Beth Sarim is a house in San Diego that was built by the Jehovah’s Witnesses–for a really WEIRD purpose–during the days when "Judge" Rutherford was president of the Watchtower Society (quotation marks because he only served as a temporary substitute judge).
Rutherford actually lived here. The leader of the JWs walked through the front door you see to the left and looked out the windows of this house.
It was my first visit to the location. I’d known about it for years but had never discovered the street address until this week. (It’s 4440 Braeburn Rd, though don’t bug the current inhabitants if you visit there; they have nothing to do with the JWs.)
Turns out that I used to live within a couple of miles of the location (it’s on the south side of Mission Valley, and I used to live on the north side, near Qualcomm Stadium).
When I visited Friday I sent a mystery photo to the blog using my camera phone, but the quality of camera phones ain’t what I’m looking for yet, so I took along a better camera as well. Here’s some pictures from the visit. (click any of these pictures to enlarge them.)
The purpose for which Beth Sarim was built is a matter of at least a little dispute. If you check the Web, you’ll find anti-JW sites that mention a 1975 statement in which the Watchtower said that the house was built for the use of Rutherford.
That’s NOT what contemporary documents say, though.
According to things written the era in which the house was built (1929), it wasn’t meant for Rutherford at all but for various Old Testament figures who were expected to be resurrected any day then (e.g., Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David–basically anybody mentioned in Hebrews 11).
The idea was that they would be resurrected, show up (possibly in top hats and spats), and take possession of the property.
UNTIL THAT TIME Rutherford was allowed to live in and use the property.
One guy claiming to be King David actually did show up, but Rutherford didn’t believe him. According to the (now defunct newspaper) The San Diego Sun, "Judge" Rutherford reported:
One morning as I was going from the house to the garage, a queer looking creature approached me, tipped his dirty hat and cried ‘Howdy Judge, I’m David’ ‘Go and tell that to the winds’, I told him and he left without arguing the matter. I could see at a glance that he was not David. He didn’t look like I knew David would look.’
Asked how he expected David and his distinguished brethren to look, Rutherford, without hesitation, opened his huge Bible and pointed to a verse which said that the Princes of the Universe would be risen from the dead ‘as perfect men’.
‘I interpret that to mean’, the tall dignified Judge declared, ‘that David, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jepthae, Joseph and Samuel will be sent here to wrench the world from Satan’s grasp, clothed in modern garb as we are, and able, with little effort, to speak our tongue.’
Rutherford pictured the arrival of the biblical delegation perhaps in frock coats, high hats, canes and spats [SOURCE].
The idea that Beth Sarim was meant to be a house for resurrected Old Testament figures is confirmed by the DEED TO THE PROPERTY, which spells this out in detail. The name given to the house–Beth Sarim ("House of Princes" in Hebrew)–also speaks to the idea that it was built for the Old Testament figures.
There is a third interpretation of why the house was built, though. According to some sources who were JWs at the time, Rutherford was unable to serve as an effective leader of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society (based in Brooklyn, New York)–in part due to difficulties he was having with alcohol abuse. According to these sources, Beth Sarim was built to get him out of Brooklyn and allow others to take over routine operations of the Watchtower.
This at least would be consistent with the later, 1975 statement that the house was built for Rutherford’s use, but it is totally at variance with the documents dating from when the house was built. The deed Rutherford crafted for the structure makes explicit that it was for the use of the resurrected patriarchs, including the adjoining garage for motor cars (pictured below), which at the time was stocked with a couple of Cadillacs for the patriarchs to use.
Rutherford’s dreams of OT patriarchs are long gone, of course, though a modern one seems to live there.
If you look closely at this picture, you will see that there is a basketball goal in the drive now. There is also (much smaller) a child’s Big Wheel-type toy, revealing that a normal family with children now inhabits the structure.
I’ve seen the house described several times as a "mansion" and even claims that it has 20 rooms. But as the picture below shows, it is much too short and thin for that. The claim that it has 10 rooms (also on the net) is much more reasonable.
It may be a nice house, but it doesn’t really meet the standards of what I imagine as a "mansion." Stately Wayne Manor, it ain’t–though I can imagine Zorro living here.
(Incidentally, notice the cross that tops the central round room at the top of the houes–these days JWs are about as fond of crosses as vampires are, though in the past they had no problems with them.)
To one side of the house there is an unpaved walkway that leads to an overview of the canyon above which the house sits. When I saw it, I didn’t think that this path was part of the Beth Sarim property (and still don’t know if it was), so I walked down it in order to get a photo of the canyon below. Here are a couple of pictures I took, revealing the rear view of Beth Sarim.
Rutherford is reported to have planted the property with palm and olive trees so that the resurrected patriarchs would feel at home. It seems (as illustrated in the picture below) that he also planted it with pomegranate trees (you don’t see those that often!).
Beth Sarim is a little bigger than the other houses in the neighborhood, but they are also nice.
There are lots of nice gardens in the area. Below is a bird of paradise plant (no theological point here; I just think these are cool).
The neighborhood is a bit past its glory days, but it’s still quite impressive. From the movies I was always impressed with those California neighborhoods whose streets were lined with tall palm trees. It was something to move out here and actually see them. (And in color, yet!)
I suspect that many of the local inhabitants don’t know the significance of Beth Sarim or the bizarre beliefs that led to its construction.
They certainly wouldn’t know the even darker secrets of the place that I haven’t mentioned here.
More on those later.
