific Avenue in San Francisco, California.[17]

Property and landscaping

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In 1911, Fleishhacker Sr. and his wife Bella Gerstle Fleishhacker (1875–1963), commissioned Charles Sumner Greene of the architectural firm Greene and Greene to design a country home for them on a 45-acre property.[2][12] This was the largest of all Greene and Greene designs.[9] The interior of the house was designed by Elsie de Wolfe and the San Francisco design house of Vickery, Atkins and Torrey.[18] When designing the home, Greene also took in to account the design of the landscaping and the driveway.[11][19]

The property's rolling green lawns were inspired by the Fountains Abbey of Studley Royal Park in 18th-century England, which Greene had visited in 1909.[19] The garden has natural materials used and design elements that complement the landscape such as terraces, walls, arcades, balustrades, and planting urns.[20] Over the years, the Fleishhacker family built out the estate, adding new structures and land.[6][21]

Film appearances

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The estate was filmed as the Martin family home in the 1999 film Bicentennial Man.[22]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. ^ a b "Green Gables - Fleishhacker House, Woodside California". Historic Structures. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  3. ^ "NPGallery Asset Detail, Green Gables--Fleischhacker, Mortimer, Country House". NPGallery, Digital Asset Management System, National Park Service. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  4. ^ "National Register #86002396: Fleishhacker Estate in Woodside, California". noehill.com. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  5. ^ a b "Green Gables - The Estate". The New York Times. In 1965, the United Nations selected Green Gables as the site for its 20th anniversary commemoration gala.
  6. ^ a b van Romburgh, Marlize (February 28, 2019). "Photos: This massive old-money estate in Woodside could break the Bay Area's $117M price record". Bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  7. ^ Clarke, Katherine (2018-10-18). "The Estate That Wants to Be Silicon Valley's Priciest Home". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  8. ^ Hansen, Louis (2019-02-25). "Century-old Bay Area family estate could fetch record price". The Mercury News. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  9. ^ a b c d "National Register of Historic Places Inventory—Nomination Form, Green Gables (Country Residence of Mortimer Fleishhacker)". United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service. 1986-09-26. Retrieved 2020-11-04.
  10. ^ Wood, Barbara (November 19, 2013). "Historic Woodside estate is still a summer home for the Fleishhacker family". Almanac News. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  11. ^ a b "Green Gables". The Gamble House, Architecture As a Fine Art. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  12. ^ a b "Design guru Julia Berger gives us a detailed history of her historic family estate". The Nob Hill Gazette. 2018-09-30. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  13. ^ Khorram, Yasmin (September 7, 2021). "Elizabeth Holmes is living on the grounds of a $135 million Silicon Valley estate during her trial". CNBC. Archived from the original on June 2, 2023.
  14. ^ Storey, Kate; Covington, Abigail (December 8, 2022). "Sunny Bałwani Just Received a Nearly 13-Year-Long Prison Sentence". Esquire. Archived from the original on June 9, 2023.
  15. ^ "M. Fleishhacker, Manufacturer, 86; Head of Paper Box Firm in San Francisco Dies ---' Was Civic Leader, Philanthropist". The New York Times. July 15, 1953. Retrieved 2020-11-07.
  16. ^ Zinko, Carolyne (2016-08-03). "Delia Fleishhacker Ehrlich, noted SF philanthropist, dies at 85". SFGATE. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  17. ^ a b Bloomfield, Anne; Bloomfield, Arthur. "Mortimer Fleishhacker Sr. Lived Here - FoundSF". foundsf.org. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  18. ^ Michelson, Alan. "Mortimer Fleishhacker, House, Woodside, CA". Pacific Coast Architecture Database (PCAD), University of Washington. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  19. ^ a b Streatfield, David C. (Spring 2012). "The San Francisco Peninsula's Great Estates, Part II Mansions, Landscapes, and Gardens in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries" (PDF). Eden, Journal of the California Garden & Landscape History Society. 15 (2): 11.
  20. ^ Bloomfield, Anne (1988). "The Evolution of a Landscape: Charles Sumner Greene's Designs for Green Gables". Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 47 (3): 231–244. doi:10.2307/990299. ISSN 0037-9808.
  21. ^ "Silicon Valley estate expected to become most expensive in Bay Area". ABC30 Fresno. KGO-TV. February 26, 2019. Retrieved 2020-11-06.
  22. ^ Forever Green: A conservation easement ensures one of Woodside's grandest estates, Green Gables, will be preserved
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