Tucked in the center of what is now Stanford University’s largest housing complex is a small white brick structure that is one of the last vestiges of an old farm. No, it was not originally part of the Stanford’s famous horse farm; it was part of the Coutts property, Matadero Ranch.
The Buttery is now a gathering place for parties, events and meetings in Stanford’s Liliore Green Rains Houses but there was a time that thousands of pounds of butter were churned here monthly.
Coutts, a French financier whose real name was Jean Baptiste Paulin Caperon, arrived in the town of Mayfield (as Palo Alto was then known) in 1874 with his invalid wife, young son and daughter, their governess and a lot of mystery in tow. Rumor had it that he was facing financial and legal difficulties in his native France so he fled for Switzerland, where he was given the documents of a recently deceased cousin by the name of Peter Coutts.
Ayershire Farm as Coutts’ ranch was popularly known, had pastures, orchards and prized cattle and in the hills above Stanford University, another remnant of it still stands today shrouded in mystery like the man who had it built--- a narrow 50-foot red brick column known as Frenchman’s Tower. Many think it was meant to be the base for a water tower. Other rumors centered on it being storage for a weapons cache or a fortune in gold, even a prison for Mrs. Coutts. Some of the locals thinking the tower looked more like a fortress with no apparent entrance; concocted wild stories that the structure may have been intended as protection from the real reason why Coutts fled Europe.
Then one day, Peter Coutts and his family vanished as suddenly as they’d arrived leaving Mayfield’s residents to speculate that the Coutts’ departure wasn’t planned. Tales of secret agents appearing at the farm in the dead of night fueled rumors that the departure was involuntary. In actuality the family returned to France after clearing up the issues that forced them from the country. Eventually the ranch and it prized stock were sold to Senator Leland Stanford, who added the property to his adjoining farm, which became Leland Stanford Jr. University.
