One of the great architectural masterpieces in America
Carolands is a California Historic Landmark, and it's on the National Register of Historic Places. It was even considered for a Western White House in 1939 and during the Kennedy administration.
According to the book: "Carolands was abandoned and neglected for many years, but through its recent restoration, it looks today much as it did when it was built -- making it a rarity among the houses of its class and era."
Its history is filled with dreams of grandeur, disappointments and brushes with destruction.
Around 1912, Harriett Pullman Carolan, heiress to the Pullman railroad-car fortune and a leader of the San Francisco social scene, decided to build a grand estate on more than 500 acres that she and her husband, Frank, owned in Hillsborough.
Carolan, one of the wealthiest women in the nation, commissioned celebrated French architect Ernest Sanson to design the more than 65,000-square-foot house, landscape designer Achille Duchêne to design the grounds and San Francisco architect Willis Polk to supervise construction.
Sanson's design reportedly was inspired by, but not a copy of, Vaux le Vicomte, a French 17th century chateau that was said to be the prototype for the Palace of Versailles.
Together with his wife and son, the Buljan Group has grown as a commanding force in the local real estate realm over the years selling every major landmark property in the community.