Located thirty miles south of San Francisco on the eastern slope of the Coast Range, the 654-acre Filoli estate contains as its central portion a historic house and sixteen acres of formal garden. The house was occupied from 1917 to 1936 as a private residence for its original owners, William Bowers Bourn II and his wife, Agnes Moody Bourn. In 1937 the property was sold to Mr. and Mrs. William P. Roth, who continued to maintain and enrich the estate. Mrs. Roth donated Filoli to the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1975.

Filoli was built for Mr. and Mrs. Bourn, prominent San Franciscans whose chief source of wealth was the Empire Mine, a hard-rock gold mine in Grass Valley, California. Mr. Bourn was also owner and president of the Spring Valley Water Company comprising Crystal Springs Lake and surrounding lands, which are now part of the San Francisco Water Department. Mr. Bourn selected the southern end of Crystal Springs Lake as the site for his estate.

He arrived at the unusual name Filoli by combining the first two letters from the key words of his credo:

“Fight for a just cause; Love your fellow man; Live a good life.”

Mr. Bourn chose his longtime friend, the prominent San Francisco architect Willis Polk, as the principal designer for the house. Polk had previously designed the Bourns’ cottage in Grass Valley, as well as their home on Webster Street in San Francisco. An inventive architect, Polk frequently combined several styles in the design of a single building, an eclecticism clearly evident in Filoli’s design.