While it's true that he had a hard-scrabble start as a prospector (sometimes not even being able to feed his family), soon enough he was an amoral prick swimming in oil and implicated in offering a $100,000 bribe to the Secretary of the Interior in order to secure drilling rights without competitive bidding to the Elk Hills Navel Petroleum Reserve in central California -a charge he was magically acquitted of twice even though the Secretary was convicted of taking it.
Photo;Shandra Beri
One day I'll have to really sit down and wrap my head around the depth of corruption and deceptive reasoning that has dogged civilization and allowed the unwashed masses (yup, that's me too...) to merely ACCEPT that there are those who TAKE THE RIGHT to plunder the resources of this little blue planet, profit wildly, build ostentatious, architecturally vapid houses and leave the rest of the world to deal with the ecological aftermath.
For the moment though, let's focus on how this 'Historical Home' looks just like every other crappy McMansion we are seeing built every damn place you look.
Photo;Shandra Beri
Side bar; So I'm walking the grounds and I realize there is something oddly familiar about the the set up. It's an entire sequestered (gates at every street leading into or out) 'neighborhood'- just like the fake streets at all the studio lots we use for shooting. But why? Doheny apparently required his closest business associates (including his lawyer!) live near him so he bought up all the houses and moved them all in.
Zomg...control issues much? I guess those poor bastards who thought they had it made when they started orbiting in Doheny's fabulously wealthy universe never got to experience that, 'Well thank god I'm home at least...' feeling we all get to have after escaping a particularly crappy work day.
One day I'll have to really sit down and wrap my head around the depth of corruption and deceptive reasoning that has dogged civilization and allowed the unwashed masses (yup, that's me too...) to merely ACCEPT that there are those who TAKE THE RIGHT to plunder the resources of this little blue planet, profit wildly, build ostentatious, architecturally vapid houses and leave the rest of the world to deal with the ecological aftermath.
For the moment though, let's focus on how this 'Historical Home' looks just like every other crappy McMansion we are seeing built every damn place you look.
Side bar; So I'm walking the grounds and I realize there is something oddly familiar about the the set up. It's an entire sequestered (gates at every street leading into or out) 'neighborhood'- just like the fake streets at all the studio lots we use for shooting. But why? Doheny apparently required his closest business associates (including his lawyer!) live near him so he bought up all the houses and moved them all in.
Zomg...control issues much? I guess those poor bastards who thought they had it made when they started orbiting in Doheny's fabulously wealthy universe never got to experience that, 'Well thank god I'm home at least...' feeling we all get to have after escaping a particularly crappy work day.
Here is a tree that also had no choice in the matter.
There was MUCH more drama of course, including a murder/suicide involving his only son (married to a woman living WAAAAAY in the closet, quite possibly gay son and his live-in luvahh- I mean chauffeur!). The son's name was Ned and at the age of six when his own mother divorced Doheny, Doheny used his wealth, power and influence to strip her of her parental rights and she killed herself within a year.
But I digress. Check out this hand hewn parquet flooring!
And this mind numbingly and pointlessly detailed... detail.
And more of that.
Oh wait, more...
Ceiling cake!
Right next to a manly room where cigars can be smoked without any fear of Freudian slippage.
What's the temperature? Why, I believe it's fancy with a barometer reading of Are You Impressed Yet?!
Blah, blah, blah and leaded glass.
There is an infamous ballroom in this mansion, but I'm not going to hurt your eyes with it. Here are a couple of clean lines just to give you a break,
More leaded crystal!
It's interesting to note that the minute Doheny kicked the bucket, his last wife (happy widow) promptly moved her much loathed by Doheny brother into the compound right across the street from the mansion.
Back to those nuns; they were cute in an antique kind of way, but man, they were not hesitant at all about tapping you on the shoulder and telling you not to take pictures (Aren't they supposed to be busy praying all the time or slapping children on the knuckles with rulers? How did they find the time to even scope me out?). Anyway, they would pop up out of nowhere and whisper right into my ear over my shoulder as i was focusing the lens, (which had the effect of startling the crap out of me each and every time....) at which point I would of course momentarily stop what I was doing.
I guess they were counting on my fear of god watching me when they weren't around to keep me from doing it again, but yeah, no.
Click.
I guess they think Jesus doesn't like the thought of anyone possibly making money off photos of Doheny Mansion but him.
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