He also wrote the libretto to the first American opera that was produced in Europe; helped popularize French Art Deco in America; and funded and headed expeditions with the California Academy of Sciences and other academic institutions aboard his personal yacht Zaca.

Their parents had left them an $8 million fortune,[3] which was put in trust and distributed to each in turn when they came of age; Mary, the eldest, inherited her share in 1899.

[4] Templeton survived significant injuries and illnesses when he was younger, including a grave fever when he was six,[5] an accident involving a stair bannister a few months later,[6] and fracturing both legs after being thrown by his horse when he was seventeen.

[15] Shortly after they were married, Templeton hired noted architect Willis Polk to design a new mansion for the site as a wedding present for his wife.

[17][18][19]: 15 Outdoor scenes for the motion picture Gimme were filmed by Rupert Hughes at Uplands II in 1922;[20] the salaries of the society women who served as extras and the rental fee for the grounds were donated to charity.

[24][25] Uplands II was temporarily rented in 1951 to a Soviet delegation, including Deputy Foreign Secretary Andrei Gromyko, who were attending the Japanese Peace Conference that year.

[25] It is still standing at 401 El Cerrito Avenue, near the intersection with Poett Road, albeit with significant alternations; when it was owned by George Randolph Hearst, who purchased it in 1927, he hired Julia Morgan to remodel it.

[27] Funeral services were held at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in San Mateo, after which he was interred at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park.

His mother's family were also prominent citizens on the San Francisco Peninsula: his maternal grandparents, Ansel I. and Adeline Easton (née Mills) survived the sinking of the SS Central America off Cape Hatteras during their honeymoon in 1857.

He wrote the lyrics for an opera entitled The Land of Happiness, a Chinese fantasy-extravaganza set to music by composer (and Southern Pacific attorney) Joseph Redding which premiered on August 4, 1917, at the Bohemian Grove.

While visiting Bohemian Grove in 1921, the well-known soprano Mary Garden accepted the opera with the intention to produce it in Chicago,[34] but it would take several more years to make its public debut.

After the end of World War I, Crocker and Redding visited Paris in search of talent to design and produce his opera, by then renamed to Fay-Yen-Fah.

The brilliant dancer/painter Hubert Julian "Jay" Stowitts, aka “America’s First Ambassador of International Culture,” was employed to create authentic and sumptuous costumes and sets.

[41]: 19  He served as the Society's first president and provided generous financial support over its first twenty years until its membership had grown sufficiently to cover its costs.

He would return to France a few years later to commission fashionable furnishings and objects for his penthouse apartment in the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco.

[44][45] Templeton hired none other than Jean-Michel Frank, Pierre Legrain, Jean Dunand and Madame Lipska to execute the decor for his modernist apartment.

When everything was installed and his divorce from sugar heiress Helene Irwin became final, Templeton, nicknamed “Prince Fortunatus” by his classmates at Yale, moved into the apartment with longtime friend and valet-butler Thomas Thomasser.

Guests marveled at Crocker's stunning aquariums of exotic tropical fish, dramatically lit and set beneath the level of the floor.

[59] Templeton devoted himself intermittently to the management of the St. Francis Hotel on Union Square, which the Crocker family financed and built just before the Earthquake.

[64] Crocker served in the Naval Reserve, sailing on USS Idaho as an ensign in 1921;[65] at the time he was thought to be the wealthiest man in the Navy.

Staterooms, glamorous hotel-like apartments reflecting favorite Art Deco motifs were done in combinations of imported woods, including beams of Alaskan cedar and panels in teak and primavera.

With Rotch and a crew of 8, Templeton sailed his yacht around the world covering 27,490 miles (44,240 km) and calling at 50 ports including Marquesas, Tahiti, Cook Islands, Pago Pago, Trobriands, Bali, Java, Singapore, Ceylon, Aden, Arabia, Egypt, Malta, Cannes, Teneriffe, Puerto Rico, Panama, Guatemala, Manzanillo, and Ensenada.

[72] After the globe spanning odyssey, the “Commodore,” as Crocker insisted on being called while at sea, ordered the yacht transformed into a floating laboratory for scientific expeditions.

Six voyages in all between 1932 and 1938 transported ichthyologists, ornithologists, anthropologists, zoologists, botanists, and photographers from the California Academy of Sciences, the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Zoological Society and other academic institutions.

The perpetually tanned Templeton described the journey as “full of adventures,” and promptly offered to host a follow-up expedition that would pass through the Galápagos in 1934 on its way to Polynesia.

[99] Crocker went on two oceanic adventures along the Pacific Coast from Baja California to Columbia with William Beebe, renowned naturalist, marine biologist and world deep sea record holder.

The victim of intense mood swings and prone to alcoholic binges, Crocker could be both a generous and entertaining host and a demanding Captain Bligh.

The refit took a week and added anti-aircraft machine guns; by June 19, she was stationed off the California coast to patrol for enemy ships and rescue downed pilots.

[103] Press reports referred to the storied vessel as “the sexiest yacht in the world.”[102] Flynn died in 1959 while arranging for the sale of Zaca in Vancouver, British Columbia to cover debts;[104] she was abandoned in Mallorca and slowly deteriorated into a rotting hulk, passing between several disinterested owners, including Flynn's widow Patrice Wymore and Freddie Tinsley, who sailed the decrepit Zaca to Cannes in 1965.