C. Frederick Kohl, Tortured Soul

In August 1896, the Beach House Hotel hosted the new “It couple”. Charles Frederick Kohl, 33, and his fiancée, 23-year-old Edith Dunlap, came to Sea Girt for August. They relaxed at the beach before the fall social season. Her mother, Rebecca, was a Harrison, whose family made their fortune in sugar and chemicals. Her father was a trusted attorney to Philadelphia's old-money families. Beautiful Edith had captured a San Francisco playboy.

1890s Beach trips were the talk of the social pages

She was marrying up. “Freddie” had just inherited over $5 million. His late father, Captain William Kohl had a thirty-year monopoly on seal fur trapping in Alaska. When they weren't traveling the world, the Kohls spent winters in San Francisco, and summers in their 16-acre estate and mansion on the peninsula at San Mateo. Freddie, a sportsman, belonged to all the right clubs.

All eyes were on the couple. In Victorian society, Edith needed her own room, her sister to accompany her to the beach, and everywhere else. Old money Philadelphians watched the couple carefully during the day. Noted hotelier George Boldt made the stay memorable. It was a perfect rest before their wedding.

Big Sea Day 1896 was a spectacle for Sea Girt hotel guests as farmers came from all over the coast for a day at the beach (MCM Library Company of Philadelphia)

Hotelier George Boldt ran the Beach house in Sea Girt for several summers

The bride wanted a simple affair. Freddie’s mother was returning from Europe for the wedding. A church ceremony, followed two days later by an exclusive dinner thrown by a family friend at the Bellevue, George Boldt’s flagship hotel. The most expensive hotel in Philadelphia had earned its reputation by realizing that there was a class of people who would pay the most to get the best. The service included celebrity chef Bill King, who invented Chicken à la King.

Boldt’s hotels were the finest in luxury.

At the wedding, Boldt invited the newlyweds to his newest venture in Manhattan. John Astor and his cousin William Waldorf were at war in a game of hotel one-upmanship. Boldt, working for Astor, needed to attract the wealthiest customers. The new power couple, just days married, were the talk of the New York Horse Show. A year later, Boldt convinced the cousins to join forces and create the ultimate New York version of his Bellevue in the Waldorf-Astoria.

The couple returned to San Francisco and settled in San Mateo. Freddie introduced Edith to the West Coast elite, and the good times, parties, and travel continued until March of 1900. Edith, visiting with her parents in Philadelphia, woke up with a pain in her side. Her appendix burst, and medical technology of the day could not save her. Freddie was devastated.

Edith and Freddie are buried here. Find-a-grave John Beresford photo

His mother wanted him to find another wife. He met a popular soprano in 1904, and Freddie quickly married the glamorous Mary "Bessie" Godey of Washington, D.C. Kohl purchased her a massive estate, Idlewild, on Lake Tahoe as a summer home. The old mansion in San Mateo had too many memories, and the Kohl estate there eventually became a local park.

Bessie Kohl, Soprano and second wife to Freddie

His mother’s wedding gift was a diamond necklace with 29 major stones and 5,000 smaller stones. Freddie did not find peace for long.

The elder Mrs. Kohl hired a French maid, Adele Verge, for the couple. The maid became troublesome and squabbled with their chauffeur. Adele also shouted and spat at hotel workers and other guests in a hotel in Riverside, California. Freddie had her arrested and evaluated.

One doctor thought Verge should be committed, as she seemed to think everyone everywhere was talking about her. Another disagreed, and she was set free, but the Kohls fired her anyway. Rather than return to France with Freddie’s severance, Adele sued the Kohls in 1911 for unlawful imprisonment. The maid blamed the Kohls for telling her next employers that she was insane. After testimony about her behavior, she lost the court case, but she cornered Freddie in the lobby of the courthouse. As he lit a cigar, the maid shot him at point-blank range.

A bullet lodged in his chest, too close to his heart to remove. Freddie never recovered from the shock. He became paranoid himself. Adele had been deported back to France and committed to an institution. She smuggled out threatening letters, telling Freddie she would finish the job.

Verge used a Derringer pistol to shoot Freddie (Library of Congress)

His mother died shortly after the shooting. To get another fresh start, Freddie and Bessie built a four-story, 63-room Tudor mansion on a 40-acre lot in Burlingame. It included a massive conservatory for Bessie to perform. They were there for less than a year.

Adele escaped her asylum and sent letters to Kohl. She let him know that she had crossed the Atlantic. The letters came from Canada. Freddie saw the woman around every corner, in the shadows, and on the street. Bessie continued to perform, but Freddie was too afraid to travel with her. His wife and friends lamented that he became unbearably paranoid. Returning from a performance in Honolulu in 1916, Bessie told Freddie she wanted out. She left to perform for the troops in Europe, not intending to return.

Freddie Kohl from newspapers at his death in 1921

Abandoned, Freddie left the mansion and moved into the St. Francis Hotel in downtown San Francisco with Marion Louderback Lord, the widow of Lord and Taylor heir Arthur Lord. Marion cared for the sick Kohl. The bullet, almost a decade after the shooting, caused a stroke.

By 1920, Adele Verge had moved west to British Columbia, just up the coast from San Francisco. She continued with the tormenting letters. Freddie finally got the Canadian authorities to take him seriously. They captured Verge and committed her once again. Her arrest did not help Freddie’s mental state. One morning Charles Frederick Kohl left breakfast at the Del Monte hotel, and shot himself dead in his hotel room at 57. The papers suggested Adele Verge had gotten her revenge with Freddie’s own hand.

His will left his ex-wife Bessie $250,000, but the Kohl mansion in Burlingame $4.5 million, and most of the property went to Lord. The mansion was rented out and was the setting for the movie Little Lord Fauntleroy starring Mary Pickford.

In 1924, Marion Lord sold the property to the Sisters of Mercy for $230,000. The property was used as a convent in the 1920s and became Mercy High School for Girls in 1931. Today, the property hosts music concerts in Bessie’s great hall, and the grounds host weddings. There are persistent rumors that Freddie Kohl haunts the halls of the Kohl mansion.