Talk:Carolands

Haunted?
I removed this sentence: "Despite its impressive architecture and lovely surroundings, the house has been reportedly haunted following the kidnapping and torturing of two young women in 1985." This was added to the introduction by User 71.198.228.113 on March 15, 2008, without a media reference or footnote. ("Reportedly haunted"?)

It's true that the Carolands, with its boarded-up windows and disheveled gardens, looked for many years like a Hollywood version of a haunted house. It certainly enjoyed a "haunted" reputation for generations of Burlingame and San Mateo high school students who, as a rite of passage during the 1970s and early 1980s, broke into the abandoned chateau at night (where they would play variations of "boo" with each other).

The 1985 security guard incident traumatized the local community, and apparently caused some people to attribute the chateau's (hitherto benign) "haunted" reputation to the security guard incident itself. To my knowledge, there have been no journalistic accounts of paranormal phenomena in the Carolands. Lindesfarne (talk) 07:56, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

More images
For images I took of the home's interior in 1998 before its restoration and decoration, check  out. I think they would make helpful additions to the article, but I'm not sure how to transfer them over from Wikipedia Commons. Some touch-up efforts here might be welcome (I wish my scanner were better). Lindesfarne (talk) 02:32, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Why so briefly occupied?
After years of planning and construction, Harriett and her husband moved in in the fall of 1916. In 1918 they moved out, and the place has only sporadically been occupied since. Why? Is it not as good as it looks? J S Ayer (talk) 14:32, 11 July 2013 (UTC)


 * The articles cited hint at it, but my understanding is the cost of construction was excessive, leading to wrangling between the Carolans that was irreparable -- they separated in 1917 but did not divorce; Francis stayed in California while Harriett left for New York until Francis's death in 1923. If you look at contemporaneous newspaper accounts, the Carolans had been famous for hosting extravagant parties at their Burlingame estate (The Crossways) over the past decade or so, so perhaps they felt their social standing had fallen while waiting for Carolands to finish as well.


 * —Mliu92 (talk) 18:59, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Current status?
"The Johnsons donated the Chateau to Carolands Foundation in 2012." And now? What happens to it? What is the purpose of the foundation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.184.254.120 (talk) 15:42, 12 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Per the website, the Foundation appears to be endowed with sufficient funding for continued historic preservation and per their 'events' page, "Carolands Foundation offers 501(c)(3) organizations an opportunity to use the Château for charitable purposes." — so it appears that it can be used for nonprofit fundraisers (I know that, for instance The San Francisco Symphony and the Lucille Packard Children's Hospital were beneficiaries when the Johnsons owned Carolands).


 * —Mliu92 (talk) 18:59, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
 * —Mliu92 (talk) 18:59, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Other links
Some other historical links I'm collecting here, until they can be integrated into the article: —Mliu92 (talk) 18:59, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Size
According to the county surveyor the square footage of the mansion is 41050 sqft. See: On the other hand, most newspaper articles cited in this article state the square footage of the mansion exceeds 65,000. Doing a quick estimate based on stated exterior dimensions and floors (120 ft x 130 ft x 4.5 floors) = 70,200 square feet, so 65,000 is a believable number. —Mliu92 (talk) 02:29, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

IP editors
There appears to be selective censorship of content relating to David Allen Raley by anonymous editors. I'm adding the content removed here to facilitate restoration of the content in the event of further censorship. During its years of abandonment in the 1970s and 1980s, the grounds and structure were visited by many local high school students who regarded it as "their" haunted house. On February 2, 1985, Laurie McKenna and Jeanine Grinsell, two students at a local high school, went to tour the vacant Chateau and were kidnapped, sexually assaulted, beaten, and tortured by David Allen Raley, a security guard for the property. Raley bound both women and dumped their bodies in a ravine near his house. While Laurie McKenna survived the ordeal, Jeanine Grinsell later succumbed to her wounds in a nearby hospital. David Raley was sentenced to death in 1988 and is presently awaiting execution. In 1985, David Allen Raley, a security guard at the Carolands Chateau, tricked two high school students into hiding in a walk-in safe during an unofficial tour. The two were later sexually assaulted and stabbed, then taken from the Carolands and left for dead in a ravine near San Jose. They managed to climb out of the ravine and flag down a passing motorist for help, but one later died of wounds received during the ordeal. Raley had bragged earlier that day that he often received bribes from curious students interested in the mansion's interior, but that "he only let girls in." Raley received the death penalty in 1988 after his conviction. —Mliu92 (talk) 05:38, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
 * 75.36.242.42 removed information on Raley . Information and an inline link to Raley was not restored until 2015:
 * 99.179.22.204 removed information on Raley at 10:42.
 * 99.179.22.204 removed information on Raley at 10:48, 6 minutes later.
 * 99.179.22.204 removed information on Raley at 10:52, 4 minutes later. The content that was repeatedly removed is:


 * In an effort to avoid edit warring, I'm opening up this topic for discussion. My general goal with Wikipedia is to add sources in a neutral point of view, and I agree the original paragraph containing content related to the David Allen Raley case that was deleted in 2013 was not adequately sourced. The paragraph I added in 2015 has an inline link to Raley and four separate news sources (both contemporary and a retrospective). I did not add a specific link to the case, which does have significant detail on the nature of the crimes and sequence.
 * Would the IP editor 99.179.22.204 please step forward to identify specific objections to the 2015 content? I am unable to edit this constructively aside from restoring deleted content without having any feedback.
 * — Mliu92 (talk) 16:35, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
 * — Mliu92 (talk) 16:35, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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I have just modified 1 one external link on Carolands. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150402025116/http://www.sfmuseum.org:80/hist10/carolans.html to http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist10/carolans.html

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