Full Review: Folger Stable

The entrance to the historical site is the entrance to Wunderlich County Park.  After you drive up the small hill and cross the bridge, you will come to a medium sized dirt parking lot.  There is a large portable toilet and a water fountain nearby the parking lot. 

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       Entrance to the park                          Parking lot

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Restroom and drinking water

 

John Coppinger, an Irishman and one of the first non-Hispanic Europeans to live on the peninsula, was the original owner of this 942 acre property back in the 1840s.  The property was subsequently bought by the Folger (coffee) family who built the estate and stables.  Arthur Brown Jr, who later designed the San Francisco Opera House, Coit Tower, the Ferry Building, the Hoover Institution at Stanford and City Hall, designed the Folger Estate for James Folger II in 1904.  The Folger Estate is one of the last remaining structures from the Great Estates period in the early 1900s.   In 1956, the property was sold to Martin Wunderlich.  Wunderlich donated the stables and surrounding land to the County of San Mateo in 1974.  The renovation of all of the buildings on the property was completed in 2007.

 

 

There is one mile paved loop that take you past the main stable building, the carriage house, the stone walls and blacksmith barn and the dairy house. 

 

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   The main stable building

 

The main stable building is built with redwood from the surrounding trees.  The architectural style is French Baroque. 

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               The stables                              Friendly horse

 

 

The stable is still used as a horse facility. 

 

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                     Horse                     Stone wall and blacksmith barn

  

The stone walls were built by Chinese laborers.