Beth Sarim

Did the Watchtower buy Beth Sarim or did they have it built?

elder-schmelder

I thought purchased.

If it's accurate, the whole story from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beth_Sarim

Beautiful place, whoever owns it now has maintained it very well.  Overlooks Mission Gorge.

Worth a driveby just to be reminded of how religions can misspend people's money.

For the real humdinger of gaudiness check out the Trinity Broadcast Group's headquaters in Orange County. OMG!

The Wiki story looks reasonably accurate (or, as accurate as anything else that we can pin down about the Rutherford life style) - except for a couple of points:

The booze, and the girls.

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/scandals/100316/1/Source-of-Direct-Contribution-for-Rutherfords-House-Beth-Sarim

So, that thread pretty much intimates that the Society was probably the true source of much of the money (certainly they maintained it after construction) and that this "doctor" et. al. were just front men?  Probably both of the Cadillacs, too.  Also that the society hired the architect to design it as well.

Typical.

I was also quite amused by the Freddy Franz weasel-wording on why the society sold it after WW2.  Uhhh...we built it, but unlike the "Field of Dreams" - no ancients from the bible era came.

Interesting too that they also owned a property very close to Beth Sarim called Beth Shan from 1939-1945 !!!