The Irish Story Behind Filoli's Celtic Christmas, and Where to Find It on the Grounds

In Filoli's Ballroom, the walls show a lake, a large house on its shore and, to the right of the fireplace, a waterfall called O'Sullivan's Cascade. The place is Muckross, in Killarney, Ireland. Ernest Peixotto painted it about a century ago for a family whose daughter lived there.

This season, Filoli has decorated the rooms around that Ballroom in layered tartans, jewel tones and evergreen garland under a theme it calls Celtic Connections. The decorations come down after January 10. The Irish story they draw on stays, because it is built into a wall of paintings and a row of trees that were on the estate long before this year's theme.

A Wedding Gift in Killarney

The connection starts with William Bowers Bourn II, who built Filoli. According to Muckross House's own history, Bourn rented the Muckross estate in 1910. He then bought it as a wedding present for his daughter Maud and her husband, Arthur Rose Vincent. Ireland's 1932 act on the estate records the deed from Lord Ardilaun to Bourn as dated August 4, 1911.

Maud died in New York in February 1929. In December 1932, the Irish legislature accepted the Muckross estate as a gift from Arthur Rose Vincent, William Bowers Bourn and Agnes Bourn, with the land to become a national park named Bourn Vincent Memorial Park. The Bourn Vincent Memorial Park Act, 1932 set December 31 of that year as the date the state would take possession. Ireland's 2005 management plan for Killarney National Park describes that 4,300-hectare memorial park as the nucleus of the larger Killarney National Park that exists today.

So the family that built a country estate off Cañada Road also helped found one of Ireland's national parks. Filoli's holiday theme takes its cue from that link, and the estate already shows it in two places.

The Ballroom Was Painted as a Letter Home

The Ballroom murals are the most direct record. Filoli's August 2026 blog post, A Story Hidden in the Murals, says the room's walls tell part of the Bourns' story by showing the Muckross estate where Maud lived. Peixotto painted the large Irish landscapes in New York and shipped them to California by train.

For years, the smaller paintings above the doors, with their deer, fairies and rushing waterfalls, were less well documented. Filoli's curators found the answer in an expense sheet from around 1925 in the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, which listed a payment to an assistant who had never been named. Letters in Filoli's archive show that Peixotto planned to finish the overdoor work during a summer in Samois-sur-Seine, France. There he hired Madeleine Leroux, a graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She was paid 100 francs a day and 2,000 francs in total, which works out to about 20 days of painting.

Leroux went on to win a Gold Medal at the Salon of French Artists in 1926 and the Grand Prix de Rome in 1927. She is better known today as Magdalena de Pérez Comendador, and the Pérez Comendador-Leroux Museum in Hervás, Spain, holds most of her work. The finding is less than a year old. Many people who have seen the Ballroom for decades have looked at her deer and waterfalls without knowing her name.

The Yew Allée Grew From Muckross Cuttings

The second piece of Ireland at Filoli grows in the garden. A yew-lined allée runs north to south to the High Place, which Filoli describes as the spot William Bourn favored above all others. When it was planted, it looked out over Crystal Springs Reservoir. A century of tree growth has since blocked that view.

According to Filoli's page on the High Place, the Bourns brought in more than 200 Irish yews for the estate, grown from cuttings taken at Muckross. At the end of the path, Vicenza stone columns and Irish yews form a semicircle in the style of a Greek, or "Green," Theater. That kind of outdoor room was common in Italian Renaissance gardens.

The garden's original design came from Bruce Porter. Isabella "Bella" Worn worked with him on the planting, and Willis Polk designed the house. Later caretakers kept the Irish thread going. Filoli's two Knot Gardens, added in 1976, were inspired by English knot gardens, and Filoli says the project reflected the Bourn family's Celtic connections.

What Celtic Connections Adds for Eight Weeks

The holiday decorations sit on top of all this. Filoli puts 42 decorated trees in the House and more than 200 real Christmas trees across the estate, including an 18-foot Nordmann fir in Woodland Court. The House's look is described as "nostalgic, heritage-inspired holiday style," with tartan, garland and wreaths running room by room.

Last year's House theme was Gilded, a maximalist presentation. This year's theme focuses on one chapter of the family's story, its tie to Ireland. Kara Newport, Filoli's president and CEO, said in the October 20 announcement that this season means "a House that brings the Bourn family's Irish roots to life."

A Holiday Daytime visit can follow the Irish connection in this order:

1. The House, early if you are a member. Members can enter the House and Thistlewyck Village from 9 to 10 a.m., before general admission opens.
2. The Ballroom. Look for Muckross House and the lake, O'Sullivan's Cascade beside the fireplace, and Leroux's deer and fairies above the doors.
3. The yew allée to the High Place. Walk the yews grown from Muckross cuttings to the stone semicircle at the end.
4. The Knot Gardens. These are the 1976 addition that carries the Celtic thread into the garden's later history.
5. The redwoods, last. Thistlewyck Village's miniature railway is back, and the new Filoli Family Farm has mini cows, goats, sheep, piglets and a mother donkey with her baby. Filoli presents the farm as a nod to the years when the estate was a working country property.

The Season at a Glance

Filoli is closed on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, and on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Advance tickets are recommended. Filoli had sold more than 26,000 Holidays at Filoli tickets by October 20, more than three weeks before opening day. At that point, its fall Nightfall event, which ran through November 1, already had 25 sold-out nights. Filoli's 2026 Holiday Lights calendar lists half-hour arrival times and sorts dates into Peak, Regular and Value tiers.

Members have the most flexibility. According to the Holiday FAQs, all members get free daytime admission with an advance reservation, plus 20% off up to four additional daytime tickets. Guild-level members and above get 20% off evening tickets. Circle, Family for All and Community Family members get free day and evening admission without reservations, even on sold-out days.

After dark, Holiday Lights covers the 16 acres of formal gardens with 350,000 lights on 28 miles of strands. It includes a 210-foot light tunnel and 78 lanterns in the Rose Garden, and this year adds light orbs and glowing flowers. The hot cocoa is popular enough that, according to Filoli, last season took 2,500 pounds of chocolate to keep up with demand. The new Holiday Lights Anytime+ ticket lets you arrive at any time on the evening you choose, and you can change the date easily. It includes a festive drink, a light-up necklace, 3D light glasses, a collectible pin and 20% off eligible retail purchases. For groups, private fire-pit experiences include Holiday Lights admission and a private covered area. They start at $950 for up to eight guests and $1,500 for up to 12.

The Garden House also hosts Filoli Reserve: A Legacy Wine Tasting, a four-wine flight from Chase Cellars, on December 5, 12, 19 and 26. Tickets are $125 and include general admission, and members get 10% off. Families with young children can add the $25 Thistlewyck Passport to a daytime ticket. It includes a stamp activity, an Elf Academy hat, a toy train and hot chocolate.

The drive in is also changing. In June, Filoli announced work on its entrance drive, with a realigned and widened entrance, enhanced lighting, an updated gate and a new welcome sign. A green three-rail fence modeled on the property's historic farm fencing will replace the chain-link along the field. Filoli calls this one of the first phases of a new comprehensive site plan for an estate that welcomes more than 700,000 guests a year.

Filoli built this season's House theme around a century-old family story, and the Ballroom murals and Irish yews show that story year-round. For those of us at Dana Rae Stone, that kind of architectural history is part of how we think about Peninsula homes, from original plans to later additions and the stories owners keep with a property. If you own an estate with history of its own and are thinking about how to present it, let's talk about your home.