Interlude In Eden

In 1927, while Yehudi Menuhin was in Paris with his parents and sisters they were introduced to the artists, George Dennison and Frank Ingerson. “The Boys”, as they were called hailed from the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco. “The boys” talked liberally about their enchanting home, inviting the Menuhin family to come relax in their mountain home. Only eleven years of age, Yehudi was already considered a violin prodigy.

Born on April 22, 1916 in New York City to Russian Jewish immigrants, he debuted with the San Francisco Symphony at the tender age of seven. In 1926, his family traveled to Europe wherein his European debut took place in Paris in February of 1927. The family traveled and studied in Europe giving Yehudi the opportunity to spend the summer in Romania studying with Enesco. They established a family home at Ville d’Avray, outside Paris, and Yehudi continued to give concerts throughout the world.

In 1934 while playing in San Francisco, the family spent a day or two at Cathedral Oaks, the Los Gatos Mountain home, of their friends, George Dennison and Frank Ingerson. The family was so taken with the beautiful mountain terrain, the magnificent redwood trees, and majestic oaks and madrones. Not given to extreme weather changes, the sky was blue and it was sunny a good majority of the year. Yehudi was later to write in his memoirs, “I was not alone in cherishing special feelings for California. For all my family the Garden of Eden could very exactly be pinpointed in the Santa Cruz Mountains”.  They purchased one hundred acres of land, adjoining Cathedral Oaks, on Alma Bridge Road and began planning their dream home. Yehudi wrote, “Between the end of the American tour in 1935 and the beginning of the round-the-world tour which took us to Honolulu, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, we spent three weeks with the boys, talking, thinking, dreaming, eating and drinking house design and engaging and briefing an architect. When we finally returned from the other side of the world, it would be to take possession of our new home, the first we had owned since Steiner Street. Alas, although the vision of the Villa Cherkess in the hills sustained us round the world, we never lived there.”

Yehudi, his parents, Moshe and Marutha, and his two sisters, Hephzibah and Yaltah, traveled the world with the idea of returning to Alma and their beautiful Villa Cherkess. They were to take an eighteen-month hiatus. Uprooted since 1927 and the stress was beginning to wear on everyone, especially Moshe. According to Yehudi, his father “yearned for California” and “he sensed Europe’s impending collapse and wanted us well out of it”. The time off “was to usher in a year without travels, hotels, concerts, records, engagements or commitments of any kind, a year of idleness and staying put and enjoying ourselves”.

The first few months began rather tumultuously. They had received the architect’s plans, which had been so meticulously supervised by their dear friends “the boys”, months before the end of the tour. But, the reality of spending $60,000 of the family’s money set in and Moshe lost his courage. He halted the construction before the main house was started, leaving them to arrive home to “a little, hot, dusty, flimsy cottage, planned as an overflow for guests, without charm or even space enough, standing in bulldozed earth by the side of the road, with no expanse of garden, no trees or flowers to soften the crude nudity, miles from any shop.”

The family attempted to make themselves comfortable in the cottage, but after residing in a Villa in France, their cramped surroundings were unacceptable and the fear of isolation also frightened the family. Since the kidnapping of the Lindbergh’s baby in 1932, the fear of abduction was a real threat.  Marutha took charge and ushered the family back down to town to the Hotel Lyndon in Los Gatos. It only took her a few days to find a suitable house on the hill above the town. “A lovely family home which rambled in every direction, with flower beds and greensward framing an ancient oak, and a guesthouse in whose main room we could perform plays among ourselves, as the previous owner had built a stage there. Our terrace commanded the Santa Clara Valley and a far-distant San Francisco Bay. Behind us, extending to the very top of the mountain, were orchards tended by the brothers of the Sacred Heart Novitiate.”

After a difficult start, the time off proproved to be “happy and carefree as had been intended”. Yehudi’s violin went untouched during which time he drove his new Cadillac all over the countryside. “I would make expeditions to the sea at Monterey, to the observatory on Mount Hamilton across the valley or just up into the hills, always choosing the least used, most romantic roads.”

Twenty years old, Yehudi needed to gain some freedom and independence from his parents. His friends describe his parents supervision as “something excessive, almost offensive” This time off was essential to his maturity. Yehudi stated, “It was our fling, our time of freedom, of unconcern, of letting duty slide, of summer excursions with young friends come to stay.” Long walks exploring the hills, sometimes with friends from Europe and New York revitalized Yehudi.

Twenty-one when he re-emerged from his sabbatical, Yehudi was looking for another dimension to his career, and his personal life, as well. After a concert in London, he was introduced to two young Australian siblings, George Nicholas, then 22, and his younger sister, Nola, a beautiful vivacious, auburn-haired nineteen year old. Yehudi was captivated by Nola, who swam, played tennis and drove a white Jaguar. Within two months, after many late night phone calls, Yehudi was married, Hephzibah was engaged to George Nicholas, and Yaltah, only 16, was engaged to a friend from St. Louis, William Stix. Their lives were evolving and changing. Never again would they travel as a family.