January/February 2013 Issue - Filoli

Mr. and Mrs. Roth learned of Filoli as a UN site
from the newspapers. San Mateo Times and
Daily News
While the site committee continued to visit
different locales, Mayor Lapham was busy
with his San Francisco counter-offensive. It
paid off in the fall of 1946 when a worn-out
site committee finally acknowledged that the
Westchester County site wasn’t going to
happen and asked that proposals once again
be submitted. San Francisco was ready.
On November 12, 1946, the San Mateo
Times went to press with the headline “Filoli
Estate Site May Be Home of UN.” The
next day Mayor Lapham presented three
proposed sites in the area for consideration:
two in San Mateo County, including the city
land at the south end of Crystal Springs
Lake, a site on Skyline drive and another
site near St. Mary’s College in the East Bay.
The Crystal Springs site was a three-squaremile
site that the mayor promised could be
expanded to include Filoli. This would be a
gift to the United Nations.
That Filoli was included in the gift was news
to the Roths, who learned about it when
Mr. Roth read it in the evening paper. When
contacted by the press, “He indicated that
the property would be available to the United
Nations should the site be chosen, but said it
would be given reluctantly.”
Just how reluctantly Mrs. Roth recalled
in her oral history, “Well, naturally we were
against it. You didn’t want to be put out of
your home! Roger [Lapham] said he’d help
us all he could, if we’d let him have the
luncheon here.” When she was asked was
there community opposition to Filoli being
the site, she said, “No, the hue and cry was
from Lurline and Bill! I really cried! I couldn’t
stand the thought.”
The reconstituted site committee, made up
of representatives from fourteen countries
including the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the
Netherlands, Australia, China and Yugoslavia
was now under the leadership of Dr. Eduardo
Zuleta Angel, former ambassador to the United
States from Colombia. They made an initial
stop to view a Philadelphia site accompanied
by architects, engineers and geologists.
Rare photo of the delegation visiting the Crystal Springs site of the Pulgas Water
Temple. San Francisco History Center
John D. Rockefeller III (right) handing over the check for the
New York site to UN Secretary General Trygve Lie.
United Nations
The delegation flew on to San Francisco on
November 21. After a sixteen-hour flight, the
plane deliberately circled the proposed sites,
which were beautiful in the bright sunlight. By
then, the East Bay site had been eliminated
for reasons that weren’t announced. The
delegates got off the plane and were whisked
to the St. Francis Hotel to be welcomed by
local dignitaries and given a detailed briefing
that included the addition of a new site, the
Presidio, within the city itself. Maps, charts
and photographs were at the ready. By the
end of the meeting, two Bay Area sites had
been selected-- the Crystal Springs site and
the Presidio.
The site committee immediately set out for
the Presidio for a visit. They were favorably
impressed, but the uncertain availability of
the military site and the certainty that there
would be local opposition among San
Francisco residents, had them favorably
disposed toward San Mateo County. Such
was the discussion at the end of the first day
at a cocktail party for the delegation at the
Pacific Union Club.
The next morning a cavalcade of twenty cars
left the St. Francis and headed south for
its first stop, the Pulgas Water Temple. The
weather had proved predictably changeable
and was now threatening rain, which began
once they reached the temple. When they reentered
their cars, a faint sun broke through.
San Francisco Mayor Roger
Lapham worked tirelessly to
bring the UN to the Bay Area.
Every time they stopped to get out, it poured.
It was a soggy party that arrived at Filoli
where Mrs. Roth, as usual, had prepared for
a gracious occasion. Mrs. Roth recalled, “I
wasn’t even invited to the luncheon. I was
supposed to be out of sight.”
The San Mateo Times recorded it in detail.
“Arriving at the sumptuous Filoli estate in a
20-car entourage after a drive through the
rain, the delegates were the guests of Mr. and
Mrs. William P. Roth at a buffet luncheon.”
“Cocktails were served in the large reception
room, followed by lunch in the mansion’s
ballroom. The luxurious Filoli mansion
furnished an admirable background for
the conference. All of the warm hospitality
of the famed estate was extended to the
delegates. The exquisitely decorated buffet
groaned under the weight of turkeys, hams,
fish, various sauces and tropical foods….
Autumnal centerpieces in silver urns struck a
bright note of yellow leaves, red berries, and
deep pink azaleas, at each of the tables.”
“During the brief period of relaxation, following
luncheon, [State Attorney General Robert]
Kenny matched wits with [Soviet delegate
Ivan] Bassov in a chess game. Cheered on
by a group of onlooking delegates, each
maneuvered the other’s gold and silver
chessmen into difficult positions until Bassov
gained the final checkmate.”
Continued on next page—
5 January and February 2013, Filoli Highlights