1937, Union Square, San Francisco Hearst Building: alterations
3rd and Market Sts., San Francisco
Julia Morgan
Morgan's commercial commissions for the Hearsts included a major remodeling of the San Francisco Hearst Building in 1937, which entailed adding a spacious marble lobby and a decorative façade, along with improvements in office space and a radio broadcasting studio. She also built radio transmitting-and-receiving stations for the Hearst Globe Wireless Company. Two of these "news-forwarding stations" were near San Francisco-at Bayshore, Redwood City, and at Cahill Ridge, San Mateo.(Boutelle 1988: 234, 261).
1939, Northern California, Else Schilling house
Bow Bay, Lake Tahoe
Julia Morgan
After a prolonged motor trip through Bavaria and Austria with her sister, Emma, Morgan returned home in 1932 with an increased interest in the architecture of that region. One house in that style was built for Else Schilling, a friend of Morgan's from the time Schilling had served on the board of the YWCA in San Francisco. Like her father, August Schilling, she was Morgan's client for an apartment building in that city in the late 1930s and possibly for a cottage on the family estate in Woodside as well. She also wanted a summerhouse on Lake Tahoe, on wooded lakefront property at Bow Bay. She showed Morgan some paintings of houses in the part of the Tirolean Mountains between Bavaria and Austria where her family had originated, and these became the inspiration for her summerhouse (1939).
Its steeply pitched roof echoes the shape of nearby trees and mountains. The Lake Tahoe side of the building is primarily glazed, with a sheltered patio for outdoor dining in summer. Downstairs there are commodious paneled public rooms for entertaining and for service; the second floor consists mainly of two rooms and a bath, plus maid's quarters. The large living room with stone floors, massive fireplace, and high ceiling with open truss work recalls an Austrian hunting lodge, and the shutters and interior friezes are decorated with some romanticized Austrian hunting scenes painted by Doris Day.
Near the house, on part of Schilling's 400 feet of lakeshore property, are a wooden tent floor and a separate guest cottage. When young nieces and nephews came to visit, they were delighted to stay in the tent, while other guests were put up in the cottage, an arrangement that recalls the pattern set at Asilomar and carried on in more lavish style at San Simeon and Wyntoon (the arrangement may have derived from Adirondack lodges of the nineteenth century).
Else Schilling's place was a special kind of house built for a woman with pronounced tastes, and Morgan achieved a romantic, fairy-tale atmosphere while keeping the design simple, functional, and suited to the surrounding woods and mountain lake (Boutelle 1988: 160, 162, 261).
1940, Northern California, Drs. Charles and Emma Wightman Pope house
2981 Franciscan Way, Carmel
Julia Morgan
In 1940 Morgan built a retirement cottage in Carmel for two married physicians who had been at the university with her as undergraduates. The Doctors Pope owned a lot overlooking the Carmel Mission, and here Morgan placed a horizontal cottage of redwood, composed largely of windows and a glazed doorway, with rich plantings protecting its privacy. Overhanging eaves provide shelter form the strong sun. Corner windows and double casements make it light and airy, while ingenious built-in furniture helps make it easy to care for. Bleached redwood interiors throughout carry out the feeling of lightness, while the open ceiling construction, with beams going the length of the living room, gives a sense of spaciousness. The brick fireplace has bleached redwood trim and mantel. When she built this house, Morgan was staying at her own studio-cottage in Monterey, and she walked to Carmel and back to supervise the construction, saying that she "needed the practice in walking" after a bout of labyrinthitis (Boutelle 1988: 143-44, 261).
1941, Golden Gate Park, Medieval Museum for San Francisco
San Francisco
Julia Morgan
Morgan's most important commission of the 1940s was the one perhaps dearest to her: the proposed Medieval Museum for San Francisco. This final unfinished project, which began at Hearst's behest, was the adaptation into a museum of part of a Spanish monastery, Santa Maria de Ovila, that he had bought and then had dismantled and shipped to a warehouse in San Francisco in 1931. It must be remembered that the revolutionary situation in Spain during the early 1930s meant that all buildings that had belonged to the Church were threatened and many were converted into houses and barns or demolished in order to make use of the stone for other buildings. It is easy to understand, therefore, that collectors such as Hearst and dealers such as Morgan's old friend Arthur Byne, who recommended that Hearst buy the monastery, were eager to save these buildings as works of art.
After Maybeck and Morgan's plans for a genuine castle at Wyntoon-which would have incorporated the monastery's refectory and most of its stones-had to be dropped for lack of funds, Morgan convinced Hearst that he should make a gift of the stones and her plan to the city of San Francisco. This would enable them to have a medieval museum that would ultimately surpass in its authenticity and in its collection the recently constructed Cloisters branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Morgan drew up sheaves of plans, the city government welcomed the gift, and a Golden Gate Park site was selected.
(Note 9: Drawings and many documents connected with the Medieval Museum, along with models and photographs, are in the archives of the de Young Museum, San Francisco, catalogued by Margaret Burke.) A model was carefully constructed under Morgan's watchful eyes by Cecilia Bancroft Graham, a sculptor whose work had been a feature of the 1939 Golden Gate Exposition at Treasure Island (It was this exposition that named Morgan "California's Most Distinguished Woman Architect.")
Although Morgan was in her seventies, she was determined to build a museum that would be a source of pride for her city. The San Francisco Chronicle of May 22, 1941, published a sketch of the way it would look. Architect and Engineer ran an article in the July 1944 issue entitled "From Spain to California-Ancient Monastery to Rise Again." In readiness for construction the stones, each carefully numbered and crated with excelsior packing, were moved to the park, near the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum.
Yet the museum was never built. Fires in 1941 and 1942, thought to be the result of arson, burned the crates holding the stones. Morgan and Steilberg relabeled the stones, but three more fires seriously harmed some of them, while others were scattered or used for the Japanese Tea House garden. After all the fires the enthusiasm of the city government cooled, especially as it was under pressure to save Golden Gate Park from what parts of the community considered encroachment by the museum. The 34-foot-high Gothic portal was set up in the de Young Museum in 1965, and the model by Graham is still in storage there, along with all the plans and correspondence, though it is most unlikely any use will ever be made of them (Boutelle 1988: 238-39, 261).
A small Butte County religious community has acquired the remains of a 12th century Spanish monastery that newspaper czar William Randolph Hearst shipped from Europe in 1930 and which has lain in a tumble of rubble in Golden Gate Park for more than half a century.
The religious group, Cistercian monks who run a 600-acre prune and walnut ranch north of Chico, plan to reassemble part of the medieval structure if they can figure out which stones go where.
The director of the de Young Museum, which received the stones after Hearst decided he couldn't rebuild the monastery at the family's Northern California estate, said Thursday that after failing for half a century to erect the structure it was time to unload a pile of old limestone that had become a "white elephant."
It is the latest, and maybe last, chapter in the strange history of the Monastery of Santa Maria de Oliva, which evolved from a place of worship to a pile of stones that may now, finally, revert to some part of its original sum.
The story began in 1185 on a hilltop above the Tagus River in Spain, 80 miles northeast of Madrid, when members of the Cistercian order, a reformist offshoot of the Benedictine order, began building a monastery. The structure was largely completed by the end of the 13th century.
In September 1930, Arthur Byne, an authority on Spanish architecture, happened upon the abandoned monastery, which was being used as a barn. He reported back to his boss, Hearst, who was in one of his legendary acquisitive moods. Hearst decided to buy the sprawling structure, ship it to Siskiyou County and erect it at the family estate at Wyntoon on the McCloud River.
It took eight months to take the monastery apart. Each stone was numbered, cataloged and recorded on a master floor plan. The huge limestone blocks were carried down a hillside by mule, ferried across the Tagus and hauled to Madrid by ox cart and narrow-gauge railway. There, the stones were loaded into crates and sent to the port city of Valencia. Eleven ships carried the stones to the United States. The project cost Hearst about $1 million.
But once he had his big pile of rocks, Hearst found out that he wouldn't be able to find enough skilled masons to turn them back into a monastery at Wyntoon. So in 1941 he donated the stones to the museum in Golden Gate Park, where they sat and sat and sat - first in a warehouse, then behind the Japanese Tea Garden.
Excited newspaper accounts told of the majesty of the structure that was soon to rise in the park. But World War II intervened, delaying construction. Then a series of fires damaged many of the stones and burned off most of the reference numbers written upon them, transforming them into the world's most complex and expensive jigsaw puzzle. Some of the stones were used in the Braille garden at the Strybing Arboretum, around Stow Lake and even in the de Young's private parking lot.
Occasionally during the past several decades, studies looked into how much it would cost to rebuild the monastery or part of it. The studies agreed on one detail: The project would be costly. Finally, Museum Director Harry Parker decided to either "fish or cut bait." "We've had 75 years to put the monastery back together and we couldn't get it done," Parker conceded Thursday.
The museum offered the stones to various local nonprofit agencies, including the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco and The City's Recreation and Park Department. No one had the dough to rebuild the only part of the monastery that experts were confident could be reconstructed to accurate historical detail - the complex's chapter house.
"The most important thing from a historical and artistic perspective is they get the chapter house rebuilt," Parker said.
Parker had been approached by the Abbey of New Clairvaux in Vina, a small agricultural community outside of Chico. The brothers were interested in rebuilding the chapter house --used traditionally as a gathering spot for members of an abbey--and the museum trustees, following a transfer resolution in the city administrative code, decided to let them have the rocks. From New Clairvaux, Brother Paul talked about the semi trucks that had brought at least 10 loads of stones to the quiet property where the members grow prunes and walnuts.
The brothers are using donations to pay for transporting and rebuilding the chapter house. Brother Paul said the group was excited about the possibility of having a chunk of their history on the land, but a bit concerned about their agreement to allow the public to view the chapter house three days a week.
"We're not all totally in agreement about that prospect," Brother Paul admitted, "but it's pretty tough to get 30 guys to agree to anything."
Under the agreement with the museum, the brothers have 10 years to build the chapter house, or else the museum can come and get their rocks back. But Thursday, it didn't sound as though Parker was too eager to get the stones back. "Talk about a white elephant," he said. "I hope they can get it done." (Marine, Craig. Friday, July 14, 1995. Monks to restore Hearst relic. San Francisco Examiner, Page A)
Chronology of the Stones: From Trillo to Vina-Ancient Cistercian Chapter House of Santa Maria de Ovila to Rise Again
1185-end of 1200s: Members of the Cistercian order, a reformist offshoot of the Benedictine order, built the Monastery or Abbey of Santa Maria de Ovila on a hilltop near the village of Trillo above the Tagus River in Spain, 80-90 miles northeast of Madrid.
September, 1930: Julia Morgan's long time friend Arthur Byne, an authority on Spanish architecture, happened upon the abandoned monastery, which was being used as a barn owing to the revolutionary situation in Spain that threatened all buildings that had belonged to the Church. Upon Byne's recommendation, William Randolph Hearst purchased parts of the Abbey, including the entire Chapter House, for almost $100,000. His intention was to ship the sprawling structure to Siskiyou County and reassemble it at Wyntoon, the family estate on the McCloud River near Mount Shasta, where architects Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan's plans were to incorporate the monastery's refectory and most of its stones into a genuine medieval castle.
1931: Julia Morgan's engineer, Walter Steilberg, went to Spain to oversee the operation. It took a hundred men eight months to dismantle the monastery (refectory, chapter house, chapel, treasury, sacristy, cloisters) and prepare it for shipment to the U.S. Each stone was numbered, cataloged and recorded on a master floor plan. The huge limestone blocks were carried down a hillside by mule, ferried across the Tagus, and hauled to Madrid by ox cart and narrow-gauge railway. There, the stones were loaded into crates and sent to the port city of Valencia. Eleven to thirteen ships carried the stones to the United States. From New York they were brought by rail to Oakland, ferried across the Bay and stored in the Haslett warehouse (now the Argonaut Hotel) at Hyde and Jefferson Streets for 8 or 9 years. The project cost Hearst about $1 million.
1941: Financial problems during the Depression, caused a change in the plan to reassemble the stones as part of Wyntoon, and Morgan convinced Hearst that he should make a gift of the stones and her plan to the city of San Francisco. This would enable them to have a medieval museum that would ultimately surpass in its authenticity and in its collection the recently constructed Cloisters branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Accordingly, Hearst donated the stones to the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, where they were stored behind the Japanese Tea Gardens.
But World War II intervened, delaying construction. Fires in 1941 and 1942, thought to be the result of arson, burned the crates holding the stones and effaced most of the reference numbers written upon them. Frieda Klussmann, savior of San Francisco's cable cars, was an outspoken critic of the Medieval Museum project. "We want the park without buildings," she declared. Morgan and Steilberg relabeled the stones, but three more fires seriously harmed some of them. Morgan's drawings and many of the documents connected with the Medieval Museum--including photographs and a model carefully constructed under Morgan's watchful eyes by sculptor Cecilia Bancroft Graham--were catalogued by Margaret Burke and remained in the archives of the de Young Museum in San Francisco.
Hundreds, if not thousands of the stones were unceremoniously dumped in piles on and around Monarch Bear Grove upon Monarch Bear Hill, which, over the years, became a wilderness of embedded stones and vegetation after the Bear Enclosures on the hill (designed by architect Willis Polk in 1902) were removed in the 1920's after the Monarch Bear died in 1917. Other lots of the stones were used around Stow Lake and the Japanese Tea House garden, in the private parking lot at the de Young Museum, and at the Strybing Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, where they were used to build the crescent-shaped beds for the aromatic Garden of Fragrance, designed for the blind with labels in Braille. The 34-foot-high Gothic portal from the monastery was set up in the de Young Museum in 1965.
About 1980: Art historian Dr. Margaret Burke, an expert in medieval architecture, surveyed the stones that had survived the vandalism and the fires; she revealed that the Chapter House could be reconstructed to accurate historical detail, even though the identifying numbers on the stones were gone. The de Young offered the stones to various local nonprofit agencies, including the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco and The City's Recreation and Park Department, but no one had sufficient funds to carry out such a project.
1992: Druid Chief Dr. Rodney Karr began his stewardship of Monarch Bear Hill, going there twice weekly, cleaning and maintaining the space, and telling people about the Monarch Bear, the sacred stones, and the history of Golden Gate Park. Many San Franciscans began to worship and meditate with the stones in Monarch Bear Grove, one of only five remaining ancient oak groves that predate the city, and the coming of European peoples to America. Recognizing the importance of preserving this ancient native Oak Grove, Golden Gate Park gardeners have recently removed the non-native pine and eucalyptus trees that were threatening the grove. They also planted many native California plants to help restore and preserve the natural ecology of the grove.
Mid 1990s: The Cistercian Monks of New Clairvaux in Vina, California conceived the idea of rebuilding the Chapter House at their small agricultural community north of Chico in Butte County, some three hours northeast of San Francisco.
1994: The abbey of New Clairvaux acquired the Chapter House stones through an amicable agreement with the City of San Francisco. A transfer resolution in the city administrative code allowed that the stones might be trucked to the Abbey's 600-acre prune and walnut ranch in Vina, on the condition that the brotherhood reconstruct the original Chapter House and open it to the public. Father Thomas began research and fundraising for the Chapter House Rebuilding project at the Monastery of New Clairvoux.
When the stones were being removed from Monarch Bear Hill, Druid Chief Rodney Karr contacted Abbott Thomas to inform him that many San Franciscans came there to worship and meditate with the stones. Until that time, Abbott Thomas and Officials from the De Young and Golden Gate Park were unaware that many San Franciscans were using Monarch Bear Hill and the grove and the stones as a temple.
Abbott Thomas and the Park and City Officials responded with support and empathy when Supervisor Tom Ammiano and Assemblywoman Carol Migden informed them how important Monarch Bear Hill and the sacred stones were to people in the community. As a result, Abbott Thomas agreed that many of the stones from the Chapter House should remain on Monarch Bear Hill in order to support its continuance as a sacred place within San Francisco.
October, 1994: Abbott Thomas met with Druid Chief Karr at Monarch Bear Hill, where hundreds of the stones had been loaded on palettes and lay ready to begin their 3 hour journey to Vina, California. Abbott Thomas blessed the sacred stones that would remain in Golden Gate Park, and Dr. Karr blessed the stones about to leave on their journey north, to the Abbey of New Clairvaux in Vina.
July, 1995: "We've had 75 years to put the monastery back together and we couldn't get it done," Museum Director Harry Parker conceded. Under the agreement, the New Clairvaux brotherhood was given 10 years to build the Chapter House. "The most important thing from a historical and artistic perspective is they get the Chapter House rebuilt," Parker said.
Spring, 2003: The groundbreaking celebration held and foundation for the Chapter House laid at the Abbey of New Clairvaux in Vina, California.
