1912, Duchêne arrived in San Francisco to lay out the grand parterre gardens. In late 1913, Ernest Sanson began to design the house. His plans included a dry moat around two sides of the house, discreetly located to provide light and air, and access, to the service spaces in the basement, while not blocking views of the gardens from the principal rooms on the main floor. In his design, Sanson incorporated three 18th-century period rooms that Carolan had purchased in Paris with the advice of the famous antique dealer Boni de Castellane. In 1914, Willis Polk began grading the great terraces planned by Duchêne, sending progress photographs to the owner and her architects. Polk began to build the reinforced concrete superstructure he had designed, creating the infill walls with brick, finishing them with concrete stucco, sanded and scored to resemble natural limestone. In mid-1916, the elaborate interior elements began arriving on the site. The house as completed had ninety-eight rooms, including nine bedrooms and baths for the owners and their guests, each with an antechamber to guarantee quiet and privacy. The service spaces were equally elaborate: a kitchen with walls and ceiling made of white glass tiles; a service elevator connecting all floors; and a butler's pantry and mezzanine with walls of Delftware tile. In the fall of 1916, Harriett and Frank Carolan moved in with their staff. First decline Harriett Carolan did not use her house for long: she separated from Frank Carolan in 1917 and closed the chateau the following year. After the separation, she moved to New York City, while Frank remained in California where he died in 1923. Two years later, Harriett married Col. Arthur Schermerhorn, and while the couple occasionally occupied Carolands, in 1928 Harriett removed her furniture and put the property up for sale. The U.S. Government considered buying Carolands to use as a Western White House in 1939, and again during the Kennedy administration, but both times declined to purchase. In 1945, Tomlinson Moseley bought the house and surrounding 550 acres (2.2 km2) from the Schermerhorns and began to sub-divide the land and build additional houses. In 1947, Life Magazine published an article about a charity event held at the house, the first opportunity for San Francisco-area residents to see its interior. According to the article, the house had been abandoned for twenty-five years, so that plumbing for the event had to be