I hope you researched Jefferson better than you did William Bowers Bourn II, but it doesn't appear so. What little you mention with connection to the house on Webster Street is inaccurate. Bourne attended Cambridge University. It was not in connection to his father's death but the bottoming out of the Empire Gold Mine in Grass Valley that Bourne returned to SF Bourne traveled quite a lot in England and Europe during that time. You might visit his house Filoli sometime in Woodside and learn some real facts about Bourne. By the way, the original front door of the Webster Street house is in the garden at Filoli. (408) 526-4952 170 W. Tasman Drive San Jose, CA 95134
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Helen M. Robison
What I wrote about Bourne was taken from numerous articles written about him. I realize that it is possible that all these articles are wrong and that they just copied each other.
Could you please tell me your source? Also, I note that you spell his name Bourn. Can you give me a source for that. Bourne seems to have been a very important man, but little information is available about him.
Sam Sloan
I apologize if I was being antagonistic in my email; I was curious to see what other web sites there might be on Willis Polk and Bourne so I came across your web site. It just so happens that I'm also very interested in Jefferson ... I used to live in Virginia and go often to Williamsburg for the history forum. At any rate, I'm a docent in training at Filoli and so very much in the learning process. There's a very recent book on Bourne called Last Bonanza Kings : The Bourns of San Francisco by Ferol Egan that you may be very interested in since you own his SF house. Gosh, I'm certain that the docents at Filoli (I certainly would!) would be very interested in viewing the Webster St. house.
I note from your photograph some architectural similarities that Polk used like the twin chimneys joined by an arch. It's my understanding that the house is made out of clinker brick which was a very low grade inexpensive kind of brick until Polk used it in the Webster St. house and then it became very much the vogue. No doubt you already know that the house was one of few that the rich of S.F. owned that survived the S.F. 1906 earthquake. But it was the earthquake that began the exodus of the rich to build their great estates down the peninsula rather than rebuilding in S.F. As another source there's the literature published in somewhat manuscript form by Timmy Gallagher called _Filoli_ that is available at Filoli. The Filoli website is http://www.filoli.org.
Bourne apparently was quite a character in owning the Spring Valley Water company which supplied water to S.F., the S.F. Gas company which at one time was located very near your house, and the Empire Gold Mine which Bourne was very instrumental in continuing until they found an even richer vein after the first bottomed out. Bourne also had a house in Grass Valley near the Empire Mines which was also designed by Polk. At any rate, you've got a very cool house. Our curator is Tom Rogers. I'm sure he could provide you with more information. Sorry if my typing is in error: the last name is Bourne. The family originally came to American in 1630 to New England with the Winthrop colonization.
Helen