Name Francis Underhill | ||
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Francis Townsend Underhill (25 February 1863 – 1929) was a politician from the U.S. state of New York and an amateur architect in California.
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Biography
Born in Oyster Bay, New York, he was a ninth-generation descendent of Captain John Underhill. Underhill was raised by his aunts as his parents (James Week Underhill, 1819-1868; Margaret Varnum) died when he was of a young age. He was educated by tutors in the US and abroad.
Underhill married Henrietta Graham Meyer in 1883. Their three daughters, Margaret Varnum Underhill (born 1885, Katherine Underhill (born 1892), and Dorothy Underhill (born 1894), were raised at the family's Oyster Bay estate. He was a member of Caroline Astor's Four Hundred social registry, the Knickerbocker Union, Society of Colonial Wars, Sons of the American Revolution, and the Union Club of New York. A horseman, he was a judge at Madison Square Garden in 1890. Underhill raced his yachts, Mayflower and Mischief in the America's Cup. He served as an Army officer in Cuba during the Spanish–American War alongside Theodore Roosevelt. He briefly served as secretary to E. H. Harriman of the Union Pacific Railroad.
In 1884, Underhill bought the Ontare Ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley from Dixie Thompson for $18,000, moving there with his family. Two years later, he purchased 5,260 acres south of Los Alamos, California from Dr. James Barron Shaw in spring 1886. He wrote Driving for Pleasure: Or, The Harness Stable and Its Appointments in 1896. In 1900, Underhill divorced Henrietta and moved permanently to California, tired of splitting his time between two coasts. He purchased the 6,000 acre El Roblar Rancho near Los Alamos in 1904, and two years later, he married Carmelita Dibblee (born 1886, Santa Barbara), granddaughter of Pablo de la Guerra and great-granddaughter of José de la Guerra y Noriega. Dabbling in architecture and landscape architecture, he built La Chiquita, which is now a part of the Santa Barbara Biltmore, for his wife.