By Ross Eric Gibson

As I imagine the scene, it was a pelting night of rain on the Pebble Beach Golf Links, yet warm light emerged from the windows of its clubhouse, as revelers celebrated the last hours of 1926. Marion Hollins was gathered with California’s top polo player, Eric Pedley, and a leading American tennis champion, Louise Dudley.

“What do you want the future to bring us?” Marion asked, as the hour approached midnight. They looked at each other a moment in impish silence, then chorused “A million dollars!” They were all subsidizing their poorly paid championships with side jobs. Marion was the Pebble Beach athletic director and a real estate agent, Eric bred horses in Riverside, and Louise ran a Santa Maria garbage company. “I tell you what,” Marion said. “Let’s pledge that the first of us to get a million dollars will give the other two $25,000 each.” “I’ll drink to that!,” came the enthusiastic reply, and they clinked their glasses to seal the deal, as the band played “Auld Lang Syne.”

Two years later in 1928, Marion had just opened Cypress Point golf course to much enthusiasm, and was lining-up memberships, dues and fees, although coming up short. One of her golfing friends, Franklin Kenny, was the president of an oil company drilling in the Central Valley wilderness of Kettleman Hills. Kenny said his company ran out of money, and the government drilling permits were about to expire, but he felt strongly that oil was there. Marion did her own research and shared his conclusions. So she raised $40,000 from East Coast backers. They drilled deeper and deeper, without results.

Overseeing the construction of Cypress Point golf course filled Marion with ideas for the ideal golf course. Looking for her next project, Marion explored properties around the Monterey Bay for their potential. A Santa Cruz Realtor may have suggested the Wilhelmina Ranch in the Santa Cruz foothills, which had an 1889 mansion ranch house, and abandoned 9-hole golf course built in 1899. Marion was surprised this was where the famous landscape painter F.W. Billing had landed, a German migrant to New York, who sought picturesque settings: the Tetons, Yellowstone, Yosemite, then Santa Cruz for his health. He was an advocate of saving the redwoods, as was his son-in-law, Ben Lomond winemaker J.F. Coope.

Hearing this was once the 1837 Spanish land grant Rancho Carboñero, Marion explored the property on horseback, galloping across the vast open meadow lined with oak trees, redwood groves and deep canyons. The melted ruins of two mud-brick adobe buildings belonged to the pirate brothers, Billy and Sammy Buckle of London, crewmen under the privateer Lord Cochrane, a British enemy of the Spanish Empire. The Buckle brothers eventually changed their last name to Thompson to hide their identity, settle on Spanish soil, and stifle rumors they buried treasure. Marion told the developer of Pebble Beach, Samuel Finley Brown Morse, she wanted to make it a golf course preserving the natural setting, framed by Spanish adobe homes and old West farmhouses recalling its rich history. Her vision would combine elements of California’s outdoor lifestyle, with facilities for golf, tennis, bridle trails, polo, steeple chase, swimming and more. Morse told her she was not the kind of person to develop such a complicated plan. She would need the best of everything for it to work.

To finance her dream, Marion organized the Santa Cruz Development Co., and with funds from F. Cecil Baker, she purchased the 570-acre Rancho Carboñero. She renamed it “Pasatiempo,” meaning a pleasant pastime. Meanwhile, her wildcatting kept drilling deeper and deeper than any oil well of its time yet found nothing. Marion returned to her backers for more money, and they said she wasn’t facing the fact the well was dry. Finally she begged for just a few more days. On Oct. 9, 1928, the drilling rig blew up. The cause was an unprecedented oil gusher. The first well produced a hundred million cubic feet of gas and 4,000 feet of oil a day. Kettleman Hills became one of the richest oil strikes of all time. Standard Oil bought her out, giving her $2.5 million.

Now Marion could pursue her dream. But first of all, she alerted Pedley and Dudley that Marion had become a millionaire, and asked if they would like to come to Santa Cruz and collect their prizes. The Billings Mansion was lavishly decorated for the party, with a giant model oil well in the center of the long banquet table, horse decorations for Pedley’s polo career, and trash cans around the room for Dudley’s profession. After the banquet, a San Francisco lawyer explained that Marion had set up trusts in their names, which would not pay off until the trust period expired. Both needed the money badly, and their faces fell as the lawyer droned on about the finer points and technicalities the trusts were under. Then he said, “I see it’s just about midnight. Do you know what that means? The trust period has expired! Reach under your plates, and you will find checks for the full amount!” This was Marion’s puckish sense of humor at its best.

Pasatiempo

And to create Pasatiempo, skeptical SFB Morse had to admit Marion was indeed getting the best of the best. She hired the Olmsted brothers (successors to Frederick Law Olmsted of Central Park fame) to create a general plan for homes, amenities and landscapes, bringing Alister MacKenzie to design the 18-hole golf course, with input from Marion. She replaced the Billings Mansion with the first clubhouse, by Clarence Tantau in 1930, and his second one at the top of the hill in 1935. She hired Wm. Wurster based on the 1926 award-winning Gregory Farmhouse he designed in Scotts Valley, combining the aesthetic of farmsteads and Monterey adobes. She also hired the unknown Thomas Dolliver Church to create courtyard gardens. Church popularized the idea of gardens as outdoor rooms and invented the naturalistic kidney-shaped swimming pool.

This team following Marion’s vision, helped create the Pasatiempo Look and Monterey Revival, or Second Bay Tradition, forerunner of the California Ranch House, the Sunset Home, indoor-outdoor living, a vernacular aesthetic, natural materials, split-level homes and open floor plans. Wm. Wurster designed homes for Hollins, MacKenzie and Church at Pasatiempo. Their golf course opened in 1929, attracting 2,000 spectators. Impressed, champion golfer Bobby Jones wanted MacKenzie to design the Augusta National course in 1931, but MacKenzie sent Marion as his design “associate” to start the process.

With the stock market crash and Great Depression, Pasatiempo became the bright spot in dark times, as a destination for upper crust easterners, Hollywood celebrities, sports icons and the public, seeking this haven of joy above all the gloom. Golf pro Ernest Jones now split his time between Pasatiempo and the Women’s National course, producing many champions among those he taught. One time, Marion and Ernest Jones were playing against Adrian Wilson and Alister MacKenzie, who had just gained an insurmountable lead on Pasatiempo’s 17th hole. Marion said cheerfully, “We’ll just finish out the game, to prove you were lucky to win.” At the 18th hole, she lobbed the ball over the canyon, and into the cup for a hole-in-one. “Wow! I haven’t had one of those in months!” Marion said of her lifetime 5th hole in one.

In 1930, Marion acquired Punta del Oro, an 8-acre Seabright cliff overlooking Woods Lagoon (now the Yacht Harbor), for her Pasatiempo Beach Club. The Harvey Bassett House was transformed into a clubhouse, which T.D. Church landscaped with three courtyard gardens, for serving tea under rose bowers. A new bathhouse was next door, with pavilions on Seabright Beach for members, plus boating and swimming in the lagoon. It opened June 1, 1931, as the only private beach club north of Santa Barbara. Marion worked with the Woods family in 1932 to plant foliage attracting various birds and make the lagoon a bird sanctuary. That year she bought property in Scotts Valley, where Wm. Wurster designed her Polo Barn and Groom’s Quarters. It was a marvel of site harmony, with innovations in efficiency and ventilation. In 1934, local polo champ Dorothy Deming Wheeler, became first president of the Pacific Coast Women’s Polo Association, and Marion established the Pasatiempo Polo Field at what’s now Graham Hill showgrounds.

Changes

MacKenzie developed a heart condition in 1933 and died in 1934. Marion needed to cut back on spending and sold her Scotts Valley and Beach Club properties in 1934. Olympic track and field champ Babe Didrikson didn’t get into golf until 1935 and appreciated her time as a Pasatiempo guest of Marion to improve her game. Then Dec. 2, 1937, the day before her 45th birthday, Marion’s car was struck by a drunken driver. It gave Marion a severe concussion, but she refused medical help and was bedridden at home for five months.

In 1940, Marion was forced to sell Pasatiempo, living there until her home was seized. Morse gave her a house-sitting arrangement back at Pebble Beach, and a title that didn’t require any duties. Marion learned the Women’s National Golf Club she developed had merged with the nearby Creek Club in 1941, which then sold the Women’s National to pay the Creek Club’s debts. Women’s National was renamed Glen Head Country Club, and while women golfers were now admitted to both clubs, it left bitter feelings.

In 1942, Marion won the Pebble Beach championship one last time, but the accident had changed her, and the loss of Pasatiempo had depressed her. In 1944, she was moved into a convalescent hospital at age 52, where she died alone three weeks later. It saddened many who learned of it later, yet Marion didn’t measure her life in her golf laurels, as U.S. Amateur champ, 3-time MGA champ, 2-time Long Island champ, captain of the first Curtis Cup and eight-time Pebble Beach champ.

No, her triumphs were in breaking down barriers for women, and between rich and poor. Her generous uplifting soul spread laughter to all around her, competing in the spirit of friendship. She was the only woman who developed three championship golf courses and launched an architectural movement. In the end, she lost her beloved Pasatiempo … yet it wasn’t lost, but protected through the foresight of her land-use safeguards. Even today, the places she created still resonate with her unbounding enthusiasm and infectious joy for living. She proved her motto, that “Failure is Impossible!”

Further reading

David E. Outerbridge said he wanted to bring Marion Hollins out of obscurity with his biography “Champion in a Man’s World” (1998). Margaret Koch tells “The Pasatiempo Story” (1990) covering the rest of the Marion Hollins’ story. A chapter on Pasatiempo by Daniel P. Gregory is in “The Sidewalk Companion to Santa Cruz Architecture” 3rd edition (2005). Barbara Briggs-Anderson has an e-book titled “Marion Hollins, her California Life in 158 photos.”