Whittell was a great lover of animals

George ran away to join the circus after he finished high school. He met Frank Buck and the two made a series of trips to Africa to get animals for the circus, financed by George's generous allowance. Finally, George was convinced by his mother to return to San Francisco. He loved animals, and his pets would eventually include elephants and lions.

George's fortune allowed him to live a life of ease and to indulge his fantasies. These fantasies included cars, boats and women. He was quite a playboy and his self-indulgences made him an embarrassment to his family. The earthquake of 1906 allowed him to redeem himself, however, as he was able to assist family and friends from the ruins with the use of his automobile. His family moved to an estate in Woodside.

In 1922, George's father died and he inherited roughly $30 million. Surprisingly, he made shrewd business decisions and his fortune grew over the years. He managed to avoid the pitfalls of the Depression. In addition to his San Francisco apartment, the Woodside estate, a chateau in France and an apartment in Paris, George built a lodge at Lake Tahoe in 1939. He built an elephant barn to accommodate Mingo, an Indian elephant George bought from the circus, but Mingo didn't care for the altitude at Tahoe, so he returned to live at Woodside. Whittell was in the habit of driving around the lake with Bill, his favorite lion, in a convertible roadster.

The lodge itself was in the arts and crafts style built at the northeast part of the lake. Off the laundry room was a 600-foot underground tunnel leading to a 100-foot boathouse built to house Whittell's speedboat, Thunderbird. Along the way through the tunnel, one could see a dungeon complete with barred doors. Whatever the purpose of the dungeon, it added to many interesting stories about wild parties that Whittell held at the lodge.

George celebrated New Year's Eve in 1934 by driving from his home in Woodside to the Marine View Hotel at Moss Beach. He entered just before midnight with his pet lion on a leash. Unfortunately the lion began to maul the hotel owner, Billy Grosskurth. In the resulting lawsuit, Billy described the beast as a vicious African lion, while George said it was a friendly gentle kitten. George claimed as a Nevada resident he was protected from California litigation. For whatever reason, the lawsuit was dismissed the next year.

When George Whittell died in 1969, he left several generous bequests to various animal rights organizations. His home at Tahoe is now maintained as the Thunderbird Lodge Historic Site. Whittell's Woodside property has since been divided. Modern day estate builders are finding that the community is more particular now in what is to be constructed in that area.

Rediscovering the Peninsula appears in the Monday edition of the Daily Journal. For more information on this or related topics, visit the San Mateo County History Museum, 2200 Broadway, Redwood City.