Templeton Crocker

Extended family

Templeton was the grandson of Charles Crocker, one of the four chief builders of the western portion of the Transcontinental Railroad. His uncles were banker and investor William H. Crocker, president of the Crocker Bank and George Crocker, second vice-president of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

His mother's family were also prominent citizens on the San Francisco Peninsula: his maternal grandparents, Ansel I. and Adeline Easton (née Mills) survived the sinking of the SS Central America off Cape Hatteras during their honeymoon in 1857.^[1] Adeline's brother Darius Ogden Mills,^[29] for whom the city of Millbrae is named, was once credited as California's richest citizen.

His brother-in-law, via marriage to his eldest sister Mary, was Francis Burton Harrison.^[29] The first husband of his younger sister Jennie was national tennis champion Malcolm Whitman;^[30] after their divorce, Jennie married businessman Robert Henderson. Templeton's uncle (his mother's brother) Ansel Mills Easton^[1] was married to Louise (née Adams); Louise's brother Charles Adams was the father of famed photographer Ansel Easton Adams, making Ansel Adams a cousin by marriage.

One cousin was the mystic, princess and author Aimee Crocker. His great uncle Edwin B. Crocker built Sacramento's Crocker Art Museum.

Librettist

A few years later, the multi-faceted multi-millionaire made history as a librettist. He wrote the lyrics for an opera entitled The Land of Happiness, a Chinese fantasy-extravaganza set to music by composer (and Southern Pacific attorney) Joseph Redding which premiered on August 4, 1917, at the Bohemian Grove.^[2][3]: 3 After the success of this opera, Crocker was encouraged to mount an ambitious, professional production. While visiting Bohemian Grove in 1921, the well-known soprano Mary Garden accepted the opera with the intention to produce it in Chicago,^[4] but it would take several more years to make its public debut.

After the end of World War I, Crocker and Redding visited Paris in search of talent to design and produce his opera, by then renamed to Fay-Yen-Fah. They created a partnership with Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev, founder of the Ballets Russes. Diaghilev hired a youthful George Balanchine as choreographer.^[5] Dancers included legends Ninette de Valois and Alexadra Danilva. The brilliant dancer/painter Hubert Julian "Jay" Stowitts, aka “America’s First Ambassador of International Culture,” was employed to create authentic and sumptuous costumes and sets. The research and development phase of the project took three full years.

In February 1925, Crocker and Redding traveled to Monte Carlo where their opera had its European premiere at the Opéra de Monte Carlo.^[6] It was the first time in the history of music that a full-length opera composed by an American, on a libretto written by an American, was produced in Europe.^[7]

In mid-January 1926, Gaetano Merola, founding director of the San Francisco Opera Company, gave Fay-Yen-Fah its American debut at the Columbia Theater,^[8][9] which also marked the start of the 1926 opera season in San Francisco.^[10] San Francisco society appeared in large numbers, making the performance a dazzling success. Redding and Crocker received the Ribbon of the Legion of Honor from France for the opera in 1926. A music critic from the San Francisco Chronicle praised Crocker and Redding's accomplishment, calling the opera “a refreshing breeze in a hothouse of artificiality.”

Crocker brought it back to Monte Carlo in 1932 with Balanchine and Stowitts and danseuse Tamara Toumanova in the principal role. It was revived in the spring of 2009, again in Monte Carlo, for a special performance using the original costumes. Two hundred members of the Bohemian Club came to the opening.

California Historical Society

Crocker collected rare books and in 1922 refounded the California Historical Society; at the time there were few collectors of books relating to California history and he amassed what was considered "the best in private hands" by 1923.^[11] He convened a luncheon on February 13, 1922, for a small group who agreed to restart the Society, which had, until then, an intermittent history since it was first mentioned in 1852.^[12]: 19 He served as the Society's first president and provided generous financial support over its first twenty years until its membership had grown sufficiently to cover its costs.^[13] Henry R. Wagner credited Crocker's "social position and wealth" with the Society's success; in addition, he donated his entire book collection to the Society in 1940 after an off-hand suggestion.^[14]

Art Deco enthusiast

Templeton was one of the millions of fair-goers who became enamored with the geometrical motifs of Art Deco at the Paris Exposition of 1925. He would return to France a few years later to commission fashionable furnishings and objects for his penthouse apartment in the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. The prominent apartment building at 945 Green Street, which was in the Italianate style, and completed in 1928, was part of a notable "spite war"; when the 12-storey building at 947 Green had been completed a few years earlier, it spoiled the views from an older property at 973 Green, and the owners of 973 retaliated by constructing the 15-storey 945 to completely obstruct the views east from 947.^[15][16]

Templeton hired none other than Jean-Michel Frank, Pierre Legrain, Jean Dunand and Madame Lipska to execute the decor for his modernist apartment. French Art Deco at this level was rare in the United States at the time and rarer still in the hills of San Francisco. Crocker ordered wall reliefs, screens, furniture and accessories — some 400 objects in all.^[17] Dunand, still widely considered the most important designer of French Art Deco, was charged with finishing Crocker's bedroom, dining room, and breakfast room.^[18] The Crocker/Dunand collaboration was ground breaking.

When everything was installed and his divorce from sugar heiress Helene Irwin became final, Templeton, nicknamed “Prince Fortunatus” by his classmates at Yale, moved into the apartment with longtime friend and valet-butler Thomas Thomasser. Thomas, Templeton and his Green Street apartment became the talk of the city's social elite. The building sat atop a steep flight of steps. The glass-enclosed penthouse offered spectacular vistas of San Francisco Bay. Guests marveled at Crocker's stunning aquariums of exotic tropical fish, dramatically lit and set beneath the level of the floor. Shark and camel skinned furniture highlighted the living room, while sheepskins served as wall hangings. The dining table, composed of crushed eggshells, was baked and carefully lacquered. Especially alluring, Crocker's personal bathroom, had been built around a semicircular black tub with matching toilet fixtures.

Vogue Magazine declared in 1929 that it was, “perhaps the most beautiful apartment in the world.”^[19] It was the French master's most important commission in the United States and one of the earliest luxury apartments in America completed in the modern style.^[20] Templeton made a sizeable mark in art history as an early innovator in bringing the French Art Deco movement to the U.S.

After Crocker's death in 1948, the apartment was maintained as it had been during his life. Eventually, his heirs dismantled the apartment and sold off the furnishings,^[18] and when the apartment itself was sold in 1999,^[21] the decorative wall panels were removed. The breakfast room panels (by Dunand) were acquired by the jeweler Fred Leighton, who used them in his VIP salon and viewing room; they were subsequently exhibited by Maison Gerard at the Winter Antiques Show in 2013–14.^[22][23] Most of the bedroom furniture has since been donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art;^{[18][24][25][26][27][28][29]} however, the bedroom panels are believed to be lost.^[30]

St. Francis Hotel

Templeton devoted himself intermittently to the management of the St. Francis Hotel on Union Square, which the Crocker family financed and built just before the Earthquake. Crocker and his sister Jennie deeded the land for the new north wing in 1912;^[31] Templeton himself was credited with redesigning the double-width north wing in 1909 after the original extension was criticized strongly.^[32]

After Dan London became the manager of the St. Francis in 1937, he, Crocker, and Crocker's nephew decided to hire brilliant San Francisco architect Timothy Pflueger to turn the existing ground-level restaurant into a sleek and curvaceous Art Deco lounge. The resulting "Patent Leather Room" was unveiled in 1939, with furniture finished in patent leather; however, the press and public dubbed it "Coffin Corner" or "The Black Hole".^[33] Ansel Adams was hired to take publicity shots.^[34] The Crockers sold their interest in the St. Francis in 1944 to a group led by Benjamin Swig^[35] and the Patent Leather Room was replaced by the "Terrace Room" in 1953.^[36]

Voyages aboard Zaca

Crocker served in the Naval Reserve, sailing on USS Idaho as an ensign in 1921;^[37] at the time he was thought to be the wealthiest man in the Navy.^[38] When he died in 1948, he held the rank of Commander in the Reserve.^[39]

After his childless marriage failed, Crocker lived an increasingly alternative, Bohemian lifestyle and indulged in numerous flights of fancy. In the late 1920s, Crocker commissioned Garland Rotch to design a two-masted, 118-foot (36 m)-long, black-hulled schooner, on the lines of the famed Bluenose.^[40] The boat was constructed by the Nunes Brothers Boatyard in Sausalito.^[41] Her galley and interior furnishings were the finest in pleasure craft equipment and she had a considerable spread of canvas. She was christened Zaca, a Native American word which means “Peace”, on April 12, 1930^[42] by Academy Award winner Marie Dressler;^[3]: 7 one account reported the champagne bottle missed the boat and the christening ceremony was carried out after she was launched.^[43] Her maiden voyage was to Ensenada, departing on May 8,^[44]: 314 but the party was delayed for repairs to a propeller shaft.^[45]

The yacht provided the ever-restless Crocker a unique, luxurious escape and boasted sleeping accommodations for 18. Staterooms, glamorous hotel-like apartments reflecting favorite Art Deco motifs were done in combinations of imported woods, including beams of Alaskan cedar and panels in teak and primavera. She was equipped with two small 120 horsepower (89 kW) diesel engines when off sail and four 5-kW electric generators to power accessories, including a refrigerator and a distiller capable of generating 50 US gallons (190 L; 42 imp gal) of freshwater per day.^[44]: 315 The total cost was reportedly US$300,000 (equivalent to $5,780,000 in 2025): $200,000 for construction and an additional $100,000 for the interior and fittings,^[46] although chief engineer Garth Basford later recalled she had cost $450,000.^[47]