© Janet Davis

February 2009                                                                                                                                                                          

 

Have you ever dreamed about the kind of garden you’d create if you had unlimited funds and a large property in a spectacular natural setting?  That’s the glorious delusion I had when I walked through the formal gardens of Filoli, just south of San Francisco. The trouble is, even with loads of money and beautiful surroundings, it is unlikely anyone could come close to designing as perfect a garden as the one that has graced this California estate for ninety years.

 

 

I first visited Filoli in May 1996 on a garden tour of the Bay region. That week, we’d seen a series of spectacular vineyard gardens in Napa and Sonoma; eclectic artist-designed gardens in Berkeley and Oakland; and San Francisco Botanic Garden and Strybing Arboretum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.  Our final stop was this historic estate in Woodside, a well-to-do enclave in the wooded foothills of the Coast Range near Stanford University and home to celebrities such as Joan Baez, Neil Young, Michelle Pfeiffer and a score of Silicon Valley CEOs.   

 

 

We were all awestruck as we parked in front of the stately house.  Built in 1917, it was originally home to William Bowers Bourn II, owner of the Empire Gold Mine, the San Francisco Gas & Electric Company and the Spring Valley Water Company, which supplied water to San Francisco for 70 years.   Bourn coined the name for his new estate by combining the first two letters of the three tenets of his own philosophy:  “FIght for a just cause.  Love your fellow man.  Live a good life.”   Whether the Bourns or the home’s subsequent owners, the Roths, would have approved of Filoli being cast as the opulent Carrington estate on the long-running television show Dynasty, no one knows.

 

 

I adored the intimate scale of Filoli’s many garden rooms with their precise boxwood hedges and columns of sombre Irish yew; the serene reflecting pool with its stunning backdrop of mist-shrouded mountains; and the charming Italianate teahouse filled with fragrant spring bulbs and caged doves.  The craftsmanship in the house and garden was exquisite and Vancouver garden personality Tom Hobbs, who was on the tour, remembers admiring “the brickwork, walls, steps and gorgeous iron railings”. 

 

Six years later, I visited Filoli again while attending the mid-March San Francisco Flower & Garden Show (amazingly inventive and a horticultural must-see).  This time, I took Caltrain to Menlo Park and a taxi to the garden.  Given that it was a cool, drizzly morning in early spring, I was not prepared to be swept off my feet a second time.  But the same magical feeling filled me as I wandered among the orchard’s daffodils; strolled along the pear allée; passed beneath the sweeping, lichen-encrusted branches of the elms on the terrace; and gazed at the Knot Garden with its interwoven tapestry of red barberry, lavender, silvery santolina and germander.  In the Stained Glass Garden, designed by Bruce Porter to recall the windows in France’s Chartres Cathedral, magnolias and delicate Japanese cherries were in bloom and jewel-coloured tulips, aubrieta and violas filled the boxwood-enclosed parterres.  Frothy, white Clematis armandi dripped from the high walls of the Wedding Place Garden, filling that enclosed space with its perfume.  And in the Woodland Garden, purple Cyclamen coum lit up the shadows under brilliant rhododendrons and camellias collected by Mrs. Roth.

 

 

For me, a visit to Filoli offers a glimpse into the opulence and privilege that characterized the lives of the trail-blazing industralists of the early 20th century – men like Bourn and DuPont who could write cheques for the best architects, fill their homes with the finest furnishings and art, and surround themselves with the pastoral beauty of nature.  For Bourn, in particular, Filoli also became a serene retreat from the uncertainty that gripped San Francisco in the wake of the 1906 earthquake and fire that ravaged the city, killing hundreds and leaving two-thirds of the population homeless.

 

But Filoli is much more than a history lesson:  it’s a magical garden in a breathtaking setting, full of ideas and inspiration for any gardener.  

 

 

Filoli is owned and operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  The house and gardens are open from mid-February until the end of October.  Located at 86 Caňada Road, Woodside CA 94062.  Phone 650-364-8300.  For hours, admission fees, tour details and information, visit www.filoli.org.

 

 

 

More Gardens to Visit in San Francisco

 

San Francisco Botanical Garden:  Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park is home to SFBG with its magnificent collection of Mediterranean plants and succulents, among many others. Be sure to visit the Japanese Tea Garden nearby.   Open daily year round.  See www.sfbotanicalgarden.org  for hours and fees.

 

 

Yerba Buena Garden:  A sprawling rooftop garden atop the Moscone Convention Center in the SOMA (south of Market) area of downtown SF.  Features a large grassy esplanade, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Fountain and 13 raised sister city gardens containing plants typical of SF’s twinned cities.   Howard St. between 3rd and 4th Sts.  Open daily 6 am to 10 pm.  Free.  See www.yerbabuenagardens.com. 

 

 

Muir Woods National Monument:   Stroll under towering 1000-year old redwood trees in this forest dedicated to naturalist John Muir.  12 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge in Mill Valley.  No public transportation but a feature of several city tours.  Open daily 8 am to sunset.  See Muir Woods National Park Service  for fees and info.   

 

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