REPOST FROM INDIACURRENTS
by Mona Shah | Mar 19, 2023

Filoli Gardens on Dynasty

Do you remember the 80’s soap opera “Dynasty?” I remember it so clearly. As the credits rolled, they showed an aerial view of Filoli Gardens – it was supposed to represent the fictional, over-the-top Carrington family’s ancestral seat.

I had recently moved to graduate school in Boston and remember my roommate waxing poetic about the series. Dynasty focused on the lives of the Carrington family, a wealthy and powerful oil family who, “lived and sinned in a 48-room mansion.”

Living in an urban jungle that is Mumbai, I had never seen a sprawling, expansive country estate with formal and informal gardens of extraordinary beauty. It mesmerized me.