In 1850 William B. Bourn arrived in San Francisco and in 1869 opened the Empire Gold Mine of Grass Valley in the Sierra Nevada foothills. It provided Bourn and his family great wealth.
William Bourn II was born in San Francisco on May 31, 1857. He was educated at University School in San Francisco and trained under his father to learn about the mining business. When Bourn Sr. was found dead in the bathroom of his Nob Hill home in 1874, the San Francisco Chronicle[1] reported that he had committed suicide due to mismanagement of his money. His wife requested a second inquest, including the exhumation of her husband’s body. This second inquest ruled his death accidental. William Bourn II traveled to England to complete his education at Cambridge, but he returned to San Francisco in 1878 without completing his degree when his mother informed him that their estate was depleted. 21-year old Bourn raised new capital and assumed management of the Empire Mine. By expanding the mine he was able to find new veins.
In 1881 Bourn married Agnes Moody. They had two children: a son who died a day after birth and a daughter. In 1896 Bourn hired architect Willis Polk[2] to design a home at 2550 Webster in Pacific Heights. It is a gorgeous clinker-brick mansion with 14 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, 14 fireplaces and a second floor ballroom sporting a 2-story stained glass window.
In 1905 Bourn became president of the San Francisco Gas Company where he orchestrated a merger with California Electric Company to become Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). In 1908 he acquired controlling interest and became president of the Spring Valley Water Company, a privately-owned company that supplied San Francisco’s water. He was seen as a thief and scoundrel for his outrageous water rates. By this time Bourn was the wealthiest man in San Francisco, if not the world. Bourn would ultimately sell Spring Valley Water Company to the City of San Francisco in 1929.
In 1915 Bourn hired Willis Polk to design a country estate in San Mateo County that he named Filoli, today a historic museum and garden. Bourn suffered a stroke in 1922 which left him in a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. He died on July 5, 1936 at the age of 79 at Filoli and was buried there with his wife, son and daughter, all of whom had died before him.
The Empire Mine would remain active until 1956 when it was turned into a state park. At the time of its closing it was the oldest, largest, deepest, longest and richest gold mine in California with 367 miles of underground passages.
In 1973 Arden Van Upp and Lawrence Badgley bought the Bourn Mansion in Pacific Heights and moved in. They began throwing lavish parties and entertained celebrities including the Rolling Stones, the Pointer Sisters and Stevie Wonder. But two years later Van Upp and Badgely had a falling out and Badgely moved out. Badgley wanted Van Upp to sell her share to him but she refused, and the ensuing legal battle would last 23 years: one of the longest running civil cases in City history. Van Upp remained in the house with her Persian cats, renting out rooms and allowing Swedish Erotica to shoot porn films there. In 1992, when a judge finally ruled in Badgely’s favor, the Bourn Mansion was deemed uninhabitable with an overwhelming smell of cat urine, crumbling walls, broken skylights and loose slate roofing. It remained vacant until it was finally sold at auction in 2010. In 2012 it underwent a major restoration, including seismic retrofitting, and is currently a private residence.
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[1] San Francisco Chronicle: story coming January 16th [2] Willis Polk: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=5219
