McDonald Mansion

McDonald Mansion While Edgehill puts on its finishing touches, the McDonald Mansion in Santa Rosa also nears completion of its own restoration, a more complicated undertaking in many ways because of the house’s history of additions and piecemeal restorations (as well as a significant fire in the 1970s that wiped away much of the original structure). Nicknamed “Mableton,” the McDonald Mansion was built in 1879 by Colonel Mark L. McDonald, a Kentucky native, and his wife Ralphine North McDonald, who used the Southern-influenced estate as a summer home from San Francisco, where McDonald served on the San Francisco Stock Exchange. He soon became prominently involved in Santa Rosa, where he bought 160 acres of land to subdivide, known as the “McDonald’s Addition.” Before long, McDonald Avenue became, much as it is today, the premier street in the area, with the McDonald Mansion serving as a showcase and beacon to others wanting their own grand estates. During his time here, McDonald also brought the first steam railroad to Santa Rosa, operated the Santa Rosa Water Works Company, the area’s first public utility, was instrumental in building the reservoir Lake Ralphine, named for his wife), and enlisted the assistance of Luther Burbank in an extensive tree-planting effort. Many of the trees still on the McDonald estate were planted by Burbank as saplings.

The mansion, on an oversized corner parcel, was designed in an unusual Mississippi plantation style, in tribute to Ralphine McDonald’s childhood home. Oakland’s Rynerson & O’Brien Architecture (which is spearheading the restoration) has termed this a “large-scale adaptation of a so-called raised Southern cottage,” detailing how the typical plan included a single main living level, built or raised over an above-ground basement intended as a precaution in case of flood. The second floor, or attic level, was often left undeveloped. From the beginning, a wraparound porch, a very Southern feature, went all around the house as well. Another of the building’s signature details is its extensive use of flat sawn and cutout wood ornament, details a Rynerson & O’Brien report on Mableton’s evolution. Examples can be seen in the two-tiered roof cresting and icicle-like trim that outlines the various roof overhangs. “The use of such repeating flat patterns, and their geometric quality,” the report says, “are particularly characteristic of the Victorian era’s ‘Stick’ and ‘Eastlake’ styles (sometimes called ‘Stick/Eastlake’), which enjoyed nationwide popularity during the post-Civil War era.” However, the use of California redwood in some of the mansion’s ornamentation “makes this house a uniquely American domestic hybrid.” This, and the fact that Mableton is Santa Rosa’s largest city home—14,000 square feet on 1.8 acres with eight bedrooms, eight and a half bathrooms, a grand, multistory entry hall and so much more—is what brought its current owners to the table and committed to undergoing a full restoration. (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HEwrCGLq5E8J:www.northbaybiz.com/General_Articles/General_Articles/This_Old_House.php+Victorian+mansion%3F+No,+it's+a+McDonald's&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)