SAN FRANCISCO – Filoli, a grand house and garden on 265ha of rolling green grounds near the California coast, has been a supporting character in the 1980s television drama Dynasty and the 2001 romantic comedy The Wedding Planner.

It has been the venue for top-dollar nuptials of Facebook executives, and the public can tour the gardens. Just not on Wednesday.

Top aides to US President Joe Biden have worked with Chinese officials for weeks to ensure that this setting would be the perfect backdrop to host a diplomatic summit between Mr Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping – two men who share a deep scepticism of each other but also a mutual belief that their countries must avoid allowing their diplomatic and military interactions to deteriorate from fierce competition into outright conflict.

San Francisco, the host city for the summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation – known as Apec, a group of 21 countries that surround the Pacific Ocean – would be too bottlenecked and too frenetic to host such a meeting.

US officials, given the mandate to plan a summit that would show Mr Xi respect and keep him away from protesters, landed on Filoli during their anxious planning process.

The site was appealing for a few reasons.

It is set among the hills, one of the more isolated spots in a densely populated corner of California.

The White House kept the location of the meeting secret until a day before, presumably to keep protesters from surrounding the venue.

None were visible at the gates on Wednesday morning as Mr Biden’s motorcade approached the locale, but some could be seen along the route from San Francisco.

Filoli is a giant estate amid some of the most expensive real estate in the country, built in the early 20th century by a family that made its fortune in the California gold rush and wanted a retreat not far from San Francisco.

William Bowers Bourn II, the original owner of the home and an owner of one of the largest gold mines in American history, decided on the name “Filoli” by mixing together the first few letters of his personal motto: “Fight for a just cause. Love your fellow man. Live a good life”.

Today, it is surrounded by wealth that makes the gold rush look like a low-stakes card game. The headquarters of Google, Apple and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, are all within a 30-minute drive.

And the estate has become a go-to wedding site for the new rich of the tech boom, with expansive gardens, a large ballroom and plenty of space to wander off.

The two leaders shook hands at the entrance to the 5,040 sq m, 56-room house before an extensive bilateral meeting, flanked by their security teams.

They met with their teams in a room often used for wedding receptions.

During their lengthy meeting, the two leaders dined on herbed ricotta ravioli, artichoke crisps, tarragon-roasted chicken, rice pilaf, charred broccolini and almond meringue cake.

Filoli, which was opened to the public in 1975, drew about 400,000 visitors in 2022.

Its marketing materials call it “one of the finest remaining country estates of the 20th century”.

The opulent backdrop did little to soften the rigid formality of the summit, which was a far cry from the cosier rapport between Mr Xi and Mr Biden’s predecessors.

In 2017, Mr Xi visited then President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, where they discussed airstrikes in Syria over “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake”, according to Trump.

He also directed his granddaughter to sing a song in Mandarin for the Chinese leader. But that warm welcome did little to quell later disputes over the coronavirus pandemic or a trade war.

In 2013, then President Barack Obama welcomed Mr Xi to Sunnylands, the lavish estate in Rancho Mirage, California, that Ms Leonore Annenberg and her billionaire husband Walter Annenberg had built in the Southern California desert to offer presidents a “Camp David West”.

It was a favourite of Republican presidents, including Mr George H.W. Bush and Mr Ronald Reagan.

Mr Obama and Mr Xi spent eight hours together there, smiling broadly.

And 30 years ago, another Chinese leader visited another Apec summit, held that year in Seattle.

Then President Jiang Zemin visited the home of a family in a blue-collar suburb of that city, discussing mortgage payments and admiring the three cars in the driveway. He came bearing a large stuffed panda.

Relations are different today.

“I think this is the type of summit you have after you’ve had a spy balloon go overhead, after you’ve had a trade war, after you’ve had a lot of close calls in the China Sea,” said Dr Thomas Schwartz, a professor of history at Vanderbilt University. “You can’t do the sort of panda summits and the rest of that.”

But the talk was not limited to world conflict and nukes.

At one point during their four-hour meeting, Mr Biden wished Mr Xi’s wife, Ms Peng Liyuan, a happy birthday – she shares the same birthday as the US President, who turns 81 next week.

Mr Xi replied that he was embarrassed, he has been working so much that he had forgotten that his wife’s birthday was coming up.

After their meeting, Mr Biden and Mr Xi took a walk among the pomegranate trees and heather under grey California clouds.

Then Mr Xi departed for San Francisco, where he was scheduled to meet American business leaders at a US$2,000 (S$2,700) -a-plate dinner.

Mr Biden stayed behind to deliver a news conference, where he said he still viewed his guest of honour as a dictator, a comment that his aides tried to walk back the last time he said it. NYTIMES