Kohl Mansion, also known as The Oaks, was built in 1914 and is located at 2750 Adeline Drive in Burlingame,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

for its architecture and social and cultural significance to the local area in 1982. The Kohl Mansion is open to the public for events and is used for weddings.

History

Architecture and the estate

The English Tudor revival mansion was built for Charles Frederick Kohl and his second wife Mary Elisabeth "Bessie" (née Godey), as their country house. The building was completed in 1914 by architect George H. Howard (1864–1935) and engineer John White, of the Howard and White firm. The forty-acre estate included a brick structure with a

gabled roof A gable roof is a roof consisting of two sections whose upper horizontal edges meet to form its ridge. The most common roof shape in cold or temperate climates, it is constructed of rafters, roof trusses or purlins. The pitch of a gable roof ca ...

and approximately 42,000 square feet of interior space, 63 rooms, three stories tall and with a basement. The grounds of the estate included a rolling landscape, a sunken English rose garden, tennis courts, green houses, large

carriage house A carriage house, also called a remise or coach house, is an outbuilding which was originally built to house horse-drawn carriages and the related tack. In Great Britain the farm building was called a cart shed. These typically were open ...

, and a 150,000 gallon water reservoir.

Kohl family

Charles Frederick Kohl's father was William Kohl, he had made his fortunes as a founding partner of the Alaska Commercial Company. William Kohl had built a different mansion and 16-acre estate with the same name, in what is now

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...

in San Mateo, however the first Kohl Mansion is no longer standing. Charles Frederick "Freddie" Kohl took over the family business after his father's death in 1893, which gave him access to fortunes. Charles Fredrick's first wife was Elizabeth Dunlop, they were married from 1896 until her death in 1900. His second wife was Mary Elisabeth "Bessie" (née Godey), they were married in 1904. In 1909, a scandal destroyed the Kohl family. Adele Verge had been recently hired as a maid, and while the family was traveling she had a physical altercation with the chauffeur. Kohl had Verge arrested and had her psychiatrically evaluated. Verge sued Kohl for slander, false arrest and imprisonment. In 1911, there was a very public trial, which favored Kohl. Verge shot Kohl outside of the courthouse, and the bullet was lodged in his chest. Doctors were unable to remove the bullet and this injury cause Kohl both mental and physically impairment. Verge was deported back to her home country of France and committed to a mental institution, where she expressed wanting vengeance. When the Kohl's moved into the Kohl Mansion in 1914, Charles Fredrick was dealing with depression, acting more paranoid, and jealous of his wife. By 1916, the Kohl family separated, the house was left with caretakers and Charles Fredrick moving to San Francisco into the Saint Francis Hotel and Bessie moving to Europe to work with

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and ...

to entertain

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

troops. As a result, the house was unused for many years. Charles Fredrick committed suicide in 1921 after acting paranoid upon hearing Verge had been released from the French mental asylum. He willed the mansion and $5.5 million to his mistress, Marion Louderback Lord. In 1921, Lord rented the mansion to

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stud ...

for filming of ''

Little Lord Fauntleroy ''Little Lord Fauntleroy'' is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was published as a serial in ''St. Nicholas Magazine'' from November 1885 to October 1886, then as a book by Scribner's (the publisher of ''St. Nicholas'') in 1886. The ill ...

'' the silent film. Lord sold the mansion to the Sisters of Mercy for $230,000, significantly less than its worth at the time.

Sisters of Mercy

In 1924, the

Sisters of Mercy The Sisters of Mercy is a religious institute of Catholic women founded in 1831 in Dublin, Ireland, by Catherine McAuley. As of 2019, the institute had about 6200 sisters worldwide, organized into a number of independent congregations. They a ...

religious order bought the mansion to use as a

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglic ...

. In 1925, the Ku Klux Klan, a group known for their anti-Catholicism stance, burned a cross on a hill above the convent. Many of the nuns reported unexplained activities like a white starchy powder appearing throughout the house. Lights and elevators powered on and off by themselves. They often heard the sounds of loud footsteps in the upper rooms and there was speculation of ghosts. In 1927, a blessing of the house was conducted by nuns and priests. By 1932, they built a new convent on the grounds and in 1931 they converted the mansion into Mercy High School.

References

External links