WILMA! THERE’S DINOSAURS IN OUR BACKYARD!
Retired media mogul spruces up Hillsborough’s famed ‘Flintstone House,’ and now it’s yabba-dabba fantastic
HILLSBOROUGH >> Faced with the sweeping backyard of her newly purchased $2.8 million home, Florence Fang considered her landscaping options. Should she plant some dainty cherry trees or perhaps a picturesque vineyard?
Then inspiration struck: She needed a herd of 15-foot-tall dinosaurs.
This wasn’t just any multimilliondollar Hillsborough home. It was the “Flintstone House,” with its orange-and-purple domes that have become a loved (and hated) Bay Area landmark along the northbound commute up Interstate 280. Cherry blossoms weren’t going to cut it.
The prehistoric critters are among the first new signs of life at the home that languished on the market, unsold, for two years. Fang, who also installed a giant metal woolly mammoth and giraffe, a garden of oversized, colorful mushrooms, and a rainbow and peacock sculpture — all of which can be seen from the freeway — has revitalized the house by turning it into a massive arts-and-crafts project. Her motif is whimsy with a Bedrock flare, and her goal is to do justice to her famously weird and quirky new digs.
“Before, passing by, I always wondered who’s living in that house. Now I’m the one,” said the 83-year-old re--
tired media mogul, bursting into laughter during her first interview since buying the home last year.
The three bedroom, 2,700-square-foot home, often called the “Flintstone House” because its concrete domes resemble the prehistoric dwelling of Fred Flintstone from the 1960s cartoon, is frequently tweeted about, has Facebook pages devoted to it, and is featured on offbeat travel website Atlas Obscura. When the previous owner painted the formerly off-white house burnt orange, and then one of its domes purple, a Facebook user started an online petition to reverse the change.
Despite, or perhaps because of its notoriety, the house sat without a buyer from September 2015 until last May, its price dropping from $4.2 million to $3.78 million, and then to $3.2 million, before selling for $2.8 million — a cool reception all but unheard of these days in the Bay Area’s red-hot housing market.
A lot of people wanted to look at the high-profile house, but no one wanted to buy, said selling agent Judy Meuschke.
“We had a flood of interest in the first six months,” she said, “so we really had to be selective about who we would show it to — not just curiosity seekers.”
Fans of the home, dismayed by the lengthy search for a new owner, have noticed Fang’s improvement efforts already. Fang, a Chinese immigrant whose family formerly owned The San Francisco Examiner, the Independent and AsianWeek and has been an influential political force in San Francisco, says she’s received about 20 cards so far from strangers thanking her for “saving” the house.
“People even send me candy,” Fang said. “One card, I opened it and a dinosaur popped out.”
Fang still isn’t sure what her long-term plans are for the home. She might end up renting it out or inviting her 21-year-old grandson to move in.
Another person thankful for Fang’s efforts is William Nicholson, the architect who designed the home in the 1970s and was devastated as he watched it sit without a buyer.
“I felt like such a failure,” he said.
Nicholson was thrilled when Fang bought the house. He even appreciates the dinosaurs she installed, though he admits he initially thought the nickname “Flintstone House” was an insult to his work of art.
Nicholson created the Hillsborough house for a tech-industry family who paid $70,000 for it four decades ago. He built three other dome houses around the same time, two in the Apple Valley area and one in Palm Springs. The experimental houses, built by shaping rebar and mesh frames over inflated balloons and spraying them with concrete, were his passion, but they didn’t fly off the shelves. The Palm Springs house took so long to sell that Nicholson, humiliated, quit architecture and went into land development. He now lives in San Diego and is developing a vineyard-focused community in Arizona.
Fang wound up at the doorstep of the “Flintstone House” after telling her realtor she was in the market for a 3,000-square-foot home with a nice view. The strange house was the last thing she expected. But as soon as Fang stepped inside, she fell in love and made an offer.
Once the home was hers, Fang got to work. She had a retaining wall built to prevent erosion on the hillside and keep the home from sinking, which had been a concern in the past. She added a patio behind the house, which now overlooks the heard of dinosaurs.
In the front yard — the side that can’t be seen from 280 — Fang installed a lifesize statue of Fred Flintstone and a smaller one of his pet dinosaur, Dino. Nearby is the Great Gazoo — the green alien Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble meet in the TV show — and his flying saucer. Large, colorful letters on a slope next to the driveway spell out Fred Flintstone’s catch phrase — “Yabba Dabba Doo” — though some letters fell off in recent rains. Next, she plans to add the car Fred powers with his feet.
Fang also erected a waist-high wall and a “no trespassing” sign at the front of the property. People come by every day to look at the house and take pictures, which Fang says she doesn’t mind. But she drew the line after she came home one day and found children running around on her roof.
Fang estimates she’s spent as much as a quarter-million dollars improving and decorating the home, mostly on the retaining wall. And while she puts in just a few hours a day of physical labor — she does much of the decorating work herself — she says she’s constantly thinking about the project.
Inside, where the “Flintstone House’s” rounded rooms are spacious and bright, Fang has used a lighter decorative touch. There are quirky details around every bend, which pre-date Fang, and which she says she won’t change: stained glass windows, a stone bathtub and shower, doors and window shades that double as abstract art, a ladder leading to a loft at the top of the tallest dome, and bulbous protrusions hanging down from the kitchen ceiling like stalactites.
Fang’s favorite spot is the conversation room, a sunken living room with an orange couch, a fireplace and a huge, rounded window overlooking the Crystal Springs Reservoir, the treecovered hills and 280. As she watches traffic streaming by, she knows at least some of the people in those cars are turning to look at her house.
“Every time I sit here in the morning, I feel like God is really blessing me,” Fang said. “I feel so cozy. So safe.”