Atherton

There are very few places in the world where great wealth and spectacular natural beauty combine to create an environment of epic allure and incredible luxury that is almost beyond reality, and certainly beyond all expectation. Atherton is a town of majestic dreams, of private jets, private botanical gardens, exotic automobiles, private vineyards and wine cellars, and everything else that symbolizes luxury and power. Atherton is where world-renowned residential architects, landscape architects, and interior designers have created, and continue to create, their architectural masterworks.

From the past are landmark estates by Gardner Dailey, Julia Morgan, Willis Polk, Arthur Brown Jr. and other masters of the Northern California vernacular. In recent years, new estates have been designed by such illustrious architects as Robert Swatt, Robert A.M. Stern, and Farro Essalat. Behind ornate gates, stone and concrete walls, tall flowering hedges, and lush vegetation, magnificent estates hide seductively, providing for their masters, many of them icons of technology, capital and professional sports, sanctuaries of extravagant luxury.

In the middle of the most exclusive neighborhood of Atherton is the Circus Club, one of the last operating polo grounds in the western U.S. and a bastion of leisure and sporting. Just outside of Atherton are some of the most exclusive private country clubs in the United States, offering to their members world-class golf courses, tennis, Olympic pools, elegant dining, quiet reflection, and the opportunity to associate with others of influence.

In the heart of Silicon Valley, Atherton is just a few miles from Stanford University and the headquarters of such companies as Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Hewlett-Packard. International venture capital firms such as Accel-KKR, Benchmark Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Garnett and Helfrich, and many others, are located in adjacent Menlo Park. This is the land of startups, of going public, of massive, almost instant fortunes and billion-dollar deals, of larger-than-life personalities with impeccable pedigrees, the brightest and boldest minds, the visionaries and futurists who believe both themselves and the future to be limitless. These are the ultra-rich and powerful who could live anywhere in the world, and they have, for many reasons, chosen to make their primary residence in Atherton.

Atherton’s heritage has always been about luxury and wealth. At the beginning of the 20th century, Atherton was a noted summer retreat for prominent families of San Francisco. As in similar summer retreats for the very wealthy, such as Newport, Rhode Island, and the North Shore of Long Island, these estate homes were enormous and classically styled. Sculptures, fountains and reflecting pools embellished the manicured grounds designed by such landscape masters as Thomas Church and Frederick Law Olmsted. Most of these estates have been demolished. The remaining few are now used as private schools. As it was then, Atherton is still a forest of native live and white oaks, along with many exotic species imported from the Eastern United States, Australia and all over the world. Quiet lanes meander through this natural and manmade forest, enveloped in the canopies of towering trees, with sculptured evergreen hedges, roses, honeysuckle, and flowering plants and vines of all kinds seemingly growing wild along the side.