The Pittsburgh Press (January 15, 1942)
Rambling Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
SCOTIA, Cal. – Stan Murphy is one of San Francisco’s bigger business men.
He is president of the Pacific Lumber Co. here at Scotia, the largest redwood timber operator in the world. He is not the “office” type of big executive – his heart is in the woods, and his personality shows it. He is easy to be with.
His time is divided into three sections. He spends about a third of it here in the forested hills, another third at his office in San Francisco, and the last third traveling – on frequent business trips East, and on hunting trips.
When up here he lives in his magnificent mountain lodge 14 miles from Scotia. I have just been a guest there, and I’m probably spoiled for ordinary living forever.
Stan Murphy is what you would call a good fellow. His company is run in the benevolent manner; his employees get bonuses and many perquisites. He thinks hard and worries about his business, but his movements are slow and calm and he never seems harassed.
He has a deep voice and swears with easy naturalness and has been known to take a drink. He would rather tramp all day through the brush in a pouring rain behind a bird dog than anything else he can think of. He has friends by the hundred.
Both of his boys are in the service – one in the Navy, one in the Army. The soldier boy is now on some unknown ship headed for some unknown destination. Mr. Murphy is all alone.
“But I wouldn’t have them anywhere else in times like these,” he says. Murphy himself was a naval officer in World War I. He still has the running lights off his old ship.
Lodge is a good place to be
Murphy’s lodge is called “Larabee.” It is in a spot of beautiful isolation. Thirty years ago Murphy worked up here in the redwoods, and lived in an old cabin within yelling distance of where his lodge now stands.
All around are redwood-shrouded hills, and the lodge itself hangs on the bank of a twisting mountain river. To reach it, you have to drive across a long low bridge, just wide enough for one car, and with no guard rails. Gives you the willies. It is not unusual for Murphy to be marooned at his lodge for days at a time when the water gets over the bridge.
There was danger of rising water while I was there, and a servant was sent down at 3 in the morning to see how the water looked. Unfortunately it looked all right. I’d never be lucky enough to get marooned in a place like that.
The lodge itself is two-story, built in stockade fashion, of huge logs. The first floor is just one immense room, with huge windows and a giant stone fireplace.
No city comfort is missing. There are bathrooms galore and great deep chairs and fine rugs and soft lights and guest rooms complete to the last eiderdown puff.
The lodge is entirely of redwood, and so is most everything in it. The tables and chairs, even some of the lampshades, are of redwood. The lodge sits in a grove of redwood trees.
The lodge is the sleepingest place you ever saw. You can hear the river sighing past, and a little creek flows smack under the house. When the rain pounds on the roof it is like being rocked in a cradle. A case of insomnia wouldn’t have a chance up here.
Which one is better off?
Murphy is usually alone when he is here, but occasionally he brings up large parties from San Francisco and they all go hunting and wind it up with a big barbecue.
Two servants stay here constantly, and when Murphy comes up from San Francisco his chauffeur comes too, even when Murphy comes by train. Incidentally, he has an arrangement with the railroad whereby all trains stop on call at his ranch gate.
Murphy is a quail-hunting fiend. He has 15 dogs on the place. They are all hunting dogs except Missie, the little dachshund, and even she goes into the woods with them frequently, and waddles around in her brave curiosity until she gets lost.
Murphy raises his own quail to turn loose in the woods. He has an elaborate layout for this – an electric incubator and various warm rooms for the little quail and a battery of wire enclosures used as “holding pens.” Last year he liberated 500 quail in the woods.
Stan Murphy lives in luxury, but there is no “put on” about it. Even an humble person feels comfortable with him. As happens to most people of importance, he has gradually come to live in a world where he is waited upon. Servants wake him of a morning, answer his phone, feed his dogs, run his errands, lay the daily papers at his table.
My cousin, who drives one of Mr. Murphy’s bulldozers, has none of these things. He gets his own breakfast before daylight, and doesn’t have a telephone. His wife washes on the back porch, and hangs the clothes in the kitchen to dry.
Yet I would hesitate to say that one is better or worse off than the other. Mr. Murphy carries the responsibility of 1700 people and great factories and vast investments on his shoulders. My cousin is responsible for only three people, and his daily job.
My cousin works for Mr. Murphy, whom he has never met, but also Mr. Murphy works hard for my cousin, whom he wouldn’t know if he saw.
As for me, I envy them both. For, when I wake up of a morning, I usually don’t even know where I am.