“At El Bulito Cañon I caught a glimpse of the handsome large house of a local cattle-baron. Gleaming white among noble oaks, it had much the air of a French chateau until I reflected that it was probably built of one-inch plank, or perhaps cardboard. Cañon followed cañon, breaking in the rounded hills of yellowing grass that rose in long succession to the west…”
So wrote J. Smeaton Chase, the naturalist and adventurer who set out in 1911 to take a horseback ride from Mexico to Oregon along the California coast. He was referring in this passage to the house built by Jim and Lottie Hollister in 1910, their attempt to create a sense of elegance in the wilderness of what is now Hollister Ranch. It was designed by Bliss and Faville, the top architect firm in San Francisco, constructed of redwood brought in by train.
The house still stands, used today for meetings and community gatherings, and I have been inside many times. On October 23, 2016, I had the honor of walking through it with Jim and Lottie’s grandson, John Hollister Wheelwright (1934–2025), who had lived there as a boy and was visiting from his home in Point Reyes. Maybe we all have dreams of going back to our childhood home, of walking through its rooms, encountering the lingering ghosts. I felt that I was following someone as he traveled back in time, a touching journey into the childhood of a self-described 19th century man…