{"id":53956,"date":"2009-11-29T12:44:52","date_gmt":"2009-11-29T17:44:52","guid":{"rendered":"1516 at http:\/\/atlasobscura.com"},"modified":"2009-11-29T12:44:52","modified_gmt":"2009-11-29T17:44:52","slug":"the-wolf-house-jack-london-state-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/53956","title":{"rendered":"The Wolf House – Jack London State Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sonoma County<\/a>, California<\/a> | Unique Collections<\/a><\/p>\n

I would rather be ashes than dust!
\nI would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
\nI would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
\nThe function of man is to live, not to exist.
\nI shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
\nI shall use my time. – Jack London<\/p>\n

Jack London, well know as the author of Call of the Wild and lesser known as a booze hound and ladies man, died in the small town of Glen Ellen, 60 miles north of his home town San Francisco, three years after his dream house, known as the Wolf House, caught fire and burnt down. <\/p>\n

While the ruins are known as the Wolf House, Jack and wife Charmain London lovingly called their dream house \u201cThe Big House\u201d or \u201cThe Castle.\u201d A big house it was; 15,000 sq ft, four stories with twenty-six rooms and nine fireplaces, and designed in a mixture of Spanish, exemplified by the terracotta tile roof, and Craftsman Styles, seen in the log cabin exterior and detailed wooden interior. The Wolf House was to become the London\u2019s home, Jack\u2019s work shop, Charmain\u2019s tower, and an oversized cabinet of curiosities filled with the London\u2019s unique collection from their world travels. <\/p>\n

Albert Farr of San Francisco designed the house and construction began in 1910 and was nearly completed in August 1913 when it burnt to the ground. A team of forensic ‘experts’ were rumored to have ruled the cause of the fire to be \u201cspontaneous combustion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jack vowed to rebuild the Wolf House, but with an insurance policy only paying out 1\/8 the amount of money already poured into the project, he died three years later of kidney disease having rebuilt very little. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s left today are the haunting remains of the London\u2019s dream home. The two lower stories of rock remain mostly intact, covered in moss and sprouting ferns, while the five towering chimneys built to support five fireplaces are held up by massive steal support beams. A wooden walkway guides visitors around the ruins keeping them safely away from the chimneys while affording beautiful views of the stone remains.<\/p>\n

Jack London State Historic Park houses the London\u2019s collection in the Happy Halls House, which wife Charmain built after Jack\u2019s death. Most of the furniture was custom built for use in the ill-fated Wolf House, and a corner of the house is set up to preserve Jack\u2019s writing studio as it would have looked when he died. In this house the music of the time is played on the London\u2019s piano by a talented volunteer and the walls are decorated with curiosities from around the world. As short walk from this house is the \u201cCountry Cottage\u201d where they lived until Jack\u2019s death and, if you are lucky, a docent will show you around the amazing gourmet kitchen. <\/p>\n

A short walk in the opposite direction are the graves of Jack and Charmain London.\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sonoma County, California | Unique Collections I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}