Inside a real-life $2 8 million 'Flintstones' home in California

Table Of Content

• Homeless encampments are on the ballot in Arizona. Could California, other states follow?
• Reports: Commanders sign former Notre Dame QB Sam Hartman
• Dear Abby: It’s not fair that this became a ‘girl thing’
• Complaint
• Law that ended single-family zoning is struck down for five Southern California cities
• Lawsuit against Kevin de León could be dismissed next month, judge rules

Not far away, she installed blue iridescent floors in a Gold Rush-themed room, adorned with 49ers — yes, the San Francisco football team — panning for gold. As 2020 faded into ’21, Fang installed a bright orange tiger, resembling the character Fang from a Flintstones spinoff, above the front door holding a heart-shaped sign welcoming in the new year and bidding good riddance to the last. “I feel happy,” said Fang, who bought the nearly 3,000-square-foot property, now worth more than $3.6 million, for $2.8 million in 2017. Nestled in an upmarket neighborhood south of San Francisco, the orange and purple, boulder-like abode visible from Interstate 280 has become a magnet for travelers and tourists, who often stop to take photos. The town’s lawsuit requested the judge to deem the property a public nuisance and order the statues to be taken down.

Homeless encampments are on the ballot in Arizona. Could California, other states follow?

Overlooking the freeway and reservoir, it continues to serve as an unofficial California landmark and a lighthearted reminder of the Bay Area’s forward, yet sometimes quirky, thinking. This building technique, known as “monolithic dome construction,” was invented by the South brothers in Shelly, Idaho, in 1975. One year later, Bay Area architect William Nicholson built a series of domes using this method, including The Flintstone House in Hillsborough, California. The controversy has sparked international media coverage and an online petition signed by thousands to preserve the attention-grabbing property, visible from a nearby highway.

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Fang, former publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, was sent multiple notices. After she failed to comply with stop-work orders, as well as an order to remove the collection of metal dinosaurs and animals from her backyard, the town took her to court in San Mateo County. The orange-and-purple home at 45 Berryessa Way in Hillsborough, located near a stretch of Interstate 280, has been fondly admired from afar for years. Fans of the unique abode, which bears a bulbous roof and dome-like rooms, have bestowed the circa-1976 property with the “Flintstone House” sobriquet due to its cartoonish, Stone Age appearance. David Levine, who specializes in civil litigation and remedies at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, said property owners flout permit regulations all the time.

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For now, Fang still resides not far away in her longtime Hillsborough home, with traditional Chinese decor, Fang said — lots of gold tones and jade, not a Flintstones character in sight. She hosts family and friends at the Flintstone House, including Nicholson, the architect, several times. Once a cello player serenaded guests from the rooftop, accessible from the second story.

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Complaint

Fang’s lawsuit began in March 2019, after the town of Hillsborough deemed the home’s lawn decorations as a “highly visible eyesore” following complaints from neighbors and residents. Town officials alleged that the caveman-themed menagerie of 15-foot dinosaur statues and cartoon sculptures violated building codes and were built without proper permits. Now, issues with the property’s decorative style have landed the house and its owner in court. The property was purchased in 2017 by octogenarian Florence Fang, who made several whimsical additions to the home, including anodized steel dinosaurs and “Flintstones” characters in the yard which are visible to passing motorists on Interstate 280. In 2019, the wealthy, snobbish residents of the town of Hillsborough attempted legal action to have the statues removed. In June 2021, the matter was settled in favor of Ms. Fang; the sculptures were allowed to stay.

But her grandson, a recent college graduate, has spent the pandemic hunkered down at his grandmother’s place amid the stuffed tigers, watermelon-shaped pillows and, naturally, Flintstone figurines dotting the home. There was hardly anybody in there at the time, so I laid down on the floor, and I looked up at the (domed) ceiling. Town officials in Hillsborough filed a lawsuit against Fang, calling the house an eyesore that doesn't comply with the community standards. She says her house represents the idea of the American dream with all different kinds of creatures living together in harmony.

Law that ended single-family zoning is struck down for five Southern California cities

Drivers heading north to San Francisco on Interstate 280 will notice a peculiar home just east of the Eugene A. Doran Memorial Bridge. The house, playfully dubbed by Bay Area residents as The Flintstone House, is actually an experimental house built in 1976 with rooms in which every surface is rounded. Beneath its burnt orange (originally white) coat of paint is a slew of cement, rebar, plaster putty, wire mesh, and aeronautical balloons.

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When Hillsborough objected to some of her outdoor decorating choices, it issued stop work orders and ultimately filed the suit. She responded in part by alleging racial discrimination by city employees. As part of the recent settlement, the town agreed to cover Fang’s $125,000 in legal fees and said the dinosaurs, mushrooms and other yard decor could stay. It was designed in 1976 by William Nicholson and most recently purchased by Florence Fang in 2017 for $2.8 million. Large dinosaur statues and other Flintstone-themed artwork cover the front and back yards.

“They are designed to be very intrusive, resulting in the owner’s vision for her property being imposed on many other properties and views, without regard to the desires of other residents,” the administrative hearing panel wrote in its decision. Despite having only one bedroom, the property boasts two bathrooms, a fireplace, an open patio, and several large glass windows – there is plenty of natural light to illuminate the retreat that sits on 23 acres of land. There is also the added bonus of the spectacular views of Serrano Valley, the Boney Mountains, the Channel Islands, and the Pacific Ocean. Maybe it's just me, but I feel it's fitting for Ryan Seacrest to continue following in Clark's footsteps by purchasing this home. In the entry, she added a statue of the Wilma character and plans to one day install a button that people can press to hear the red-headed Mrs. Flintstone talk about the house. The octogenarian, who moved to the U.S. in the early 1960s, doesn’t live in the home in part for security reasons — it regularly draws tourists trying to get a closer glimpse at the dinosaur sculptures visible from the freeway.

Following a lengthy court battle, the Northern California owner of the “Flintstone House” has quietly settled her lawsuit against the town of Hillsborough. But Iglesias says it's unusual for a homeowner to ignore three work-stop orders issued by the city, as the March 13 complaint states Fang did. She also ignored an administrative order to remove the installations by Dec. 5, 2018, although she paid a $200 fine. "Whether she is building a project with amusing cartoon characters or Rodin statues or anything else, she still has to go through the process like everyone else," he said. No one lives directly across from or behind the Flintstone House and residents in the comparatively vanilla homes on either side, she said, have not complained about their unusual neighbor. Its shape appealed to her, Fang said, since “round represents inclusive” — a not uncommon style in ancient times but a far cry from the sharp, square boxes typical of most suburbs today.

The reason we survive is that we follow the tribe, and so we want to live in something like the rest of the tribe lives in. I first visited this place a few years ago for a Bay Curious podcast episode that remains one of their most-popular episodes of all time. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. Images of the Flintstone home, featured in the franchise of The Flintstones. An attorney for the 84-year-old says snobby officials want to squelch Fang's constitutional right to enjoy her yard, and promises a vigorous fight.

The whimsical front yard has statues of Barney and Betty Rubble, along with Fred and Wilma. A steep staircase, deemed unsafe by town officials, leads to a garden of giant metal prehistoric animals. Hillsborough issued a building permit in November 2017 that allowed Fang to build a 2-foot-high retaining wall on the property. However, when officials visited the house for an inspection, they found extensive landscaping in the backyard, a new deck and a retaining wall on the side of the property that had been constructed to delineate an area for parking. Those changes fell outside the scope of the permit that had been issued by the town, according to the civil complaint filed in court.