Beth Sarim — the name means 'House of Princes' in Hebrew — was built in 1929 on Braeburn Road in the Kensington Heights neighborhood of San Diego. It was a ten-bedroom Mediterranean-style mansion with substantial grounds, and it was purchased and constructed by the Watch Tower Society, the organization behind the Jehovah's Witnesses.

The purpose of Beth Sarim was unlike that of any other house: it was built to receive a specific group of residents who had not yet arrived — and who, according to the theology of the organization's leadership at the time, were expected to be resurrected from the dead and would need somewhere to live when they returned. Abraham. Moses. David. Isaiah. Samuel. These were the 'princes' the house was named for. The deed to the property was written to hold it 'in perpetual trust' for their arrival.

While the resurrected princes waited to claim their quarters, the house had a more earthly occupant. Joseph Franklin Rutherford — known as 'Judge Rutherford,' the leader of the Watch Tower Society — used Beth Sarim as his winter residence in the warmer months, spending extended periods at the San Diego property for health reasons. He had a lung condition that made the dry California climate preferable to the New York winters.

Rutherford died at Beth Sarim on January 8, 1942. His death at the property created an irony that observers noted at the time: the house that was meant to receive immortal biblical princes first witnessed the death of the man who arranged for it to be built. He was initially buried on the grounds, though his remains were later moved.

The property continued to be held by the Watch Tower Society for several years after Rutherford's death.

The legal document that held Beth Sarim in trust for resurrected biblical princes was not a metaphor or a symbol. It was an actual recorded deed, held in the county records of San Diego, designating the property for the use of 'David and other princes.' This was the physical expression of a doctrinal belief that Rutherford and the Watch Tower Society taught publicly during the late 1920s and 1930s — that the resurrection of ancient biblical figures was imminent, that they would return to earth before the coming of God's kingdom.

When those prophecies did not come to pass within the predicted timeframe, the organization eventually moved away from the specific dates and claims that had defined the Beth Sarim period. The property was sold in 1948.

Beth Sarim still stands in Kensington Heights. After the Watch Tower Society sold it in 1948, it passed into private hands and has been maintained as a private residence. The house is listed as California Historical Landmark No. 474 — a designation that acknowledges its unusual place in religious and local history without necessarily endorsing the beliefs that produced it.

The property sits quietly in a residential neighborhood, visible from the street but not otherwise marked in any obvious way. Neighbors pass it. People live nearby without necessarily knowing the story of what the house was built for.

Beth Sarim is a curious artifact: a building whose purpose was entirely theological, whose intended residents never arrived, and whose main lasting resident was the man who planned for the others. It reflects a moment in American religious history when a major organization staked material resources on specific prophetic claims — and then had to find a way to move forward when those claims did not unfold as predicted.