De Guine Estate finally sells at dramatic discount

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Maria
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De Guine Estate finally sells at dramatic discount

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http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2017/ ... -discount/

Image

That would have made a lovely convent or monastery. Gone are those days.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.

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Barbara
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Re: De Guine Estate finally sells at dramatic discount

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What a nice idea ! In the old days, the family would have donated the property for such use.
Now all they think about is themselves, originally making the demand for a life tenancy for Christian IV --- while the new owner pays the full amount of maintenance on the property, a mere $ 450,000 each year the 75 year old mogul lives !

I remember driving along Crystal Springs Road, as I am sure many others have done.
I didn't realize it was such a nice area as this ! The estates are mostly back from the street, like this one in the picture. So one can't really see in so well.

I would like to know more about the De Guigne family as it's a French name.

As for the failed marriage of Christian IV to the coffee heiress, Vaughn Hills of Hills Brothers, that just confirms that coffee brings ruin wherever it goes. I dare say that the heiress of a tea company would have been a better choice..>!

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Barbara
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Re: De Guine Estate finally sells at dramatic discount

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Family background of this property follows, revealing high drama in various of the de Guigne generations :

"Count Christian de Guigne, born of French nobility, came to California in 1879 and was soon engaged to Mary Katherine Parrott. While not European nobility, she was as close as you could get in San Francisco back then. Her father, John Parrott, was a Gold Rush pioneer who amassed a mega-fortune through banking and landholdings, quicksilver mining, and ranching....

While Count de Guigne kept up his 16th-century estate in France—known as Chateau Senejac—he and Mary Katherine eventually settled on the Peninsula at a great estate paid for by the Parrotts.... Using investments from his father-in-law, the count established the Stauffer Chemical Company and cofounded the Leslie Salt Company, further expanding the family's fortune. She died in 1902 and he eventually moved back to France in the 1930s, but they had one son, Christian II.... Eventually he married the daughter of a senator, and they had one son, Christian III. Christian II and his wife were the ones who had SF starchitects Bliss & Faville (of St. Francis Hotel, Oakland Public Library, 400 California Street, Flood Mansion, and Richmond Library fame) design Guigne Court in 1916 on another portion of the estate. (Some reports, however, say Christian I had it built for them as a wedding present.)

The 16,000-square-foot Guigne Court was designed with seven bedrooms, eight and a half bathrooms, a ballroom, a flower-arranging room, a servants' wing with four maids' rooms and two chauffeurs' rooms. Landscape starchitect Thomas Church later designed the pool and pavilion.

The couple had a nasty divorce; in 1927 Christian II died of a "mystery" illness. Christian III, then in his early 20s, inherited the estate and threw himself a giant welcome-home ball after traveling the world. In 1936 he married Eleanor Christenson, who came from wealthy Peninsula stock herself and was a veritable force on the San Francisco social scene. Often referred to as the grand dame of the Bay Area, she was listed in 1982 among the most powerful women in the world and as one of world's 10 best-dressed women....

No California woman possessed a finer or more vast accumulation of fashionable fur pieces, her most notable having been a set of exceedingly rare platina (silver) foxes—one of the few sets known to exist."

https://sf.curbed.com/2014/9/22/1004528 ... mega-manse

-- Isn't this interesting about the way Platina was chosen above ? Maybe this property was destined to become a monastic retreat center close both to the City and SFO, the airport. Monks could rest from international flights at this lovely enclave.

--I assume the use of "starchitect" is a new term to connote a star architect.

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