The Mortimer Fleishhacker House, also known as Green Gables, the Fleishhacker Estate, or the Mortimer Fleishhacker Country House is a historic estate with an English manor house, built between 1911 and 1935, and located at 329 Albion Avenue in

Woodside Woodside may refer to: Places and buildings Australia *Woodside, South Australia, a town *Woodside, Victoria, a town Canada *Woodside National Historic Site, the boyhood home of William Lyon Mackenzie King *Woodside, Nova Scotia, a neighborho ...

, California. The house has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since September 26, 1986.

History

The Fleishhacker family

Mortimer Fleishhacker Sr. (1866–1953) was a lumber, paper, banking and hydroelectric power entrepreneur and he co-founded (with his brother Herbert Fleishhacker) the Great Western Power, which later became part of Pacific Gas and Electric and City Electric Company, American River Electric Company, Truckee River General Electric Company. He served as a director of the San Francisco Opera,

San Francisco Symphony The San Francisco Symphony (SFS), founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Fr ...

, the Museum of Modern Art, Temple Emanu-El, the Hebrew Orphanage, and others. Fleishhacker had a home at 2418 Pacific Street in San Francisco, California.

House

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. This was the largest of all Greene and Greene designs. The interior of the house was designed by Elsie de Wolfe of New York and the San Francisco design house of Vickery, Atkins and Torrey. When designing the home, Greene also took in to account the design of the landscaping and the driveway. 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.

Landscaping

The garden was Italian style and features four levels of terracing and a lily pond, a Roman reflecting pool, and a piano-shaped swimming pool. This may have been the first free-form swimming pool designed in California. The property's rolling green lawns were inspired by the Fountains Abbey of

Studley Royal Park Studley Royal Park including the ruins of Fountains Abbey is a designated World Heritage Site in North Yorkshire, England. The site, which has an area of features an 18th-century landscaped garden, some of the largest Cistercian ruins in Europe ...

in 18th-century England, which Greene had visited in 1909. The garden has natural materials used and design elements that complement the landscape such as terraces, walls, arcades, balustrades, and planting urns.

Current

Over the years, Fleishhacker family built out the estate, adding new structures and land. As of 2019, the estate is 74 acres in size. The property has been used to host family weddings, corporate retreats, and historic summits - including the 20th birthday of the United Nations in 1965. The estate was used and remained in the Fleishhacker family for five generations. As of 2019, the estate was placed for sale. Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes rented a house on the property from March 2021 until November 2022.

References

External links

An Interview with Delia Ehrlich
(granddaughter of Mortimer) from 640 Heritage Preservation Foundation {{authority control National Register of Historic Places in San Mateo County, California Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in California Landscape design history of the United States