The 100 Year Old Kohl Mansion, with a view of the San Francisco Bay and the Burlingame hills, has had many identities from sophisticated to sacred, always with a touch of mystery. Born in 1863 in San Jose, Charles Frederick Kohl grew up in another mansion on an estate in San Mateo, now known as Central Park. His father William Kohl had made his fortune as a founder of the Alaska Commercial Company, and the son was accustomed to an opulent and fashionable life style. After Frederick married Mary Elizabeth Godey (Bessie) in 1904 and the two had traveled to Europe, they built the mansion they named “The Oaks” in what is now Burlingame between 1912 and 1914.

The four-story Tudor became the site of lavish parties the couple gave for the “smart set,” and the Great Hall’s fluted wood paneling set off Bessie’s singing. The changes in the Great Hall over the years reflect life in the building around it. The Hall became the chapel for the Sisters of Mercy who bought the house in 1924 for use as motherhouse and novitiate. When the sisters moved down the hill to a new building, Mercy High School opened in the mansion in 1932. The hall with its soaring ceiling was transformed into an assembly hall for students, offering reverberant acoustics for plays and choral performances. The high school opened the building to the public in 1982, offering it for rent for parties, weddings and celebrations. Music at Kohl Mansion has brought chamber music to the Great Hall’s intimate setting beginning in 1984.

Written by: Liz Dossa, Sister Marilyn Gouailhardou, RSM and Catherine Wilkinson

Frederick and Bessie Kohl were central members of the “Smart Set” in San Francisco during the first years of the century. They entertained at their San Mateo estate and also at a summer home they had purchased from the Crockers in what is now Tahoe Pines called Idelwilde and on their yacht there.

The Kohls had their Burlingame red brick mansion designed by local architects Howard and White to resemble Somerset House, seat of the Duke of Surrey in England. The first floor was made for entertaining in its light filled dining room and in the Great Hall patterned after Arlington Hall in Essex, England– a perfect setting for Bessie’s singing. The mansion’s 63 rooms included, beside the public rooms and the bedrooms, a billiard room, organ and echo organ rooms; a china room, a scullery; cold room and store room; two steel-lined fireproof vaults; sewing, linen, cedar and brushing rooms; a wine cellar; a trunk room and a laundry. A chapel was built off the master bedroom on the second floor for Bessie, who was a Catholic.

Written by: Liz Dossa, Sister Marilyn Gouailhardou, RSM and Catherine Wilkinson

The impressive Great Hall (27’x60’x40’H) takes the visitor’s breath away with the height of its ceiling and the elegance of its dark oak walls. Sunlight pours in through the wall of mullioned windows. The Hall housed both an Aeolian organ and a small echo organ installed hidden behind the oak walls. The mantle of its imposing Belgian marble fireplace large enough to stand in is decorated with choir boys holding music sheets.

The large painting of a knight on horseback above the fireplace is by artist Emile Mazy. He included a portrait of his daughter Lucia who entered the Sisters of Mercy in October 1915. Later, when the mansion became the Mercy Motherhouse, Lucia, now Sister Mary Genevieve, could see herself in the painting. (d. 12/8/70)

In the main stairwell of the mansion hangs a charming oil painting of Freddie at about the age of three (app. 1866). His face and his haircut are all boy, however his off the shoulder gown, usual for a fashionable young child at that time, surprises our modern eyes.

Written by: Liz Dossa, Sister Marilyn Gouailhardou, RSM and Catherine Wilkinson

The house has many careful architectural details. The ancient oak trees surrounding the house are reflected in the oak leaves and acorns carved into the wood, especially in the entry and the library. The Kohls brought artisans from Europe to do plaster detailing. They created Pompeiian “grotesque” panels in the Library, Robert Adam-style relief work in the dining room, and also ram’s heads in the corners of the billiard room ceiling. The sisters had these shaved off as inappropriate for a convent when they bought the mansion in 1924. Plaster experts restored the ram’s heads after the ’89 earthquake.

Written by: Liz Dossa, Sister Marilyn Gouailhardou, RSM and Catherine Wilkinson

Frederick had left his mansion to Marion Louderback Lord who wanted only to sell it. The 1924 real estate booklet described the property: “On a sheltered eminence, half-hidden by its guardian trees, is the Kohl residence – a dignified manor house, typical of the Tudor days, mature and venerable as its surroundings. “The seasoned reds of the old brick walls, the mullioned windows in their settings of stone, the rambling gables, the slated roofs – all blend in mellow harmony with the patriarch oaks, the well-kept lawns, the broad terraces, the comely parterres, and the quaint tiled walks of the summer rose-garden.”

During that time the mansion was used for exterior shots for the Mary Pickford silent movie “Little Lord Fauntleroy.”

Written by: Liz Dossa, Sister Marilyn Gouailhardou, RSM and Catherine Wilkinson