The Forgotten Dark Secrets of FILOLI: Bourn Family's Cursed Gilded Age Mansion

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:02]30 mi south of San Francisco, tucked in the Santa Cruz Mountains, lies our estate. Let me show you California's bestkept secret. 16 acres of manicured gardens, a massive Georgian mansion we kept spotless, and vast pristine watershed lands surrounding the master's home. Today, crowds swarm the Pholi historic estate every year.

[00:00:27]Strangers wander the very English country gardens we toiled to [music] perfect. They marvel at parlors Hollywood later used to fake ultimate wealth. But strangers were never permitted past our rod iron gates. For nearly 60 years, we served only two ruling families.

[00:00:45]The master who built it commanded the water supply for every San Francisco household. He owned California's wealthiest gold mine operation, too.

[00:00:56]Before he even ordered us to break ground here, Mr. William Bowers II had already stockpiled what would equal billions today. The master bought everything imaginable. Everything except more time.

[00:01:12]Our history isn't merely ballrooms and banquetss. It's about a patriarch desperately constructing his own private paradise while I watched his body slowly betray him. A daughter lost across the sea and a mistress watching her entire family fade away. And the heirs who finally rescued the master's legacy.

[00:01:33]We buried fours here. Walk with me. You and I know the public tours ignore their hidden graves. Long before this mansion became a gleaming symbol of California's golden age or the last surviving peninsula estate, it was something completely different.

[00:01:51]The master built it as a sanctuary to grow young.

[00:01:55]Instead, I watched his mighty empire end right here. This is how our glorious estate rose. Who truly paid the ultimate price and why these walls survived when every other mansion crumbled. Chapter 1.

[00:02:10]Serving the air.

[00:02:15]Young Mr. William never expected to inherit a single thing.

[00:02:20]He was just 17 in January 1875 when the madam called him back from Cambridge University. The urgent telegram hit without warning. His father's empire tottered. The family wealth was vanishing overnight. Return home immediately. The boy boarding that ship had known nothing but pure knobill luxury. Waited on hand and foot. His father, William Senior, hit California during the gold rush with absolutely nothing to his name. Then forged an empire, mining operations, banking, and insurance. We treated them like royalty, but something had severely cracked.

[00:03:00]Senior had seized control of the Grass Valley Empire Mine back in 1869.

[00:03:06]For a few short years, profits soared.

[00:03:10]Then [music] yields plummeted. Gold veins dried up and heavy water swallowed the deepest mining shafts. By 1874, the pit bled them nearly dry.

[00:03:22]That July, the master cleaned a revolver in a study. The heavy weapons suddenly fired. An accident or a dark choice. The coroner stayed quiet. The wound killed him. Young William was reading Cambridge classics while his father bled. The books young Mr. William inherited were an absolute disaster. The master had leveraged everything. The Grand Empire mine was drowning in mud and debt.

[00:03:52]Mounting debts threatened us all. At 22, young William faced a brutal tactical choice. Let the house fall or fight. The boy chose war. He swore the flooded mine still held riches, even when the finest engineers laughed. Gold wasn't the issue. It was simply how our men were trying to extract it. The experts claimed nobody could turn a profit below 1,200 ft. The flooding was merciless.

[00:04:23]CS be damned. Our young master pushed us deeper anyway.

[00:04:28]Come with me. My master brought in his cousin, George Star, a clever 19-year-old mining prodigy. I watched them overhaul everything. New pumping systems, better drilling equipment. He hired tough Cornish miners from England, rough men whose families had worked tin and copper for generations.

[00:04:48]These laborers knew how to manage flooding. They knew how to crack hard rock. For several tenth years, our empire mine barely broke even. Bills consumed everything, but Mr. Bourne ruthlessly pushed those shafts down.

[00:05:03]1,500 ft, 1,800, 20,000.

[00:05:08]By 1884, the master's mine was highly profitable again. Over the next 40 years, I saw that California mine yield nearly 6 million ounces of gold. It became one of the richest historical operations in California.

[00:05:25]My young employer, who had been hastily summoned from Cambridge, had rescued our family wealth and forged a massive empire. But gold never satisfied him. In the 1890s, Mr. Bourne locked on to a resource that growing cities desperately required. Water. San Francisco's urban population was exploding. Those few natural springs couldn't keep pace.

[00:05:51]Private utility companies fought vicious, bloody turf wars. By 1890, a single monopoly seized absolute control.

[00:06:00]The Spring Valley Water Company.

[00:06:03]Quietly, my master bought shares.

[00:06:07]This corporate giant owned massive sprawling wheds deep in San Monteo County. They locked down Crystal Springs Reservoir. They wielded the brutal power of eminent domain, meaning they could legally seize estates and water rights for the so-called public good, all while operating as a ruthless private profit-making machine.

[00:06:29]You and I both know it became California's most ruthless monopoly. By 1908, my employer, William Bowers II, reigned as its president.

[00:06:40]He alone commanded the daily water supply for hundreds of thousands.

[00:06:45]The master dictated their rates. He personally decided where pipes went and which privileged neighborhoods drank first. This tactical setup made him spectacularly wealthy. It also made him fiercely spectacularly unpopular.

[00:07:01]Furious San Francisco residents paid 24 cents per thousand gallons. Meanwhile, Los Angeles using city-owned infrastructure paid just 10 cents for that same volume. I saw newspapers print cartoons depicting our company as an octopus strangling the city. Angry editorial writers demanded public ownership. Mr. Bourne couldn't have cared less what journalists said. He firmly believed private business outclassed any clumsy government operation. My master ran the water network efficiently. The complex infrastructure worked. The water flowed steadily. But he quietly knew his monopoly wouldn't survive forever. San Francisco was already plotting a massive alternative. A bold project damning HCH Valley, piping water over 160 mi from the high Sierra Nevada. Between us, that would take decades. Meanwhile, my master controlled exactly what everyone desperately needed. By 1914, William Bowers II had turned 57 years old. I managed his grand San Francisco estate on Webster Street and the Empire Mine Cottage in Grass Valley. He even owned Mukros House in Ireland. The boss held huge stakes in gas, banks, and real estate, a perfect guilded age industrialist portfolio, except a quiet country retreat near San Francisco where he and the madam could escape.

[00:08:33]A sprawling place to host elites, a place to garden, a sanctuary to, as he told me, grow young. He began scouting the San Francisco peninsula for land.

[00:08:45]The rural prices were remarkably reasonable.

[00:08:50]I watched the 1906 quake drive San Francisco's elite to build massive gilded age retreats. The Crockers and Kohl's grouped up, but Mr. Bourne demanded a different prize. I heard him say he despised the road's visibility.

[00:09:05]He craved absolute privacy and he required water. Come with me to 1914 when he claimed 654 acres near Crystal Springs Reservoir, his personal reservoir on his own utility land, the perfect tactical fortress. I dialed his architect myself, a trusted man from past building campaigns, a builder who grasped both monumental prestige and rugged California practicality.

[00:09:34]Mr. Willis Poke answered our summons.

[00:09:37]Chapter 2, a flawless hidden valley.

[00:09:42]The master's new land gripped the eastern flank of the Santa Cruz Mountains, commanding a tactical view over two massive reservoirs below. That crystal water below was no mere accident of nature. His Spring Valley Water Company built it, barricading wild creeks that once spilled into San Francisco Bay. The upper basin was locked down back in the 1870s.

[00:10:06]The lower dam followed 20 years later.

[00:10:11]Mr. Bourne knew this terrain blind. As company president, he had personally commanded the entire water grid. I watched him march those hillsides, mapping the watershed. He knew exactly where Hidden Springs breached the dirt, tracking every drop across the landscape. Ordering a country estate, he flatly ignored the usual wealthy crowds over in Berlingame. He skipped Hillsbor entirely, refusing to cluster with other elites. He surveyed his own corporate terrain instead. The chosen target had absolutely everything. Ancient oaks standing like sentinels and deep natural springs bleeding into creek beds, southern sun for the gardens, a sniper's view of the reservoirs, and 654 acres of heavily fortified privacy. Yet, it sat close enough to San Francisco that I could drive him there swiftly.

[00:11:07]30 m by motor car. A rough 1-hour extraction on improving roads. Distant enough to vanish, but close enough to command his massive financial empire.

[00:11:17]Timing was critical. You and I both know the 1906 fires gutted San Francisco. The master's Webster Street mansion survived intact, but the city felt hostile, unpredictable. The financial sector had burned to ash. Thousands roamed homeless. Rebuilding would take years.

[00:11:37]The elite who once ruled San Francisco started retreating to secure country fortresses.

[00:11:43]Peninsula estates provided a tactical advantage the city simply lacked.

[00:11:48]Isolation, breathing room, and disaster safety. Mr. Bourne was 57 when he secured Woodside.

[00:11:56]Mrs. Agnes was 53. Their only living heir, Miss Ma, was already married off, stationed in Ireland at the Grand Mukros House, the spectacular foreign estate he had bought her to secure her wedding day. This new compound was not for children. It was a strategic outpost for their final chapters, hosting powerful allies, staging symphonies, cultivating grounds, and surviving well. The master operated by a strict code forged over brutal years. Three rigid commands.

[00:12:32]Fight for a just cause. Love your fellow man. Live a good life. He demanded a name for the estate that embedded those orders. Splicing the first letters from those key directives, he engineered a secret acronym. Fee from fight, low from love, Lee from live.

[00:12:54]Phyoli, a whispered code that meant everything, but only to our inner circle. To outsiders, it just sounded Italian and wealthy. He let them believe that. Between us, Mr. Bourne never built this fortress to explain himself to strangers. One strange feature out there held the master's absolute fascination.

[00:13:16]We had several creeks crossing the property, one sitting directly on the San Andreas fault. The very fault line that leveled San Francisco cut straight across our new estate. Most wealthy men would have run fast from that kind of risk. But Mr. Bourne saw it as raw California geology, natural defensive terrain. He reasoned the massive fracture had been there for a million years.

[00:13:42]It would stay for millions more.

[00:13:46]You and I both know you have to build smart in earthquake country. For us on the inside, the tactical mission was total self-sufficiency.

[00:13:55]The master demanded sprawling formal gardens and fruit orchards. That meant heavy irrigation.

[00:14:02]We were ordered to produce everything in house, cutting our reliance on any outside supply lines. Thankfully, clean water was the one vital resource we had in absolute abundance. Natural springs across the grounds gave us water year round.

[00:14:18]And if that failed, the boss literally owned the massive valley reservoir below. By late 1914, Mr. Bourne had successfully secured every single acre he wanted. Next phase, finding an architect capable of drafting a proper command center. The main house had to project his elite rank, strict Georgian style, inherited wealth, but it also had to survive the rugged California environment. That meant adapting to the intense heat and deploying local building materials. We needed a structure that felt native to the valley, not air dropped in from Virginia. The master had successfully operated with Willis Pulk before.

[00:15:00]Pulk built our Webster Street residence in San Francisco back in 1896.

[00:15:05]He designed the gold mine cottage. He knew exactly what the master demanded.

[00:15:11]More importantly, Pulk knew how to execute silent authority. Mansions commanding heavy respect without shouting. The dispatch was finally sent.

[00:15:21]Come out to Woodside, survey the terrain, draft something truly worthy of this high ground. Mr. Pulk arrived, walk the entire perimeter, and started plotting his vision. Chapter 3. The architect's grand strategy. Willis Poke was 57 when the master tapped him for Phyoli. The man had 35 heavy years of architectural combat behind him. He had weathered total financial ruin and crushing personal tragedy, not to mention watching downtown San Francisco burn to ash during the great quake. By 1914, Pulk commanded absolute architectural respect across all of California. He built our banks, manners, and corporate towers. His Halladi building on Southern Street pioneered a radical all glass tactical exterior. His monumental triumph at the Palace of Fine Arts practically forged San Francisco's entire postquake resurrection from the ashes. The master and the architect operated on an ironclad mutual trust.

[00:16:27]Mr. Bourne never micromanaged. He issued his broad objectives, stepped back, and let the seasoned professional execute.

[00:16:35]Our Webster Street headquarters was a flawless triumph.

[00:16:40]Pulk understood the master demanded quiet power, never flashy, cheap public displays. But stick with me here. Phi's terrain demanded a wide horizontal footprint.

[00:16:52]A towering vertical [music] build would look foolish on our sprawling acreage.

[00:16:57]The massive manor needed to stretch across the wide landscape, anchoring hard into the hillside while securing those sweeping strategic valley vantage points. Pulk locked in Georgian revival as the core architectural foundation.

[00:17:12]Heavy brick, perfect symmetry, the ironclad conservative traditions of old Virginia and England's ruling elite.

[00:17:20]Exactly the grand illusion the master demanded to project. But this wasn't Virginia. The architect shifted his tactics. Instead of heavy slate, he ordered red clay roof tiles.

[00:17:34]A nod to those old California Spanish mission structures. Tough enough to beat the heat, blending right into our landscape. He laid the bricks in Flemish bond, alternating every single block. It made a sharp pattern, harder to build, much more expensive. The exact detail separating real historic estates from ordinary rich houses. The whole operation pivoted around a massive central hall crossing the main entrance.

[00:18:03]Walk the floor with me. A strict axis of grand rooms bleeding directly into each other. Standing at reception, we could stare straight through the drawing room, past the dining table all the way to the library. Old European kings pulled this exact trick to flex their wealth. The architect weaponized this here at the Bourne mansion to make our workplace feel massive. It framed perfect sightelines. He locked down the high value entertaining zones. The ballroom, reception, drawing room, and dining hall claimed the main deck. The master slept upstairs. Us servants held the south wing. strict tactical logic built to hit guests like a hammer upon entry. The sheer scale was completely overwhelming.

[00:18:52]54,000 square ft, 56 separate rooms.

[00:18:58]Yet, they avoided that absurd bloated look of other guilded age houses. No stupid 90 ft ceilings. No ridiculous hall scaled for 500 party guests. The California estate was huge, but it still felt like a real breathing home.

[00:19:15]We broke ground in 1915. The site demanded heavy prep, carving out terraces, pouring deep foundations built to survive massive earthquakes, hauling in raw supplies and elite crews. The architect commanded from afar, rarely visiting daily, he fought battles on multiple fronts. His lieutenants ran the specifics.

[00:19:38]the contractor commanded the men. We hauled in scrap rock from the master's own mine. Jagged stones ripped from the earth while his men hunted for raw gold used for pure foundation and trim. Mr. Bourne loved that quiet symbolism. Think about it with me. The gold building his fortune literally anchored this estate.

[00:20:00]Brick by brick, our house rose. That sharp Georgian exterior locked into place. We fitted French windows to capture sunlight and expose the gardens.

[00:20:11]Chimney stacks rose together, arched and elegant. Indoors, crews laid complex parquet floors in shifting precise patterns. Every room had its own uniform. Heavy oak for dancing, dark American walnut for reading, sharp carved moldings everywhere, ceilings packed with quiet details. The ballroom became our largest operational space.

[00:20:36]32 feet across, 70 deep, capped by a soaring 22 and 1/2 ft ceiling.

[00:20:43]Not exactly a royal palace, but plenty of room to maneuver a 100 dancing guests. Madame Bourne commanded certain details herself. She demanded flawless acoustics inside the music room. The mistress played fiercely and planned to host elite evening chamber concerts. Our kitchen had to be a machine. We needed space to feed massive evening crowds.

[00:21:07]The master handled the heavy artillery, forcing the architecture to lock perfectly into the massive gardens he was already plotting out, securing flawless water lines, making sure every single proportion aligned perfectly.

[00:21:22]Step back with me. After two hard years, our grand estate stood complete. The master dropped over $400,000 on it. over 10 million bucks today. But honestly, our ground seemed modest compared to other estates. Hurst threw millions at his San Simeon Castle. The Crocker mansion down in Berling game burned through even more. Mr. Bourne built something powerful, never crossing into vulgarity. Pure Georgian elegance adapted for California. A sprawling manner that looked like it always commanded this specific hillside.

[00:21:59]September 1917, the master and Mrs. Bourne finally arrived. He was 60, she was 56. With their daughter across in Ireland, we figured they had 20 good years left to enjoy this empire. I watched Mr. Bourne stand on the terrace surveying the reservoirs in the valley, his private valley, his water, his very own land. He rescued the Empire Mine, turned the water company into a powerhouse, survived the earthquake, and built this. He finally secured everything he ever wanted. He only had 5 years before the stroke hit him.

[00:22:40]Chapter 4. A house built for hosting.

[00:22:44]Philei was never designed for quiet privacy.

[00:22:48]This place was built as a spectacle.

[00:22:52]Step through those heavy front doors with me and you instantly grasp the massive power Mr. Bourne commanded. The grand reception room hits you hard.

[00:23:03]Two stories high, heavy walnut paneling, a sweeping staircase rising up. We made sure every guest felt entirely outmatched here. I stood by as Mrs. Bourne greeted elite arrivals for lavish dinners and musical nights. The highest ranks of San Francisco society gathered here before we ushered them inward. The architect's sharpen design let us keep a tactical eye across multiple rooms. From my post in the reception hall, I could monitor the drawing room perfectly. I could even spot the dining room. Every single sight line was ruthlessly calculated. Guests were strategically lured into exploring further.

[00:23:45]We used the drawing room as a holding zone between the entrance and dinner.

[00:23:49]Soft linen covered the walls, dropping the tension left by that heavy walnut hallway. A small Carrera marble fireplace forced guests into tight, intimate little seating arrangements.

[00:24:01]But our true tactical goal was circulation.

[00:24:06]We move targets from zone to zone, projecting a flawless illusion of totally spontaneous elegance. Then we open the dining room.

[00:24:17]Floor to ceiling, dark oak paneling, handcarved moldings, a massive table we set for 24. Here, Mr. Bourne ruthlessly proved he owned the absolute pinnacle of California high society. Our dinner parties here ran on strict military protocol. Guests wore strict formalware.

[00:24:37]We deployed courses in absolute precision. Downstairs staff prepared everything in the kitchen, smuggling plates up through the butler's pantry.

[00:24:47]Mrs. Bourne seated everyone strictly by rank and corporate strategy. She dictated who spoke to whom, targeting which powerful alliances needed immediate cultivation. The crushing formality hammered her message home. You and I know this was serious business, not casual hosting, but the ballroom unmatched. 70 ft long, 32 feet wide, ceilings hitting 22 1/2 ft. The sheer scale was breathtaking. We polished those quarters saw white oak floors endlessly.

[00:25:21]Pale water green walls dripping with actual gold leaf covering the high room moldings. Two massive chandeliers suspended directly above us, modeled off the Versailles Hall of Mirrors. Pure crystal and gilded bronze, never cheap little reproductions.

[00:25:38]They were brilliant interpretations, aggressively scaled for our ballroom. A baroque Mchavelli marble fireplace anchored the room, its bronze trim showing Hercules wrestling the Namian lion. I spent hours scrubbing soot from that massive European palace fireplace.

[00:25:56]Up here was Madame Agnes' absolute domain.

[00:26:00]A major San Francisco Symphony patron, she demanded absolute perfection for her private chamber music events. We polished her grand piano daily for visiting musicians.

[00:26:12]We aligned chairs for 50 to 100 elites who sat listening to melodies bouncing off those high ceilings. We flipped that massive ballroom for dancing, lavish wedding receptions, and elite debutant balls. It was easily the most intimidating room on the estate.

[00:26:30]The boss built it to prove Folia estates could rival any high society gathering in San Francisco proper. Follow me.

[00:26:38]Let's see what guests missed.

[00:26:41]They missed the gears running the machine. Our butler's pantry was the tactical bridge between the dining room and kitchen. Down here, our crew kept the operational supplies fully stocked.

[00:26:53]We guarded the heavy silver in a walk-in vault and tracked our marching orders on an electric call board. We hauled hot meals and dirty plates between floors using a mechanical dumb waiter. Our kitchen was a sprawling, purely functional battleground.

[00:27:09]17 ft ceilings pulled the blistering heat away from our industrial stoves, prep stations, and storage racks. When the elite partied, we cranked out up to nine separate meals daily.

[00:27:22]That meant breakfast, lunch, and formal dinner for the family, plus our own staff rations alongside whatever specialty dishes the event demanded. At peak times, a platoon of 35 staff lived and operated at Pholi. Cooks, maids, groundskeepers, drivers, and heavy cleaners lived here. We pulled brutal 14-hour shifts, getting one day off every 2 weeks. Standard operating procedure for these massive estates back then. Our barracks sat in the south wing. Cramped bedrooms, shared bathrooms, and absolutely zero luxury.

[00:27:58]The wealthy visitors never saw where we slept. Our spaces were strictly for survival. The perimeter between their playground and our workspace was ironclad. When the Bournes hosted, their guests saw nothing but elegance.

[00:28:13]You and I know the sweat it took to build that illusion.

[00:28:17]The boss and madam hosted non-stop right after we finished the build. We ran endless musical evenings and highstakes dinners for executives.

[00:28:26]We also handled massive weekend retreats for their San Francisco friends. The estate functioned flawlessly as an instrument of pure intimidation. It locked Williams securely at the top of the California elite. It proved his immense wealth could buy a fortress. For a few golden years, our operations ran flawlessly. We kept the ballroom roaring with music and the dining room full. I ushered the absolute power players of San Francisco inside. Madam played piano while the boss closed business deals in the library. They wielded this massive estate exactly how it was designed. Then came the summer of 1921.

[00:29:08]The whole system crashed. The boss was 64. We noticed him acting a bit sluggish, headaches, and dizzy spells. We didn't worry until the massive stroke hit. Now, let's step outside to chapter 5, the gardens. Before the stroke, while the house went up, William plotted massive outdoor operations. He ordered 16 acres of structured formal gardens.

[00:29:37]No messy English cottages or quiet Japanese meditation corners for this estate. We maintained grand European designs, strict geometry, perfect symmetry, and ironclad structure. The boss demanded garden rooms that locked into the house architecture, forming one massive unified compound. He demanded distinct zones for every tactical purpose.

[00:30:02]Parties, morning patrols, and absolute silence. Walk with me. The master needed an expert in true landscape architecture. Mr. Bruce Porter got the summons in 1917.

[00:30:15]He was 54, a respected Renaissance man dominating the San Francisco art scene.

[00:30:22]Murals, stained glass, he did it all. He built grand estates for wealthy masters.

[00:30:28]He survived the great quake and helped drag our city's culture from the rubble.

[00:30:33]But his real weapon knowing how landscape design commanded building architecture. He studied the grand European estates.

[00:30:43]He analyzed Gertu Jackekal in England and mastered the strict Italian Renaissance rules. Deploying stone walls and sharp hedges to construct rigid outdoor rooms. The master and Bruce surveyed our grounds together.

[00:30:59]Our terrain sloped up toward the western hills. A perfect canvas for striking terraces and sharp elevations. Rugged natural terrain. Massive oak trees.

[00:31:12]Jagged rock outcroppings were drafted into the design, never destroyed. Mr. Porter's blueprint solidified over agonizing months of tactical planning.

[00:31:22]The landscape would march south from the main house down one rigid axis. Locked courtyards would spill into each other, forcing a calculated march of discovery.

[00:31:33]Thick brick walls and razor sharp hedges locked down the zones. The formality was absolute.

[00:31:40]You have to understand, we weren't building nature. We were building absolute control. We forced the dirt to obey the master's vision. But Porter just drew lines.

[00:31:52]He sketched the skeleton of the estate.

[00:31:55]We needed someone to make it breathe.

[00:31:57]Miss Isabella Warren took command of the horiculture in 1917.

[00:32:02]At 48, she came from a proud California family. Their entire fortune wiped out by brutal mining losses. To survive, she and her sisters launched a floral operation up in San Francisco, building massive displays for high society galas.

[00:32:19]We all called her Bella. She possessed a ruthless eye for color. plus a true worker's instinct for what would actually survive our soil. She had commanded planting operations across the entire Bay Area. The rich elites trusted her blindly. Here at Foli, her mission was highly specific. Select every seed, sink the seasonal colors, and keep the grounds flawless all year. She operated inside the strict boundaries Porter drew. He dictated the hedge lines, their exact height, and the trajectory of our patrol paths. Bella commanded the species list, targeting exactly which colors exploded in which season. She engineered the deep layered visuals.

[00:33:04]Their alliance held because both respected the grand mission. Mr. Porter built the hard architecture.

[00:33:11]Bella armed it with living art. We broke ground in 1917, sweating until 1922.

[00:33:19]You don't conquer this landscape in one season. Forcing a mature estate takes years of blood. The first drop zone guests hit outside the manor was our massive sunken garden. Porter carved it out as a dropped rectangular trench locking a calm reflecting pool right in the dead center. That basin held 8,000 heavy gallons deep enough to mirror the sky and anchor the entire zone like a fortress. We armored it completely against ground seepage.

[00:33:52]We dropped in tropical and hearty waterlies, timing their blooms like a synchronized clock. Bella flanked the water with sharp turf panels, anchoring the sides with twin olive trees. See it for yourself. Japanese U locked the perimeter, sheared into flawless geometric walls. That sunken garden made a statement. The master commands water.

[00:34:16]Out here in California, water has always meant power and serious money. An 8,000galon decorative pool was just pure, unbelievable luxury. Mr. William charged city folks by the gallon. But here at his estate, water was purely decoration.

[00:34:34]Past that pool, our daily suite pushed upward through endless walled garden rooms. The high terraces, the shaded woodland spots, the sprawling rose beds.

[00:34:45]Every single spot felt different. But Mr. Porter's grand design tied all our work zones together. Those heavy brick walls mattered. They blocked the wind and trapped the heat, gave us frames for espalade fruit trees.

[00:35:01]They also hid the full estate from the boss's fancy guests. Walk with me and you'll uncover each hidden space yourself.

[00:35:09]The architect even drew up a bowling green, a flawless dead flat lawn just for Mr. Williams English games. We sheared those borders tight. Not a single flower, just sharp angles. The master planned a massive walled space chopped up like a patchwork quilt. Miss Bella made us swap out the seasonal planting displays all year long. Spring meant digging tulips and daffodils, then summer roses, then autumn mums. We changed the colors, but those rigid beds never moved.

[00:35:43]The boss gave a strict order to plant Irish 's across the property. Those tall evergreens shot straight up, forming massive living green pillars. You see, he bought a giant Irish manor for his daughter, and that old estate boasted truly spectacular utrees.

[00:36:03]Miss Bella ordered the staff to take fresh cutings over there, sprout them up north in Grass [music] Valley, and haul them down to us. I ended up planting over 200 Irish use to line these grand pathways. Whenever the master strolled these paths, he got to look at trees tying his mansion to his daughter's Irish home, a living green bridge across the ocean.

[00:36:27]Keeping this place alive broke our backs. We clipped hedges daily for perfect angles. We pinched dead blooms and hauled in fresh seasonal flats, mowing the lawns, weeding the long gravel paths. By the late 1920s, 12 of us worked these grounds full time. Our head gardener, Mr. Maricone, lived right here on site to watch us sweat. He stayed on this property barking orders for 50 years.

[00:36:57]Miss Bella kept directing the planting designs and color schemes. She'd show up constantly, changing our work, demanding new stock, enforcing her perfect standards. I promise you, the gardens we built looked completely unlike the rest of California. It had that rigid Italian structure mixed with proper English beds and local brush. It felt ancient yet somehow completely new. It looked like Europe, but rooted in our dirt. By 1922, we finally had the bare bones planted.

[00:37:32]Everything was young. The hedges needed years to thicken up. My trees needed time to stretch. But the master's vision was finished. He could stand on the highest terrace. Looking down past our perfectly trimmed hedges toward the grand house, watching the Crystal Springs Reservoir shine miles away. He built exactly what he paid us to build.

[00:37:55]A beautiful sanctuary where a rich man could grow young. Except the boss was sitting in a wheelchair.

[00:38:03]A bad stroke hit him the previous summer.

[00:38:07]Mr. William Bowers II would never stroll his gardens again. Chapter 6. The Irish Connection. Miss Ma arrived in 1883, the second child and the only daughter to survive infancy. Her older brother barely survived a single day.

[00:38:26]From that day forward, Miss Ma remained the absolute center of the master's universe. We raised her inside the grand Webster Street mansion over in San Francisco. Private tutors drilled her daily in music, fine art, and foreign languages. the standard wealthy daughter protocol. Meanwhile, Mr. Bourne was busy building that Empire mine fortune and Madam spent her hours running San Francisco so Society and the local arts.

[00:38:55]By 1910, Miss Ma hit 26.

[00:38:59]Downstairs, we all knew she was dangerously close to old maid status for those times. She had the marry and marry high.

[00:39:10]That spring brought Mr. Arthur Rose Vincent, an Irishman straight out of County Clare. His bloodline had deep connections, but their pockets were light. Standard issue for early 20th century Irish gentry. Those massive estates bleed maintenance cash.

[00:39:29]Farm rents were dropping fast. The old Irish houses were land rich but completely broke. Mr. Arthur was 44, beating Miss Ma by 18 years. a widowerower having already buried his first wife. The whole courtship moved like lightning. The master and madam approved of him, but mainly they needed Miss Ma settled.

[00:39:54]They married March 1910 over at St. Dominic's in San Francisco. We worked for weeks prepping that massive society event. The family spared absolutely no expense. For a gift, the boss executed something completely unprecedented.

[00:40:10]He bought a complete Irish country estate.

[00:40:15]Mukros House planted right on the shores of Mukros Lake over in County Kerry.

[00:40:20]Raised in the 1840s, a massive Victorian mansion fully dressed in that tuda revival style. 11,000 sprawling acres of pure tactical terrain, mountains, lakes, and heavy ancient timber. Exactly the kind of fortress Mr. Arthur's people would have controlled a few generations back before they lost the capital to maintain it.

[00:40:45]Mr. Bourne bought it outright, handing the deed directly to Ma and Arthur. We never leaked the final price, but that purchase triggered international headlines anyway, an American mining titan securing a massive chunk of Ireland just for his girl. He also guaranteed the yearly budget to keep Mukros fully staffed and running. Let's do the math. 65 grand a year plus 25,000 in pocket money. You and I know that's several million in today's cash. Miss Ma lacked the formal title.

[00:41:20]Arthur wasn't nobility, but she'd command that house like true Irish royalty. They deployed to Mukris and locked into estate routines. Arthur took over the property management.

[00:41:32]Miss Ma took charge of the local community.

[00:41:37]By 1911, they presented her at the Court of St. James. Shaking hands with British royals locked in her new highly elevated social rank. For Mr. Bourne, this Irish connection meant everything. Beyond just locking down his daughter's future, Mukro's house became the exact blueprint for what he demanded back at Pholi.

[00:42:00]Their estate gardens held these ancient massive u trees rooted in that soil for decades. He ordered the gardeners to take cutings, cloning those exact plants for our pholi grounds. He inspected Mukrath several times during those years following Miss Ma's high society wedding. pacing their grounds, watching how a veteran staff ran a truly established estate. He hauled those operations back to California. Then 1921 hit us with his stroke. The master woke up feeling off, facial numbness, slurring his words when he asked for tea. Madam summoned the medical team immediately.

[00:42:40]The stroke hit the master hard. At 64, Mr. Bourne's body simply gave out. We kept him alive, but the damage stayed.

[00:42:49]His left side wouldn't move anymore.

[00:42:52]I pushed his wheelchair.

[00:42:56]His words slurred, but that brilliant mind stayed sharp. Ireland was off the table forever. You have to understand, this man built mining empires. He was always moving, building estates, running water systems. Being trapped in that chair broke him. We could still get him out into his beloved gardens. Mostly us servants wheeled him to the vistas, but his real freedom was entirely gone. He desperately missed Mukra's house and strolling those Irish grounds. He missed Miss Ma. By 1921, the master hired Ernest Pagato to paint giant murals inside our Foli ballroom. Pesoto was a famous 50-year-old American artist who really knew his way around Europe. He'd done incredible work for other massive California properties. He knew exactly what Mr. Bourne needed.

[00:43:54]Massive canvases bringing Mukross House and those rolling hills here. The artist painted them up in San Francisco using photos and letters from us. He painted these moody, gorgeous Irish views.

[00:44:08]Misty mountains, gray skies over the lakes with the grand house tucked right in.

[00:44:15]Those finished pieces were massive. We hung them in the ballroom in 1921, covering half the walls. Now, my master could sit in this ballroom and stare straight into Ireland. He couldn't sail the ocean, but the view was his.

[00:44:30]Whenever I wheeled him in, he stared right at his daughter's distant home.

[00:44:35]Miss Ma visited us when possible, taking that grueling weeks long ship ride across the Atlantic. But her real life was Ireland. She had a whole estate to run.

[00:44:47]Years slipped by. The master kept suffering these smaller, quiet strokes.

[00:44:53]He slowly faded, sharp inside, but his frail body just kept failing him. Miss Agnes nursed him while keeping this massive estate running. She threw small gatherings whenever the boss felt strong enough. She made sure our garden crew met his perfect standards.

[00:45:11]Every single morning, if it didn't rain, I'd wheel the master to his favorite high spot. From up there, he'd gaze down the sweeping terraces toward our main house, looking over the valley and reservoirs, his water, his private, beautiful creation. Stuck in that chair, staring out at the grand empire he built.

[00:45:32]Let me tell you about 1929.

[00:45:36]A New York telegram arrived. Miss Ma was sailing back to Ireland after visiting Manhattan. She caught severe pneumonia during the crossing. When they finally docked, our sweet lady was barely hanging on. November 18th, 1929.

[00:45:53]She died in Manhattan at just 45. It completely shattered the master and Miss Agnes, their only child, gone. Mr. Bourne was far too weak to cross the country for her funeral. Miss Agnes went alone. We brought Ma's body back home to California. I helped bury her in our estate cemetery, right next to the infant brother she lost at birth. Once Ma passed, my boss started liquidating his massive holdings. He sold the legendary Empire mine off to New Pneumont Corporation, tying up loose ends. He built an empire, crafted Philei, and secured his daughter's Irish future. Now his beloved girl rested out in the dirt, and he was a prisoner to that chair. That Irish legacy we all celebrated suddenly just felt like an open wound. You see, those grand murals now just showed a place he had. Our employer would never again see where his daughter had lived and vanished. Mr. William held on seven more years. Then came the stroke.

[00:47:01]Let me tell you, 1921 started perfectly normal.

[00:47:07]The boss was 64, running his massive businesses while spending more days with us. Mrs. Agnes was 59, obsessed with the gardens. Our grand manor was finally finished.

[00:47:20]The grounds looked incredible. Then one morning, the master couldn't get himself out of bed. His left side was totally dead weight. His face drooped. We heard him try to give orders, but words slurred.

[00:47:34]The madam rushed doctors down from San Francisco. We all knew the verdict. A massive stroke. It wrecked the right side of his brain, paralyzing his left half entirely. Back in 1921, medical science couldn't really fix a stroke.

[00:47:51]Bed rest and praying another attack wouldn't finish him off. Those expensive doctors just stood around waiting to assess the damage. Our employer survived the hit, but that heavy paralysis stayed. His left leg gave out entirely.

[00:48:07]Walking was done. His arm barely moved at all. His fierce voice softened up, though he still gave orders. The cruel part, his mind stayed razor sharp. He knew exactly what he had lost. We had to bring in a wheelchair. This titan who saved the Empire mine by digging deeper.

[00:48:28]The exact same tycoon who ruthlessly monopolized the water supply. The boss who built this sprawling mansion.

[00:48:37]Now that powerful man sat trapped in a chair needing us just to move around.

[00:48:42]You have to understand, for a commander like him, this was a living death. We tore up the house, built ramps right over the stairs, smashed door frames wider for his chair. We assigned certain staff just to handle his daily needs.

[00:48:58]Those gardens became his heaven and his hell.

[00:49:03]We still wheeled the master outside daily.

[00:49:07]We pushed him to precise lookout points across the grounds, spots where the paved paths were flat enough to lock his brakes. Every single clear morning, he ordered us to push him up to the highest garden ridge. From up there, he glared down the terraces at the mansion, out toward the Crystal Springs Reservoir, his personal reservoir, his own corporate empire. The sprawling valley he ruled for decades. He could see everything.

[00:49:35]He just couldn't march across it anymore. The madam hardened into her new role.

[00:49:42]She always pushed the estate forward, but now she commanded the entire operation. She briefed us gardeners directly.

[00:49:50]She directed the expensive plantings.

[00:49:52]She ran the household crew. She also stayed right by his side. 40 years of marriage tested hard. She watched him build an absolute empire. Now she watched him slowly fade. But the boss wasn't quitting yet. He ordered massive mukross murals painted in the ballroom.

[00:50:12]Giant paintings showing off his daughter's Irish lands. If his legs wouldn't reach Ireland, he'd drag Ireland right into Phileoli. He kept running his heavy business deals, at least the parts we could handle remotely. Executives drove up here for secret meetings.

[00:50:30]He studied financial reports, handed down orders, but his body kept failing.

[00:50:36]Stick with me here. More minor strokes hit him, each stealing another piece. In the end, Agnes became his eyes and legs.

[00:50:46]Let me tell you what it was like. The mistress walked those paths daily, reporting back, checking our work. Which flowers bloomed, how we trim the hedges, ensuring we met the master's strict standards. She completely took over the estate's heavy social calendar, too. The master couldn't handle massive crowds now. Instead, she brought in smaller, quiet groups. We served tea during musical afternoons and garden parties, letting guests admire what he had built.

[00:51:16]By then, our estate gardens were famous across the county. Fancy garden clubs from San Francisco constantly begged for tours. The mistress filtered them strictly. We only escorted select groups guarding the family's privacy. She fiercely protected his legacy while the master sat confined to his wheelchair, unable to walk it. By the mid 1920s, Mr. Bourne's fragile condition finally stabilized, but at a severely diminished capacity. He sat. He gave us orders. We pushed his chair to the viewing terraces, knowing he'd never walk those stones again. Our whole staff routine revolved around him. Morning rolls out to the main garden viewpoint. Afternoon rest hours, then evenings stationed in the Grand Library. It depended on if she was hosting.

[00:52:10]A tycoon who once ran empires now relied entirely on us. He couldn't cross a hallway unless I or another footman pushed him. He couldn't even stroll his own prized gardens.

[00:52:24]He couldn't sail to Ireland to see his daughter. All the master could do was watch. Watch our planting mature. Watch the mistress command the estate. Watch his massive business empire run without him taking charge. In 1929, I recall the telegram arriving at 72 and trapped in his chair. He heard his only child died of Manhattan pneumonia. way too frail to reach New York. He missed her funeral entirely.

[00:52:56]The mistress [music] went alone. We readied the Pholi grounds when she brought Ma's body back. After that, the master just [music] broke. He started liquidating his massive holdings. We heard the Empire Mine sold. Talks for the water company sped up.

[00:53:15]San Francisco bought it next year for $41 million. He was packing up his life.

[00:53:21]The mistress knew it. She had spent eight grueling years watching the man slowly waste away. That first stroke didn't take him, but we knew it started a slow clock nobody could stop. Every single morning, we still pushed his chair to the overlook. He would just sit there staring down at our gardens and the vast valley stretching out beyond, thinking whatever heavy thoughts a fallen titan thinks near the end. Later, the mistress would find him. We left them to sit together in total silence.

[00:53:54]49 years married. From what we saw, most of it was good. But this final decade was brutal. At 73, she just looked deeply, thoroughly exhausted.

[00:54:06]Come January 1936, the mistress got sick. US staff never got the exact medical details. Whisper said pneumonia or heart failure. At 75, her fragile body finally just surrendered. She passed on January 20th, leaving the master completely isolated in this massive house. His daughter rested outside. His wife of 54 years was dead.

[00:54:34]A frail 78-year-old man, stuck in that chair, trapped inside a 56- room mansion he couldn't even navigate alone. He lasted six hollow months without her. On July 5th, 1936, the old master finally passed away. Doctors listed the cause as complications from years of paralysis and those brutal recurring strokes. We buried him in the estate's private cemetery right there next to Agnes and Ma. Walk back there today and you'll see four born family graves. The master, Agnes, Miss Ma, and the infant boy lost in 1882.

[00:55:15]We staff even relocated the little one's remains here from the original grave site. The estate the master built to reclaim his youth became their final resting place.

[00:55:26]Chapter 8. Let me walk you through the end. We put Phyoli on the market in 1937.

[00:55:34]We had no direct heirs left to serve.

[00:55:37]Miss Ma passed without giving Arthur any children. The master siblings already had their own private households and families. None of the surviving borns wanted to shoulder a 654 acre property with our massive upkeep costs. We knew this massive compound required a very specific buyer, someone rich enough to handle the deed, plus the massive wages to keep us running. A master who respected our work and would keep the grounds perfectly pristine. We never heard the final price. Deals this huge were locked down tight behind closed doors. Plenty of rich prospects toured our halls.

[00:56:17]You and I know running this giant estate costs a fortune. Most ran away. Too quiet. Even just 30 m outside San Francisco. Then one couple saw our true potential. Mr. William P. Roth and his wife Lerene toured the Grand Halls in 1937.

[00:56:37]We knew the madam was Captain Matson's daughter, the man who built Matson Navigation Company. His massive fleet ran those famous white luxury liners straight between San Francisco and Hawaii. When the captain died back in 1917, he left behind the strongest maritime shipping empire crossing the Pacific. The madam inherited a staggering fortune. Her husband, we called him Mr. Bill took command as president of Matson Navigation.

[00:57:06]Together, they brought fresh California money into our halls. They already held a beautiful city residence right up in San Francisco. But our estate was entirely different. Mrs. Roth stared at our gardens and saw greatness. She was a brilliant gardener herself, commanding deep knowledge of plants and design. We staff already kept those 16 acres of formal gardens looking absolutely spectacular, but she planned to push our boundaries further.

[00:57:38]Mr. Bill just wanted a tactical country retreat, a quiet base to dodge those exhausting city parties. Our house was grand enough for royal banquetss, yet locked down tight enough for pure privacy. They brought three children along. The teenage twin girls, Lerene and Bernice, arrived in 1937.

[00:57:59]Plus, young William, 21 years old. The whole family planned to use our grounds for grand reunions. The Roth family officially bought Foli later that year.

[00:58:10]They moved their trunks in and took command. Honestly, the shift in power felt completely respectful. Stick with me here. The madam truly respected the Bourne's work and refused to bulldoze their legacy. She wanted to elevate our grounds. The old masters had auctioned off most antique furniture before handing us over. But our stunning architectural bones survived.

[00:58:35]I still polished that grand reception staircase daily alongside the oak dining room and the painted Mukross ballroom.

[00:58:43]The mistress slowly loaded our empty halls with proper vintage luxury. She hired decorators to make our massive rooms feel like a warm home, not a sterile museum. But her true obsession remained out in the dirt. Miss Isabella War still patrolled our paths in 1937, barking orders at the planting crews.

[00:59:04]Even at 68, that fierce woman held decades of tactical experience landscaping for California's absolute richest elite. Our new madam asked Miss Bella to keep command.

[00:59:17]I watched those two women forge a truly ironclad alliance. Miss Bella demanded absolute perfection and she would utterly destroy any employer who dared micromanage our grounds. But Madame Lerene knew the soil. She commanded design.

[00:59:36]She deferred to Miss Bella's expertise.

[00:59:40]Together, they pushed our borders past Mr. Bourne's original vision. The madam demanded a wider botanical arsenal. Her primary targets were chameleas, thick roodendrrons and striking aelas species that could conquer the peninsula climate and deploy yearround color. We focused heavily on the woodland garden sector.

[01:00:03]Our new deployments built deep layers of seasonal tactical interest. We positioned shade loving species beneath the grand oaks. Her objective was elevating the estate's untamed zones to match our formal manicured grounds.

[01:00:18]Madame Lerene also ordered a swimming pool. Nothing modest. She wanted a massive installation capable of hosting the entire family and visiting dignitaries. We completed that pool in 1946.

[01:00:34]Its exact coordinates required absolute precision. It had to camouflage seamlessly into our landscape. Never feeling forced upon the existing terrain, Miss Bella engineered the pavilion and its botanical perimeter, she ordered our crew to uproot and relocate massive Irish U's, shifting fully grown timber to build a living barricade around the water. The logistics of this were brutal.

[01:01:01]Hauling ancient U's without executing them took pure grit, but we won. When the dust settled, that pool looked like it had been there since day one.

[01:01:12]Stick with me here. By the late 1950s, Mr. Roth's health failed. Like Mr. Bourne, the master suffered a stroke. We had constructed that water facility partly for his physical recovery. The water offered therapy, but Mr. Roth passed in 1963.

[01:01:32]Madam became a widow at 70.

[01:01:36]She held the line at Foli alone, commanding the property with her usual iron discipline. I still saw her digging in the dirt alongside us. She permitted a few strategic social events. We lost Miss Bella back in 1950, meaning the madam took direct command of all our botanical operations. She called in outside contractors sometimes, but she knew every inch of this dirt. She tracked exactly what sprouted where and why.

[01:02:07]Fast forward to the 1970s. Madam was in her 80s. The grounds demanded endless labor. The mansion required modernizing.

[01:02:17]Our troops worked the gardens continuously.

[01:02:21]You and I know the question. Every master of a historic property ultimately hits. What happens next?

[01:02:28]Surrendering the land to developers who might carve it up or neglect our life's work was absolutely out of the question.

[01:02:36]She had poured 40 years of sweat into Foli. She knew its true weight. Not merely our private legacy, but the living history of California. Only one Allied outfit could secure this perimeter permanently. The National Trust for Historic Preservation. Madam initiated communications with the trust in the early 1970s. Could they assume command? Would they garrison it as a protected historic landmark? Would civilians be allowed inside? The organization took the bait. Our estate was the exact sort of California stronghold they were founded to protect.

[01:03:14]An unreached early 20th century compound broadcasting a crucial narrative about American power and high society. The diplomacy dragged on. The trust had to confirm they had the capital for our constant upkeep. Madam had to guarantee they wouldn't destroy the masterpiece she and the Bors had forged. In 1975, Madame Lerene Matson Roth surrendered the entire Foli property right to the National Trust for historic preservation.

[01:03:44]Her transfer secured the manor, our gardens, and surrounding acreage. You see, she even deployed a massive endowment to fund our daily operations.

[01:03:54]Madam's logic was plain. She told us, "This place is just too grand to keep hidden. By year's end, we were opening our doors to strangers."

[01:04:05]Outsiders finally walked the pristine gardens our old master born, Mr. Porter, and Miss Warren crafted back in 1917.

[01:04:14]They marveled at the grand halls Mr. Poke built.

[01:04:18]They witnessed firsthand what true guilded age fortunes commanded. Madame Lerene relocated down the road, watching her beloved estate thrive under public eyes. Guests poured in, honoring the history she fought to protect. A mansion built for one master and polished by one devoted woman was now something vastly bigger than us all. Now it belonged to everyone.

[01:04:46]But let me tell you what happened right before the crowds arrived. Before the endless tours, Hollywood arrived straight at our front door. Chapter 9.

[01:04:55]Paradise on screen. In 1978, a massive film crew stormed our quiet grounds. Mr. Warren Batty was shooting Heaven Can Wait, some comedy picture about a dead athlete coming back to life inside a completely different man's body. His picture needed a backdrop dripping with pure unmatched wealth. A house so flawless you could actually mistake it for heaven. Their scouts chose us. They actually turned our grand ballroom into Mr. Batty's workout room. Our manicured lawns framed perfect sweeping outdoor shots. The hedges I pruned gave them the exact timeless elegance their script demanded. This wasn't some small project.

[01:05:40]>> [music] >> It was a massive studio picture. When it premiered, millions admired our home without knowing its true name. To them, [music] it was just the finest historic property ever put on film. The picture made a fortune and snagged nine Academy Award nominations.

[01:05:58]Suddenly, our quiet estate was famous around the entire globe.

[01:06:02]But honestly, that was just a warm-up for the storm. In 1981, ABC television launched Dynasty, a massive nighttime drama following the rich Carrington clan and their sprawling oil business out in Denver, Colorado.

[01:06:19]The producers needed dramatic footage to represent the Carrington family compound. They wanted pure intimidating power, so they hired helicopters to film us from the sky above. You might remember how every single episode began.

[01:06:35]Cameras diving down over our spectacular roofs, sweeping past the hedges and the old brick. The absolute peak of luxury.

[01:06:44]Though those actors never stepped foot inside our halls, they faked all the inside rooms down in Los Angeles.

[01:06:52]But those outside walls were ours, and Dynasty exploded into a sensation.

[01:06:59]20 million folks tuned in weekly. It ran for nine solid years right up to 1989.

[01:07:06]Nearly 200 hours of television.

[01:07:12]That meant our home flashed across millions of screens night after night all over the world. Strange for us to watch. They claimed it was Denver. They called it the Carrington estate, but sharpeyed folks saw right through the trick. The local garden clubs knew. The architects knew. Our neighbors definitely knew. We became famous without most folks even knowing our real name. That TV fame brought real changes.

[01:07:42]You can imagine what happened next.

[01:07:44]Every fan wanted to see the real mansion. International travelers, especially from Asia, poured through our gates daily. The show was huge overseas.

[01:07:55]Our new managers played that spotlight perfectly.

[01:07:59]We staff never explicitly advertised the estate as the Dynasty mansion, but we certainly didn't hide it. The hired guides always mentioned the connection.

[01:08:10]Our shop subtly referenced the show.

[01:08:12]Other film crews soon followed. I watched the Joy Luck Club shoot scenes here in 1993. Television productions constantly used our grounds. Adverts captured our gardens, but Dynasty remained the estate's primary cultural shadow. For an entire generation, our workplace was simply that house from Dynasty, even if they never knew its true title. The founding masters were long dead by then. Mr. William and Miss Agnes rested here, completely hidden from the tourists eyes. Miss Man lay beside them. Back then, we never spoke of their tragic history to the public.

[01:08:52]Madame Lerene Roth passed in 1985, 10 years after signing away our estate. The mistress survived long enough to watch our home become a public attraction, but missed its grandest fame. The National Trust managed our historic home as a nonprofit organization.

[01:09:10]Volunteers guided the tours. Garden clubs managed the seasonal plantings.

[01:09:16]Educational programs marched school children through our halls to study history and horiculture. By the 2000s, hundreds of thousands of annual visitors flooded our gates. Our gardens remained absolutely spectacular.

[01:09:32]We staff maintained the ruthless standards Miss Isabella War would have demanded. We gradually filled the manor's empty rooms with proper historical pieces. Old friends of the Bournes and Roths donated many items. We carefully preserved and restored the grand ballroom Mukross murals. The grand dining hall looked almost exactly as it had during Mr. Williams reign. In 2023, our quiet estate made international news again for entirely different reasons.

[01:10:03]American President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xiinping required a secure location. They wanted an informal summit ground during the APEC conference over in San Francisco. They needed somewhere strictly private, highly secure, and undeniably impressive. To project strength for both nations, they selected our estate. Picture this with me. On November 15th, 2023, the two most powerful global leaders met at Mr. Bourne's estate. They walked the very gardens Mr. William had mapped out. They negotiated inside rooms Mr. Willis Pulk built. Their summit triggered massive global media coverage. Global news broadcasts beamed images of our private gardens everywhere. Tactical diplomatic analysts debated the significance of our quiet estate. Chinese media watched closely. You see, our estate was already legendary among their tourists from those old dynasty days.

[01:11:04]That Biden she summit represented an unexpected tactical pivot. Our private manor was built by a ruthless water baron who perished 90 years prior. Now it served as neutral ground for highstakes international diplomacy. From Mr. Bourne's private sanctuary to Hollywood film set to diplomatic fortress, our home lived multiple lives.

[01:11:28]But we survived because Madame Roth made one crucial tactical decision in 1975.

[01:11:35]She could have sold our home, divided the land, or let it become something else. Instead, she surrendered it entirely.

[01:11:44]Too beautiful to be private. Believe me, those five words saved us. Chapter 10.

[01:11:52]Phi forever. Today, our estate manages over 400,000 visiting civilians annually. These guests travel from all around the globe.

[01:12:03]From China, where that dynasty broadcast made us famous, and across America, where elite garden enthusiasts know our legendary reputation.

[01:12:12]From San Francisco, where local families deploy repeatedly to witness our shifting seasonal changes. Our gardens bloom year round. In spring, 75,000 planted bulbs erupt into brilliant color. Countless daffodils, bright tulips, and hyasins.

[01:12:31]In summer, I watch roses explode across our walled garden while zenas flood the beds. Autumn hits, bringing sharp chrysanthemums and changing leaves.

[01:12:44]Come winter, pale chameleas bloom out in my woodland. My crew plants exactly by the old photographs and spoken memories.

[01:12:53]We keep Isabella War's old vision alive, just like Roth demanded. Out here, the grounds feel frozen in time, yet completely alive beneath our callous hands. Today, you and I are exploring this grand museum, but that word barely scratches the surface. This is no dusty relic.

[01:13:15]It is a massive gilded age estate surviving perfectly intact.

[01:13:20]Most mansions from our era got torn apart or flattened down the peninsula.

[01:13:25]The Crocker estate and coal mansion used to stand tall. Those mansions were carved up, bulldozed, or turned into something completely different. After World War II ended, the social order shifted hard. Running these massive properties suddenly felt too expensive and awkward. We survived purely through blind luck and timing.

[01:13:48]The deed pass from the Bournes to the Roths straight to the trust, dodging developers entirely. All 654 acres held firm. That makes us extremely rare. Our estate stands alone. Nothing else like it remains. It shows exactly how the California elite lived. You can still pace through every grand hallway. I polished the ballroom's mukross murals and dust the heavy oak paneling in the dining room. The reception space hasn't changed since Agnes Bourne welcomed her wealthy guests. Downstairs, our kitchen hides the heavy machinery keeping their parties elegant. The butler's pantry exposes my team's invisible labor. Our cramped quarters down the hall prove what built their luxury. Let's face facts together. We never hide our dark history. Today, they finally admit this luxury ran entirely on low-wage servants. Mr. Bourne's water monopoly choked the working class in San Francisco. That all this California wealth came from quiet exploitation, not just genius. Still, our daily sweat preserves a harsh beauty that would fade otherwise. Bruce Porter's original garden layout still stands perfectly firm. Willis Pulk's heavy stone details haven't shifted an inch. The precise dream William and Agnes Bourne demanded is still clear as day. Our property sits on Earth belonging to the Ramush Aloney people long before any white settlers arrived. Lately, the big bosses started admitting this bloody past. The center works with real Aloney descendants to share a painfully complete historical truth. The massive San Andreas fault cuts straight beneath my boots. I cross a small timber bridge on the nature trail. It marks exactly where I step from the North American plate to the Pacific one. The exact fracture that leveled San Francisco in 1906 runs underneath our roses. Mr. Bourne built the house anyway. He knew the heavy risks. California was always dangerous earthquake territory.

[01:16:02]You pour concrete carefully and accept the danger. My team never stops working.

[01:16:08]16 acres of pristine greenery won't weed themselves. The manor demands endless repair. These old properties demand blood.

[01:16:18]You and I both know old money takes work. Now the trust keeps our gates open constantly. Nowadays, ticket fees and visitor donations pay for our daily upkeep. Madame Roth left a fund, but it hardly covers everything. It creates a rather strange dynamic.

[01:16:38]The master's fortress built on massive riches now survives on the pennies of everyday folk. Mr. Bourne would turn in his grave seeing the public rule. Here we watch thousands of school children track in mud to study our history and gardens. Garden clubs inspect what we planted.

[01:16:58]Students sketch the holes we scrub.

[01:17:02]Scholars dig into the master's pasts.

[01:17:05]Then that 2023 summit brought a fresh wave of prying eyes. Global news crews broadcasted our quiet estate to the whole wide world. Folks who recognized our halls from that dynasty television show arrived in massive droves. That summit proved our grounds still matter today. We aren't just polishing a dead museum.

[01:17:30]Real power still gathers here. We set up chairs for grand garden weddings weekly.

[01:17:36]Corporate suits rent out our lawns.

[01:17:40]I hear concerts in the ballroom where Madame Agnes played. We keep the estate breathing, never frozen. We tend four quiet graves in a private cemetery out back.

[01:17:52]The master, his wife Agnes, Miss Ma, and a baby boy lost back in 1882.

[01:17:59]Walk with me a moment. The tourists never see these stones, but we watch over them. A reminder that this was their home.

[01:18:09]That flesh and blood masters lived, suffered, and died right here. Mr. Bourne built these walls to find his lost youth. Instead, we watched his bloodline end right as his true legacy was taking root. His fortress outlasted him by 90 years already. We will keep it standing through the next century. This historical trust means our children will maintain the very stones the master laid down. Would the master approve of commoners tramping through? We will never know. He demanded strict privacy.

[01:18:43]We guarded those gates fiercely.

[01:18:46]400,000 strangers tracking dirt through his pristine gardens would have made him sick. But the master is gone. Madame Agnes and Miss Ma, too. Even Madame Roth passed on. Yet, we still make these gardens bloom exactly as originally designed. Music still echoes through the grand ballroom occasionally. The master's private reservoir still sparkles out in the distance. We are still here because Madame Roth understood a truth the old master missed back in 1917.

[01:19:20]Some treasures are too beautiful to hoard.

[01:19:24]Certain estates belong to the public, no matter what the arrogant lords intended.

[01:19:29]The master built this place on pure gold and towering ego. It survives because one lady handed us the keys to share.

[01:19:38]That is the true legacy. You and I know it wasn't the gold or the ghosts, but the choice to open the gates. Now, hundreds of thousands march through the old man's private dream annually. They see his sweeping views. They tread upon his polished floors.

[01:19:57]They stand exactly where I pushed his wheelchair, staring down at the blooms and the vast valley beyond. His massive empire crumbled. That Spring Valley Water Company dried up decades ago. The Empire Mine finally closed in 1956.

[01:20:14]The wealth vanished, but our gardens still bloom. The manor still stands. The vision persists. That is what we protect from the guilded age. We servants never cared about his money or power. Just the beauty, that's enough. I used to wheel Mr. Bourne II up to the highest garden terrace. He'd stare at the massive house and the valley he ruled. He never guessed what his estate would become. He built this place as a private fortress.

[01:20:46]A quiet sanctuary where San Francisco's rich friends could hide from the city, a massive monument to his own success, a gift for his wife, a bridge to his faraway daughter. We buried the master out in the garden in 1936 alongside his kin. Then the Roth family took over. We started a completely new chapter. Mrs. Roth pushed the garden borders further.

[01:21:12]She kept us working for 40 years. Then she shocked the entire staff. She gave the whole property away. Now it stands as the last complete guilded age mansion left on the peninsula. Every other grand house was chopped up, smashed down, or ruined. Only our estate survived intact.

[01:21:32]The exact gardens Mr. Porter designed.

[01:21:35]And Miss Warren made us plants still bloom perfectly to their vision. The massive house Mr. Pulk designed still shows off his brilliant twist on California architecture. 400,000 strangers visit us yearly.

[01:21:50]They admire gorgeous grounds bought with extreme wealth now saved for the public.

[01:21:56]They walk the rooms where we serve the master's wealthy guests. They gaze at the giant murals we dusted, painted because the master couldn't travel. You and I know the truth, though. They see elite California history. But our story isn't simple. Mr. Bourne built his massive fortune hoarding the city's water, a brutal monopoly that squeezed the poor. His gold mine funded this mansion, paying men dirt wages to work in deadly, dark tunnels.

[01:22:26]And this elegant lifestyle, it relied entirely on US staff sweating through 14-hour shifts. But this place preserves irreplaceable beauty.

[01:22:38]Incredible gardens we spent decades growing.

[01:22:42]Flawless brick work built by master craftsman. His grand vision absolutely worked. The Bourne family is long dead.

[01:22:51]Their old money scattered.

[01:22:53]Their companies were sold off. But this house stands because Mrs. Roth figured something out. Some things are just too stunning to hoard.

[01:23:04]We kept the gates locked tight back then. The master demanded absolute privacy. The master would despise seeing commoners tramping through his rose beds. Good thing he is gone. All that remains of his powerful empire is this property. And now it belongs to the public. This estate survives, altered but perfectly intact.

[01:23:28]We still prune the paths. The big house stands firm. It's the final echo of that golden era. Not the massive monopolies, not the fortunes, the gardens.

[01:23:40]Walk these gravel paths today and you will step exactly where I pushed the master's chair. You will see the ballroom where the Ms played piano.

[01:23:49]You'll stand where Mrs. Roth fought for decades saving our work. You will not see their graves.

[01:23:57]We keep those hidden, but you and I know why this estate matters. Why our work was worth saving.

[01:24:06]Why massive crowds still flock here annually to see the gardens and mansion built by a ruthless water baron who died almost 90 years ago. Because true beauty outlives dirty money. Because places mean much more than the master intended.

[01:24:23]Because sometimes the beautiful things we build with our hands outlast the masters who ordered them. This house is too beautiful to stay private. Mrs. Roth was right.