Frank Morrison Pixley’s Owl’s Wood: An Oasis in Corte Madera
by Laurie Thompson
In 1848, Frank Morrison Pixley came overland to California by wagon train to prospect for gold. Later he settled in San Francisco where he established a law practice. He was prominent in social, business and cultural circles, holding for a time a seat on the San Francisco Stock Exchange, working as an attorney for the City of San Francisco and also serving in the State Assembly and as the State Attorney General. Additionally, he was a regent of the University of California, a San Francisco park commissioner and a member of the Yosemite National Park board.
He is perhaps best remembered today as the founder and publisher of the “San Francisco Argonaut,” a literary journal which he established in 1877 and to which he dedicated much energy until his death in 1895. Eminent literary figures of the day contributed to the “Argonaut” including Gertrude Atherton, Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce.
Historian Bailey Millard, author of History of the San Francisco Bay Region , writes this about Pixley:
“Pixley probably exerted a more commanding influence upon the public mind of California in his time than any other man. In his turn he was a lawyer, miner, journalist, politician and capitalist. His voice was heard afar. He made and unmade men.” (Volume I, p. 432).
Pixley’s country estate, originally owned by his father-in-law, Captain John Van Reynegom, was a 191-acre farm in Corte Madera. That acreage today comprises Chevy Chase Park in Larkspur, the site of the Larkspur-Corte Madera School and parts of the historic center of Corte Madera, from the train station to the top of Christmas-Tree hill.
In 1891, Pixley tried unsuccessfully to sell “Owls Wood” for $75,000. He describes it in an advertisement:
“The place commands a view of Mt. Tamalpais, the bay, and the opposite shores of Contra Costa. It is traversed through its center by the North Pacific Coast Railroad….”
“Upon the farm are an old-fashioned broad-porched farmhouse, embowered in groves and surrounded with vines and fruit-bearing trees, a comfortable farm cottage, with one hundred olive trees in full bearing, a spacious barn, a new and modern coach house, corrals, dairy house, with enclosures for cows, pigs, chickens, etc. Vineyards, orchards, shade and fruit trees, embracing about twenty-five acres….”
“In point of soil, climate, water, view and vicinage to San Francisco, there is no place in the state more desirable. It is fully protected from winds and fogs by intervening hills that guard it from the ocean….”
Sources and for additional information on Frank Morrison Pixley and Owls Wood:
Larkspur Past and Present: A History and Walking Guide. Larkspur Heritage Preservation Board, [2010].
A History of Corte Madera. Editor Jana Haehl. [2002].
Marin Historical Society Bulletin, Volume 1, Number 2. September, 1967.
Anne T. Kent California Room Clipping Files.
Anne T. Kent California Room Biography Files.
Originally published at https://annetkent.kontribune.com.
