Rancho Cienega de Los Paicines
Hollister, San Benito County, California
Built in 1912, for A. Kingsley Macomber (1877-1955) and his wife, the oil heiress Myrtle Harkness (1883-1962). Their 15,000-square foot home was designed by architect Frank Delos Wolfe and was modelled after a house they had seen in Nice, in the South of France. Its 20-rooms included an indoor pool, "with an arched roof of bronze screening and a gold dome". The grounds encompassed a golf course and a 12-car garage. The 8,900-acre ranch was the center of their extensive cattle-breeding operation and thoroughbred racehorse farm of 150 horses in which Myrtle took an active role, having spent several years working with her father's horses in Kentucky....
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"King" Macomber was well-known as a polo player and he put his skill in the saddle to further use here by hunting coyote on horseback with a pack of greyhounds! After World War One, they switched their base from here to Poissy in France to devote more time to racehorses and big trophy racing. In 1927, they sold the ranch to Walter Murphy, of Chicago. In the late 1930s, he leant the ranch to his friend Jimmy Roosevelt who spent a year here recuperating from an illness. After Murphy died, it was bought by Bob Law.
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Contributed by Mark Meredith on 23/05/2020 and last updated on 09/04/2021.
East of the Gabilans: The Ranches, the Towns, the People - Yesterday and Today (1981), by Marjorie Pierce
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