Kohl Mansion
The nuns heard footsteps. After the Sisters of Mercy purchased the mansion in 1924, they reported unexplained phenomena: a white starchy powder appearing throughout the house, lights and elevators switching on and off by themselves, heavy footsteps echoing from the upper rooms. In 1927, they brought in priests for a blessing. Whether the spirits departed is a matter of faith, but the building itself has proven stubbornly immortal, surviving a century of reinvention from Gilded Age country house to silent film set to convent to high school to wedding venue.
Freddie Kohl's Country Palace
The English Tudor Revival mansion was built in 1914 for Charles Frederick "Freddie" Kohl and his second wife Mary Elisabeth "Bessie" Godey. Freddie had taken over the family business after his father William's death in 1893, gaining access to the Kohl shipping and banking fortune. The estate at 2750 Adeline Drive in Burlingame was a showpiece: rolling landscaped grounds, a sunken English rose garden, tennis courts, greenhouses, a large carriage house, and a 150,000-gallon water reservoir. William Kohl had built a different mansion with the same name on a 16-acre estate in what is now Central Park in San Mateo, but that first Kohl Mansion is long gone. Freddie's version endured.
Hollywood, the Klan, and the Haunting
In 1921, the mansion's owner rented it to United Artists for the filming of Little Lord Fauntleroy, a silent film. The estate's grounds and interiors provided a convincing backdrop for the movie's English aristocratic setting. When the mansion was subsequently sold to the Sisters of Mercy for $230,000 -- significantly below its market value -- a new chapter began, and a darker one. In 1925, the Ku Klux Klan, active in its anti-Catholic campaigning, burned a cross on a hill above the convent. The nuns endured both human hostility and whatever was causing the mysterious disturbances inside. Their solution was characteristically practical: they blessed the house, then got on with their work.
From Convent to Classroom to Celebration
In 1931, the Sisters of Mercy converted the mansion into Mercy High School, and the following year they built a separate convent on the grounds. The transformation from private luxury to institutional purpose gave the building a new lease on life. The mansion was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 for both its architectural significance and its social and cultural importance to the area. Today, Kohl Mansion is open to the public for events and has become one of the San Francisco Peninsula's premier wedding venues. The rose gardens bloom as they did when Freddie Kohl walked them. The carriage house still stands. The Tudor Revival details -- half-timbering, steep gabled roofs, leaded windows -- remain intact. Whether the ghosts remain is a question the venue's marketing materials wisely leave unanswered.
From the Air
Located at 37.58°N, 122.38°W at 2750 Adeline Drive in Burlingame. The estate grounds are visible as a landscaped parcel amid the residential grid. San Francisco International (KSFO) is approximately 3 nm to the north. Interstate 280 runs to the west, and US-101 and the bay are to the east. Best viewed at 1,500-2,500 ft AGL.