David Laws (February 25, 2019)

“Green Gables is one of the last remaining turn of the century, San Francisco summer estates. This 74-acre estate located in the most coveted portion of Woodside, California has 7 homes [29 beds, 25 full baths], 3 swimming pools, a reservoir, barn and stables and world-renowned gardens and lands. … This is literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own what is arguably one of the finest estates in the country right in the heart of the Silicon Valley.”

This real estate listing, mind-boggling even by Silicon Valley standards, is for Green Gables the country home and garden that Charles Sumner Greene designed for the prominent San Francisco Fleishhacker family beginning in 1911. Greene worked on the house and gardens located on the eastern slope of the foothills in the town of Woodside for 25 years. Notable landscape features include a swimming pool (1916) and a formal water garden (1927) that has been described as "one of the finest Arts & Crafts-era gardens in the country."

The water garden is reached down a steep stone stairway leading to a 300-foot long reflecting pool against a backdrop of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The south end of the pool is defined by a row of arched stone columns in the style of a Roman aqueduct. Greene also designed other structures and dozens of flower pots and urns placed throughout the gardens. In 2015.

The Gamble House website published an article by CGLHS board member Ann Scheid, “An English house, an Italian garden, on the San Francisco Peninsula” that includes a detailed description of the house and garden.  [1]    

In 2004, the Fleishhacker family donated an easement to the Garden Conservancy to protect the historically significant garden and architectural landscape. Current CGLHS board member, Antonia Adezio, founding executive director/president of the Conservancy, headed up the San Francisco office at that time.  

The current listing [2] does not quote a price, but an article in the San Jose newspaper The Mercury News of 2/25/19 says that it is “expected to fetch at least $140 million.” To describe the property with the old real estate cliché as offering a million-dollar view, would vastly understate the opportunity.

[1] “An English house, an Italian garden, on the San Francisco Peninsula” The Gamble House (June 3, 2015)

[2] “Unparalleled Silicon Valley Estate” Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty