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Stockdale past
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Posted by lward Tue Sep 19, 2006 10:05:37 PDT
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1 response 1 comment Founded in 1925, the Stockdale Golf and Country Club is more than a gorgeous place for members to tee off, tie the knot, or take the family to Sunday brunch; the surrounding area is more than a desirable place to have a home.
It’s an important part of Kern County history tied to one of our founding families.
The Tevis family left their mark on the land, and as the Stockdale area and the Southwest grow and become home to new generations, it’s nice to take a moment to remember the individuals who paved the way years ago.
The city’s namesake, Col. Thomas Baker, arrived on Kern Island on Sept. 20, 1863 with the goal of reclamation of the Kern swampland.
Thanks to floods and heavy rains, the project was short lived. Baker then formed a partnership with H.P. Livermore and Julius Chester, but that enterprise, too, met its downfall and their interests were sold to James Haggin and Lloyd Tevis, two Kentuckians who had made their fortunes in the gold fields of California. In 1890 the Kern County Land Company was born.
While in the early days the “Haggin” name was better known, Haggin sold most of his land to the Kern County Land Company in 1891. His wife and daughter died while he was in California and he moved east to establish horse racing stables and live out the rest of his days. He died in 1914.
Tevis, considered a financial genius, ran his Kern County Land investments from San Francisco. When he died in 1899, he left his considerable fortune to his five children.
William, unlike his father, established a home in Kern County. His wife, Mabel, was the daughter of Ronauldo Pacheco, the last governor of California under Spanish rule. Together in the 1890s they built an estate on a grand scale. 
Wrought iron gates and a private tree-lined driveway extending from Brundage Lane brought visitors to the family home, which included stables, kennels, private tutors for the children and a polo field where their son, Will, won international fame.
Landscaped by William during his world travels, Stockdale Ranch boasted 50 varieties of bamboo. An amateur botanist, William cultivated bamboo to make furniture, windbreaks and irrigation pipe. While none of these ideas came to fruition, in the 1930s Stockdale Country Club derived income by selling bamboo for radio antennas. Hollywood studios also bought it for use on sets.
The estate was also home to flocks of wild ducks and geese; game pheasants; two pink flamingos, which later ended up in the San Francisco Golden Gate Park; and 12 black swans.
The swans, sadly, fell victim to a guest with a penchant for shooting. The guest sent his host one of the “rare birds” stuffed as a souvenir of his visit.
Another $200,000,  9,000-square-foot mansion, designed by the renowned architect Stanford White in the early 1900s, was never completed due to Tevis’ financial reversals. Describing the fluidity of Tevis’ fortune, Hugh Curran said, “Williams S. Tevis was many times a millionaire.”
For almost a decade, the only mansion occupants were dozens of cases filled with art objects collected in Europe by Mabel.
In 1913 to 1914, the Tevis family suffered financial blows and lost millions. Five million dollars was lost on the Hetch Hetchy Water Project, today the O’Shaughnessy Dam.
In 1924, after the burning of the White mansion, a group of aggressive young Bakersfield businessmen purchased the Tevis Stockdale Estate and formed the Stockdale Holding Company, later to become the Stockdale Golf and Country Club. A portion of the estate was sold for home sites.
The last resident of the original mansion was Lloyd R. Tevis, who repurchased the home in 1945 and lived there for the next decade. In 1958, he was granted an honorary life membership in the Stockdale Country Club. He died in Carmel in 1963.
In 1953, the Fairway Land and Investment Company purchased the historic Tevis home and the remaining acres of the original estate. The mansion was torn down and the property was subdivided into home sites.
Today, while most of the giant timber bamboo has been cut down, remnants can still be found near the tennis courts on the east side and just inside the front gates of the Stockdale Country Club, according to manager Dan Rainey.
Rainey said the location of some of the more notable trees defines the original layout of the buildings. The Tevis mansion was situated just south of the two gigantic Italian cypress which guard the main entrance of the current clubhouse.  Another signature tree is the Monkey Puzzle Tree from Burma which frames the 18th green. Most of the original nine holes  of golf were named after trees planted by the financier –– including redwood, poplar, bamboo and cottonwood.
So next time you’re in the Stockdale area, take a moment to look for these landmarks of Stockdale’s past.

Sources: “A Glimpse of Stockdale Past” by Linda Mayes; “A History of Kern County Land Company” by Norma Berg; and “Kern’s Movers and Shakers” by Camille Gavin and Kathy Leverett.

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Comment From: tomasi

This was very interesting, especially for an old "Bakersfieldian" Joe Tomasi