The Lost Mansion

The magnificent mansion that graced the estate met it's unfortunate demise in the great geologic event known as the 1906 earthquake, in addition to shake damage, a water tower crashed into the mansion. The splendid home was never reoccupied. The family found it more practical to remodel one of the two gate houses and take up living there. (One gate house survives today at the Menlo Park Civic Center as the National Registered Landmark building which is being used to support various community affairs.) Although an old hand drawn Stanford University map shows the general location of the Hopkins mansion between Middlefield Road and the railroad tracks, and an oblique drawing of Menlo Park also confirms this, it is uncertain as to the exact location of the magnificent house or where historical artifacts might yet be found. The Menlo Park Historic Society has some turn of the century exterior photographs of the house and its grounds and USGS Library has a latter day aerial photo 1929 of the general lay of the land (minus the house) that may guide future excavations. (The aerial photo gives clear evidence that the land USGS now occupies was then heavily grazed pasture. A couple of barn-like horticultural structures and a tall water towers appear to be nested within some oak trees in the area which appears to have become the USGS Middlefield lawn and the Menlo-McCandless office park.)

What was salvageable from the earthquake damaged mansion was reclaimed or sold off. Furnishings, artwork, and chunks of the mansion itself were sold at auction by Butterfield & Butterfield, with a lot of the big pieces going to Universal Studios in Hollywood. Pieces of the mansion were incorporated into back-lot sets of Universal and furnishings used as decorations and props in movies. The rest of the remains mansion was razed circa 1942/1943 so the U.S. Army could build an immense hospital complex to service the burned and wounded of the Pacific Theater of war.

Hopkins had firmly established an agricultural dynasty with the "Sherwood Hall Nursery" here (later called the Sunset Feed and Plant Company) which produced internationally acclaimed Parma violets, chrysanthemums, hay, grain, poultry, eggs, dried fruit and other farm goods from 25 huge glass greenhouses, 9000 apricot and prune trees! Tall water towers stood as sentinels useful to locals for geographic references. (Aerial photos taken in 1929 give clear evidence that the land USGS now occupies was then heavily grazed pasture. A couple of barn-like horticultural structures and a tall water tower appear to be nested within some Oak trees in the area of which appears to have become the USGS Middlefield lawn and the Menlo-McCandless office park).

Back to index