Silicon Valley couple who bought abandoned 'Holy City' reported to be Scientology's biggest donors
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Silicon-Valley-couple-buy-Holy-City-Scientology-9143722.php
Bob and Trish Duggan, a Silicon Valley couple with a net value of more than $3.2 billion dollars, recently got a sweet deal on their purchase of 142 acres of lush woodland off Highway 17....
Back in the 1920s, a man named William Riker bought the land and called it Holy City. Riker considered himself a pastor, preaching ideologies of temperance, celibacy, and racial and gendered segregation, and with the help (and deep pockets) of his followers, built a small town on the property. The settlement included houses, a gas station, a radio station, and for a short time, a zoo.
"Father Riker was a reverend who was less than stellar and quite a bigot in many respects," Darren Eastman, a neighbor to the property told CBS San Francisco. Trying to avoid the word "cult," Eastman calls the former inhabitants a "religious society," and notes that today, nearby kids often follow the old footpaths, looking for the abandoned zoo.
Now, the property has recently been reclaimed by a wealthy Silicon Valley couple, who, in a weird twist, also happen to be Scientology's biggest donors. Duggan served as CEO of Pharmacyclics, a biotech company, when it sold to AbbVie in 2015 for $21 billion, but even prior to that, Duggan and his artist wife Trish had in 2013 reportedly given $20 million to the church.