When you think of Fresno, you probably don’t think of a 16th century French chateau. But then again, you aren’t M. Theo Kearney, the mysterious aristocrat, raisin baron, and self-made man who was once called the "Prince of Fresno." The story of his remarkable estate, Chateau Fresno, today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots.
Kearney was what you might consider a gentleman farmer. Born into poverty in Liverpool England, he created a new identity in the new world. One of immense business success, sophistication, and style, socializing with members of the aristocracy on his frequent trips to Europe.
Starting in 1883, his Fruit Vale Estate helped transform Fresno’s famous raisin industry. But Kearney wasn’t done. He designed and built a grand boulevard 11 miles long “in the French Style” connecting the City of Fresno to his new development. You know it today at Kearney Boulevard. Next, hired one of America’s top landscape architects to design a 230 acre private park, which he called Chateau Fresno. You know it today as Kearney Park. He built a grand three-story home, known today as Kearney Mansion.
But this mansion was intended to merely be the caretaker’s lodge. Kearney’s own residence was yet to be built, and was designed as a near copy of the famous Château de Chenonceaux, in France’s Loire Valley. You know, the one built by Henry II, and his wife Catherine de' Medici. Those plans were cut short by Kearney’s death in 1906 aboard a steamship bound for Europe. But his legacy lives on in the form of Fresno’s Kearney Mansion and Kearney Park to this day.
