Constructed in Hillsborough, California, between 1914 and 1916, the Carolands Chateau was the home of Pullman Palace Car Company heiress Harriett Pullman Carolan and her husband. It was designed by Parisian architect Ernest Sanson, France’s foremost early 20th century designer of prestigious mansions. Sanson was a Beaux Arts classicist, and this design was inspired by the 17th-century designs of François Mansart.
Extensive gardens for the 548-acre site were designed by France’s leading landscape architect, Achille Duchênes, but only a fragment of the design was completed before the Carolans divorced in 1918. The house remained largely vacant from then until its purchase by Countess Lillian Remillard Dandini in 1950, after a succession of owners subdivided and sold off most of the estate as house lots. The countess restored the chateau and lived in it for 23 years. It was again vacant and deteriorating from 1973 until 1991, when it was redone as a designer showhouse. In 1998, it was sold to a new owner who again restored the house. Currently, it is open for limited public tours once a week.
I toured the house with the Decorative Arts Trust last year and sincerely wish it was more accessible to the public. As one of the last “Gilded Age” mansions built in the U.S., it deserves to be better known.
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© Scott T. Hanson 2026.
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