Elmshaven, St. Helena




View from the front porch of Elmshaven

The theme of this year’s HALS challenge is to document historic landscapes that reflect the heritage of women. The purpose of this year’s challenge is to increase awareness of the role of women in shaping the American landscape. The idea started four years ago, when the Northern California Chapter of HALS challenged the rest of the nation, to prepare a HALS short form for a children’s theme park. We got the idea when Jennifer Liw, a PGAdesign employee wrote up a form for Fairyland in Oakland’s Lakeside Park.

Folks at the National Park Service liked the idea so much that they adopted the program and have been running it ever since. Each fall they announce the winners of that year’s challenge, during the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) annual conference, and they announce the theme for the coming year.

View of house from the entry drive with a large elm tree

Initially, this year’s theme had me stumped. Sites that came to mind had already been done. I kept waiting for an inspired idea, but nothing presented itself until last weekend when I’d promised to take my mom on a day trip. I decided to drive up to the Napa Valley which is a pretty drive any time of year but with flowering trees in bloom I thought it would be a perfect time to go. I was right. 



We headed for Elmshaven in St. Helena the heart of the wine growing Napa Valley. Elmshaven was the home of Ellen G. White from 1900 until her death in 1915. Ellen White was a founder of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. She was also an extraordinarily prolific writer who produced 40 books. Much of her writings were on religious topics – some inspired by visions she had or angles who spoke to her throughout her life. She also wrote about healthy living and the importance of education. She is associated with several major institutions including Pacific Union College, Loma Linda University and several medical institutions. According to the brochure available at the site, “She is the most translated woman writer in the entire history of literature, and the most translated American author of either gender.” 


SW corner of residence with vine covered porch & foundation shrubs

 In 1900 when Ellen White purchased the property there were 60 acres; what remains today is three acres. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993. Elmshaven is at 125 Glass Mountain Lane. There is a small parking area with an arched gateway to a narrow drive that leads up to the house complex. Three buildings define a central courtyard – the two-story Stick/Eastlake Victorian-style residence, an office and vault where White and her secretaries worked, and a Tank House where one of the care takers / docents lives. Today the courtyard space is paved with asphalt. In historic photos, I found online at the Ellen G. White Estate Gallery, it appears to be compacted earth. 



Room where Ellen G White wrote while sitting in the green chair





Narrow foundation planting beds surround the home and appear much as they did in 1915. The site is surrounded by a mixture of endemic and imported ornamental trees, as it was in Ellen White’s time. There are remnants of fruit trees and a small vineyard surrounding the structures. At its peak the property had 2000 plum trees, 5 acres of grapes, 5 acres of olive trees, and several peach trees. The household grew and processed the fruit and olives for their use and they supplied the nearby Rural Health Retreat and sold their products through the Home Fruit Company.

This site has so many stories to tell – it is fascinating. I am astounded that I’d never heard of Ellen G. White and knew nothing about her. It is well worth a day trip any time of year and a picnic lunch or stop at one of Napa Valley’s many wineries. We enjoyed a fabulous lunch at Mustard’s Grill in Yountville.

Portrait of Ellen G. and James White at Elmshaven

Kohl Mansion "The Oaks" - Burlingame

Terrace on the south side of the mansion

 For anyone who ever thought history was dull how is this for a headline: “How Two Beauties Are Spending “King Kohl’s” Hoodooed Millions - Plutocrat’s Suicide with his Widow Engaged to a Count and His Heart Mate Leasing A Mansion in Paris”? I found this story complete with provocative sketches while researching the Kohl Mansion in Burlingame for the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS). It was published by the Port Arthur News on November 4, 1925.


Three weeks ago my partner, pups and I set off on another HALS adventure and discovered the Kohl Mansion also known as “The Oaks” because the 40-acre property is covered with many old live oak trees. It is a beautiful campus now occupied by the Sisters of Mercy High School.

The Kohl Mansion was built for Charles Frederick “Freddie” Kohl and his wife Mary Elizabeth “Bessie” Godley. The 53-room Tudor- style brick structure was designed by architects George Howard and John White of Hillsborough and was planned to closely resemble Somerset House, the residence of the Duke of Surrey in England.


40' wide steps from the terrace onto the lawn


Frederick Kohl was born in 1863, the son of William H. Kohl who was a pioneer ship builder and co-founder of the Alaska Commercial Company. Kohl was one of the richest men in the San Francisco “Gold Belt”. In addition to the Burlingame estate Kohl owned property in downtown San Mateo that is now Central Park, the Kohl office building in downtown San Francisco and a “castle” at California’s Lake Tahoe.


He married Ms. Godley in 1904 and acquired the 40-acre Burlingame property in order to build a home where they could entertain and where Bessie, who had a beautiful contralto voice, could perform for their guests. In 1916 Bessie left Frederick for Europe and never returned. For a time Frederick lived at the St. Fransis Hotel in San Francisco. He began a relationship with Marion Louderback Lord and left her the bulk of his $5 million estate when died by suicide November 23, 1921. Mss Lord sold the property to The Sisters of Mercy who initially used the mansion as a convent then converted it to Mercy High School for girls in 1931, which is the current use of the property.



Concrete steps and walls made to look like stone as seen in  a 1916 photo

 In 1921 the Kohl Mansion was leased to United Artists and the movie “Little Lord Fauntleroy” was filmed in the house. In 1996, “Flubber” starring Robin Williams was filmed there.

The article in the Port Arthur News referred to the Kohl Mansion as “the greatest palace ever built in the West.” The grand terrace on the south side of the house extends the full width of the mansion and measures 215’ by 50 – 85’. A wall at the perimeter of the terrace is concrete with a concrete cap. It was built to emulate a massive stone wall. Weathering and the presence of lichen enhance the finish and increase the illusion that it is a stone wall.

South of the terrace a lawn extends beyond the width of the terrace and is 295’ wide and 87’ deep. The east edge of the lawn has a planting bed that includes three historic lemon trees and a border of new, white shrub roses. Mature evergreen live oaks / Quercus agrifolia and coniferous trees including Deodar cedar / Cedrus deodara and blue atlas cedar /Cedrus atlantica `glauca’ fill the space beyond the south edge of the lawn.

Much of the original sunken rose garden is present. It is set 5’ lower than the terrace and consists of brick paths set in a basket weave pattern, and small rose beds bordered with sheared boxwood hedges. Overall the rose garden measures 48’ by 54’ and is made up of 25 rose beds in a symmetrical pattern of round and rectangular beds. Two sets of brick steps with wing walls lead down into the rose garden from the south side. The surface between the rose garden and the terrace is pea gravel.


Sunken rose garden on the east side of the mansion


Foundation plantings all appear to be new with the exception of a few hybrid roses with gnarled trunks. A 1916 photograph of the mansion shows only low boxwood hedges at foundations. There are also two sculpted boxwood hedges in the shape of a script “E” and two boxwood plants trimmed into three-sided pyramids.

Overall the integrity of the garden is good. The Mercy High School campus occupies similar size acreage as the original Kohl property. Changes to the grounds necessitated by the change in use are obvious but generally have been handled appropriately. Where original historic fabric was too deteriorated to be retained replacements have been executed in a sensitive manner and in such a way that the viewer can easily understand what is original.

The Kohl Mansion was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 No. 2750.


Decoratively trimmed boxwood near the front door



Sisters of Mercy History

The Sisters of Mercy was founded in 1831 by Catherine McAuley, a wealthy Irish heiress, who wanted to care for poor women and children in Ireland. The sisters arrived in San Francisco prior to 1855 and established St. Mary’s Hospital, retirement facilities and four schools in San Francisco and Oakland. They purchased the Kohl Mansion in 1924 and used it as the Motherhouse for the region. By 1952 they ran a high school in San Francisco and 25 elementary schools throughout California. In 1989 they became co-sponsors of Mercy Housing, Inc. Their mission is to provide quality, affordable, housing for the poor, to strengthen families, and to promote healthy communities.

Robson-Harrington Park, San Anselmo

One of the best parts of doing HALS work is visiting places you’ve never been to before – whether you are away from home on a trip for just taking a Sunday drive nearby. Robson Harrington Park in San Anselmo is just such a place – a great discovery practically in our backyard.

The front entry to Robson-Harrington Park is defined by a low stone wall with pillars at the corner and entry drive. A walk parallels the driveway and is made with terra-cotta pavers with a redwood grained motif. This material continues to the front porch where it is laid in a herringbone pattern. The front garden looks much like a traditional early 20th century garden with curving expanses of lawn, shrub beds and a variety of mature specimen trees, but once in the garden you discover a unique brick wall constructed with a combination of standard brick and irregular chunks of what look like molten brick or glass. These are combined in infinite variety changing height, width and detailing. The wall forms arches, lines steps and terraces, and defines a group barbeque area on the lower level of the sloping site. Along the way one discovers one-of-a-kind pieces of glazed terra-cotta medallions varying in size from 4" to 26" round and rectangular pieces. All are glazed in ivory and or blue. It is a fanciful and organic garden that invites exploration and discovery.

The property includes a large expanse of lawn surrounded by a small redwood grove and an assortment of other trees including an exceptional Cratagus cordata/Washington Thorn. Currently, the area adjacent to the house is used for community gardening in terraced beds.
The residence on this property was completed in 1906 and was built for Edwin Kleber Wood on a 2.68 acre parcel. Wood was the son of farmers who served in the civil war prior to starting a career in the timber industry. His lumber company grew to be one of the largest in Michigan. In 1885, he served in the Michigan legislature. At this time Wood expanded his lumber business to the west coast and moved first to San Francisco and then Oakland, California. His Marin lumber yard, which opened in 1905, was one of the largest in Marin County. In 1917 when Edwin Woods died the property was valued at $2 million.

In 1923, Wood's sons sold the property to Kernan and Geraldine Robson. Kernan was the son of Albert L. Robson and Frances Harrington. Kernan attended Wesleyan University, Harvard Divinity School and Oxford prior to becoming a Professor of English. Later he formed a real estate partnership.

The Robsons planted extensive orchards and a vineyard. They added the curving brick walls using bricks salvaged from property acquired by Kernan's real estate dealings. They built archways, fountains and elaborate niches throughout the property.

The property was deeded to the City of San Anselmo upon Geraldine's death in 1967.

La Mirada and The Castro Adobe

The ideal HALS site is one that has changed very little since its period of significance. Period of significance means the time period during which the garden gained importance as a historic site. Typically it is the period when the original owner occupied the site. For example the period of significance for the San Francisco Presidio are the years when the military occupied the site.

Casa Amesti in Monterey is a perfect example of a garden that has not changed substantially since its original design, because when owner Francis Elkins died the property was donated to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. My firm, PGAdesign was asked to restore this garden a few years ago, and when we started we found that the current garden was essentially the same as the garden depicted in photographs from the 1930s – it had deteriorated but the original design and most of the original plantings remained.

Realistically though all gardens change and they change quickly because plants grow and as they grow they transform the landscape profoundly. Other things change as well – wooden fences and gates deteriorate, stone walls crumble, and sometimes modifications occur when a new owner simply wants their garden to look different or to accommodate a new use. The Monterey Art Museum at La Mirada is such an example. The original Castro Adobe has been restored and over time several buildings have been added. At this point it is impossible to tell, just by looking at the complex, what is historic and what has been added, and certainly some additions are now old enough in their own right to qualify as “historic”. 50 years is the general rule for HALS, which I find a bit disconcerting considering I passed that milestone some while ago.

The garden at La Mirada is enclosed by a chalk rock stone wall that is an extension off the back of the Antonio Mario Castro Adobe. The stones are rough and irregularly-shaped, nearly white in color except where they are covered by lichens. The height of the wall varies from about 30” to 7’ where it has buttresses. There are two wooden gates into the garden – one a simple board fence with a round, bronze knocker, and the other more elaborate and set in a classical stone peaked arch, which is in poor condition. I presume these gates are replacements for the originals.

Garden beds occur on three levels and are edged with brick set on end and half buried. Beds are separated by brick paths about 4’ wide in a basket weave pattern. One bed is terraced with a chalk rock stone wall about 20” high, and is in poor condition which leads me to believe it is original. The beds are bordered with hens and chick succulents and planted almost exclusively with roses.

The Antonio Mario Castro Adobe was built in the early 1800s. It is one of three buildings that appear on an 1849 map of Monterey. Castro was a soldier in California from 1780 to 1809. The home remained in the Castro family for a few generations until 1919. For a time the John C. Fremont family rented two rooms in the adobe from Modesto Castro, until Fremont was elected to the U.S. Senate and they moved to Washington.

Gouverneu Morris purchased the adobe in 1920. He restored the adobe, added other buildings and built the wall around the garden for privacy. So, the garden wall is nearly 90 years old and clearly meets the 50 year criteria for HALS.

Thomas Albert Work, Sr. purchased the property in 1936. He made his fortune in land and real estate. Work planted the cypress, pine and other trees surrounding the property. Work’s wife, Maude Porter created the rose garden before her death in 1949. The rose garden was rehabilitated in 1989 when many new roses were added and some of the original roses were retained. One Cecile Brunner rose with a mass of knotty root stock was labeled 1881/1894.

Thomas and Maude’s son Frank Work inherited the property and maintained the garden until he deeded it to the museum in 1983.

So, this is a garden has had several owners since the early 1800s and it has changed substantially. There are clues to what is old and what has been added, but the lines are blurred and only extensive research would tell us more.

Berkeley City Club

In February, the Northern California Chapter of HALS agreed to document the gardens at the Berkeley Club. I sent out an email inviting volunteers to help with measuring the site and collecting the existing conditions information, and was delighted when several new volunteers responded, including Kris Zhang and Daniella Sawaya - architecture students from UC Berkeley, Sarka Volejnikova a landscape designer, Marilyn Novell who is a member of the club and finishing her master’s thesis as an architectural historian, Celia McCarthy, a cultural resource planner, and Bob Towar who works with PGAdesign.

We all met in the East Court of the club this morning, where I gave a brief overview of HALS and showed examples of other sets of HALS drawings that have been completed by our HALS group and PGA. Sarka had previously prepared base plans for today’s efforts, using a digital copy of the original building plan designed by architect, Julia Morgan in 1929.

After a tour of the garden, led by Gary the club’s dedicated gardener, we divided into three teams of two and set about measuring the different garden spaces. Marilyn and Daniella took charge of the planting at the front of the building while Bob and Kris did the East Court. Both of these groups completed measuring and sketching all of the hardscape features – sidewalk, street trees, courtyard paving, planting beds, fountains, pots, etc. and then they sketched in the plants. Gary and I assisted with plant identification and between the two of us were able to correctly indentify nearly every plant.

Sarka, Celia and Daniella tackled all the rest including the West Court, west loggia, the yard in the northwest corner of the property, plus all of the garden spaces on the north side of the building. They completed recording the hardscape features and will draft those up before going back to add the plantings in these areas. I took digital photos, answered questions, took a few measurements along the east façade, and helped with plant identification.

Everyone worked hard, had fun and together we accomplished a great deal. Next steps are to draft all of today’s field notes and finish the plant placement and identification. I plan to do some sketches of the garden and want to work on the plant list – Gary provided a very helpful list of plants by area. Sarka, Daniella and Kris have all volunteered to help with the drafting.

As we work on the drawings anther team of volunteers, led by Gretchen Hilyard, will be doing the historic research and writing the narrative. Members of the Landmark Heritage Foundation have already provided us with lots of historic photographs, articles about the garden, and other information that will be invaluable. I’ll share more about all this as we make progress.

Top: Sarka and Celia

Next: Daniella and Marilyn

Next: Kris drawing at the table with Bob taking measurements in the garden

Next: Planting detail

Below: Relief in the West court

Doyle Drive HALS

I started this blog in October 2009, and now realize I have posted very little about the Doyle Drive HALS project my firm has been working on since November 2008. I believe it’s the largest HALS project currently underway in the United States and as such has been a thrill to be part of. Doyle presented us with several unique challenges and has been tremendously satisfying to work on. In my career the projects I have most enjoyed are those that have been large and complex - given that criteria Doyle Drive is the ultimate challenge and has been immensely satisfying.

Background
The Presidio was designated as a National Historic Landmark (NHL) in 1962 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), and San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) are in the process of replacing Doyle Drive that traverses the Presidio of San Francisco and connects to the Golden Gate bridge in order to improve the seismic, structural and traffic safety of the roadway. As part of the environmental review the Finding of Effect document acknowledged that the project will impact cultural resources.

Historic Documentation
ICF International was retained to complete HABS (Historic American Building Surveys), HAER (Historic American Engineering Record) and HALS documentation as part of the mitigation for the impacts on the cultural resources. The HALS team is being directed by Dana McGowan, Archaeologist with ICF. ICF is doing the historic research and will prepare the historic narrative component of the HALS documents. Brian Grogan has been engaged to complete the HALS photography and PGAdesign is doing the measured drawings. Landscape Historian, Meg Scantleberry is the point of contact for Caltrans and is working closely with the ICF team.

The Project
Doyle Drive is 1.2 miles in length. Portions of the roadway are at grade and much of the highway is on an elevated structure constructed in 1936. The cultural resources that will be potentially impacted by the replacement project include buildings, roadways, stone walls and curbs, concrete batteries, views and historic forests all associated with the Presidio’s 169 year military history. The period of significance is from 1776 to 1945. The project is divided into six planning districts that correlate with districts defined in the National Register nomination.

Methodology
When we started the project we sought samples of similar work to use as a model, but because the HALS program is so new we found little that was relevant. The project schedule was urgent so we set about creating a methodology that seemed logical and well suited to the task. Our previous work doing cultural landscape inventories (CLI) and reports (CLR) and contributions to historic structures reports (HSR) provided some guide. Our experience with HALS of three of the four California sites was also tremendously helpful, but those sites were all very different and thus not directly applicable to Doyle Drive. Our work on Piedmont Way in Berkeley, California is a surface road – a X block curvilinear parkway conceived by Olmsted. This was our most relevant HALS experience.

Normally the first task in for any cultural landscape documentation effort would be familiarization with the site’s history and a methodical review of existing documentation and historic records and photographs, but because of the immediate urgency of this construction project PGA was forced to start the existing conditions field work without the benefit of such preparation.

Our first task was to decide on what scale the field recording should be done at, what sheet size our final documents should be, and to lay out sheets to cover the irregular but generally linear site. Ultimately 82 sheets were needed to depict the site.

PGA plotted sheets for the area first scheduled for tree removal and got to work. Had time allowed we would have developed our methodology, field tested it, made refinements and retested until our recording techniques were well developed. Without the luxury of time we started our field observations and recording and refined the process each day. This approach resulted in some inconsistencies in recording methods which ideally would have been avoided.

We plotted two sheets for each area; one to record softscape features, i.e. plants, non-paved surfaces, and topography and the other for hardscape features. While in the field we worked in teams of two; one person drew what they saw on the plan sheet while the other made notes on the field inventory form we had created for the project. These teams of two proved an efficient working group and also helped with decisions on what and how to record features. They also provided a degree of safety that was reassuring while working in overgrown areas hidden from view.

The softscape team had existing surveys for tree locations and species identification. We field verified this information making corrections as needed. Shrub and ground cover masses were sketched on the plan while species were identified and listed on the inventory forms. Initially, we recorded a list of species for each sheet, assigned numbers and noted the plant numbers on the plan sheets. After a few days in the field we were able to prepare a plant list of the species we had found in the field. We then assigned each species a two-character acronym for the shrubs, perennials, ground cover and vines, and we used a four-character designation for trees. Cotoneaster lacteus became CL while Pinus radiate/Monterey Pine was PR/MP.

The hardscape team went through a similar process starting with field sketches and written descriptions of features such as curbs, stone walls, rails, lights, etc. Many of these features were occurring repeatedly, so to reduce the time needed to record duplicate descriptions the team developed a system of abbreviated codes and organized them by feature type. This not only reduced field recording time it also improved consistency for how things were being recorded.

These improvements in recording efficiency enabled the observers more time to capture more detail and to do more than just see the site at a micro level of detail. I now had time to look at the whole site and record impressions of what I was seeing. I made notes on what stood out in this piece of the Doyle Drive puzzle trying to capture the character of the site. Later, the pieces of the puzzle would need to be assembled in order to read the whole landscape

Field Photography
To augment the official, large format, black and white photography I used a digital camera to record the existing conditions. I took several types of photographs: 1) detail shots such as manhole covers and concrete stamps which provided data such as dates, contractor and manufacturer’s names, individual plants, signs, rail details, etc; 2) images of individual features like buildings, specimen trees and historic stone walls, 3) overviews of large areas, 4) multiple shots of panoramic views, 5) distant views from particular vantage points, and 6) shots that show topographic changes in the landscape.

Each field day I took 150 – 275 images. At the end of the day I named each image or group of images with a name intended to help the viewer understand what they were seeing and where it occurred.

Collecting the existing conditions data, with our four person crew, took the bulk of two months. Doing the work in winter provided the added challenge of needing to dodge rain and drizzle since we were unable to record field notes if the paper was damp. Rain days actually proved to be good because we used that time to organize material collected and to prepare for the next field day. More on Doyle in a future post.

The Pig Palace - Jack London State Historic Park

My business partner, Cathy Garrett is actively working on a cultural landscape report for Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen, Sonoma County. Yesterday, I visited the park to take photographs and measurements of some of the features in the study area. The 1400 acre park occupies land once owed by author Jack London, and is where he and his wife Charmian lived between 1911 and 1916. Its association with London is what makes it a historic site, and it is also a good example of a farm of that period. He named the property “Beauty Ranch”.

There is a lot to see in the park and ten miles of trails traversing oak woodland and mixed evergreen forest – almost too much to see during a single visit. I’ve been to the park four times in the past two years and I’m beginning to feel like I know the core of the park. I have not explored any of the back country trails beyond London Lake.

The Londons lived in the cottage and Jack had an addition built onto the cottage where he wrote. There is a nice perennial garden associated with the cottage; unfortunately, the park service did not restore the garden that is featured in historic photographs – it is a modern garden unlike the one that existing while the London’s lived there. The park also includes the House of Happy Walls, built by London’s widow and where she lived until her death in 1955. It now houses a London museum. You can walk down to the ruins of the Wolf House, which was built to be their permanent home but it burned to the ground, leaving only the stone walls and fireplaces, the night before they were to move in.

There are several barns and stone buildings associated with various aspects of the winery, and other structures used in the farming operations. A pair of 40-foot, cement-block silos stand between a vineyard in the foreground and an oak woodland background, providing a prominent and picturesque landmark.

My favorite part of the park though is the Pig Palace. Who would have guessed, an astoundingly prolific writer and an adventurer, would have had time to devote to farming, or interest. If you visit the site you will learn that Jack London practiced “scientific agriculture”. He was applying all kinds of innovative techniques to improve farming methods. The museum and interpretive signs, posted throughout the park, provide a wealth of information on this and other topics. Did you know that London developed a spineless cactus?

The Pig Palace, so named by locals who scoffed at London’s methods, is a beautiful structure sited on a knoll and shaded by overhanging branches of oaks. Yesterday, the light shone through the new leaves of the oaks, creating a stunningly beautiful effect. The Palace is laid out in a circle for efficiency. At the center is the two-story feed tower. Feed is loaded in the upper portion and pours into buckets when the farmer opens a shoot. The ground floor has troughs and a tub for bathing the pigs. Sanitation was an important part of London’s method and enabled him to avoid the cholera that was killing his neighbor’s animals.

Surrounding the feeding tower are individual suits for pigs. Each has an iron gate and a two-part stone enclosure. The inner portion is open air and has a built-in concrete food trough and a separate water bowl. Galvanized water lines and hose bibs, mounted on the stone walls, are there to fill the water bowl and to clean the enclosures. An opening leads into the second part of the enclosure, which has a roof to provided shelter from cold or heat. From that space each enclosure has a private, fenced-in exercise yard. London’s objectives with this unique design were two-fold: to provide a facility that would function efficiently for the farmer and to develop an improved breed of pigs for the market.

If you visit the park and take the walk to London Lake be sure to take the short trail to the Pig Palace. Oh, and one more tip – don’t bring a picnic lunch from home – instead stop at the Glen Ellen Village Market, just before you take the road up to the park. They have the greatest deli that makes wonderful sandwiches and the chocolate mousse cake is perfection.

Sakai and Oishi Nurseries - Part 3

This is the third post in a series; you should read the first post before this chapter. Since 2004 several studies have been completed for the Sakai and Oishi Nurseries. They have focused primarily on the history of the site, the significance of the cut-flower industry in the Bay Area, and the buildings and structures on the two sites. What has not been studied in detail are the various systems that were needed to operate the nurseries – these will be illuminated as part of the HALS work that PGAdesign and Denise Bradley are currently completing.

In part two, I wrote about the pedestrian circulation systems and how they differed on the two sites. I’ve mentioned the other systems. Part 3 is about those systems.

Water Sources and Distribution
Both nurseries have several wells on site, which were the primary source of water. In later years Oishi nursery had a connection to the city main. Pumps drew water up into wooden storage tanks – both on grade and elevated. Water was drawn out of the tanks to supply water lines for irrigating or was routed to the boiler room where it was heated to produce steam.

Water lines fed a manifold of galvanized pipe at the center of each greenhouse that branched at each flower bed and was connected to a plastic pipe and drip or soaker type lines spaced about 8 inches apart in each raised planter. These were used to water the flowers, initially manually and later the operation was automated

Fertilizer was mixed in large steel or plastic tanks and was injected into the water lines when needed. Manually controlled valves would release or shut off the fertilized water as needed.

Water Collection
Irrigation water was collected and channeled into concrete swales or curbed trenches that run outside and parallel to each greenhouse. These trenches, typically 19” wide, are found throughout both nurseries. There are small, wooden bridges where pathways cross these trenches. The water collection system of swales and curbed trenches includes collection pits of varying sizes, typically 36” by 24” and 30” deep. Some of these pits still have pipes running into or over them. These pits collected water or silt.

Steam Distribution
Steam was used to heat the greenhouses and to provide optimal humidity for the flowers.
Steam from the boiler room was pumped into insulated pipes that was routed to each greenhouse. Many of these pipes run overhead, about 10 feet in the air, and were supported on 4 x 4 posts spaced about 15 feet apart. The steam was released inside each greenhouse and the condensate was collected and returned to the boiler for re-use in smaller diameter pipes, also insulated.

Pesticide System
A separate and parallel set of small diameter pipes was used to distribute water that included pesticides or herbicides. These pipes extended to the center of each greenhouse, and from there one of the nursery workers would attach a special hose to a valve and apply the pesticides with a spray nozzle.

Air Circulation and Greenhouse Cooling System
Maintaining optimal temperatures and humidity inside the greenhouses was critical. The components of this system include roof and side windows, large diameter fans, and swamp coolers. Each greenhouse has both roof and side windows with manually operated wheels and pulleys used to open or close the windows. In later years some of these were automated.

Large fans, housed in 5’ by 5’ square box structures were built into the sides or ends of the greenhouses. These would draw air into and out of the greenhouse. To cool the greenhouses large mats were attached to the end or sides of the greenhouse. An overhead PVC pipe with 1/8” diameter holes drilled every 5” was mounted above the mats. Water fed into these pipes then dripped onto the mats to wet them. As the fans drew in air through the dampened mats it cooled the air inside the greenhouse.

In part one I mentioned that at one spot on the Oishi site we counted 9 parallel pipes. Tom Oishi, who met us on our first day on site, was able to identify what six were for: fresh irrigation water from the tanks, out-going steam, returning steam, pesticides, city water, and water that fed the pipe for wetting the mats. I’ll let you know if we figure out what the last 3 were for.

Left: Cooling mats at Oishi Nursery

Right: Raised beds with soaker type irrigation at Sakai Nursery

Sakai and Oishi Nurseries

I started a new HALS project this week. My firm, PGAdesign was hired to prepare the HALS drawings for the Sakai and Oishi nurseries in Richmond, which are two of three remaining wholesale flower nurseries. Years ago there were several nurseries in this area owned by different Japanese families. Most were closed and demolished when Interstate 80 cut through this neighborhood.

These nurseries ceased operation a few years ago and since that time the buildings and structures have been vandalized and deteriorated from lack of use and maintenance, but the site is still an important cultural resource with a story to tell about a somewhat unique community of businesses and families.

PGA is working with a team of professionals that includes architectural and landscape historians to complete the HALS documentation. The HALS photography was done a few years ago by Brian Grogan – the same photographer we worked with at the Presidio on Doyle Drive. A separate group of architects is measuring and recording several of the buildings and structures that will be saved on site or moved to new locations. The remaining buildings will be demolished to make way for new housing.

Starting a project like this is much like doing a jig saw puzzle. You dump the pieces on the table, turn them over, and sort them by color, culling out the edge pieces. I had reviewed the background material before my first site visit, so I knew what I was looking at, but on day one, the site appears like a lot of loose pieces that one has to quickly sort and assemble.

My first task is to record what is existing in the landscape. The land survey depicts the property lines, locations of the buildings, greenhouses and other major structures. It also shows some of the paving, spot elevations and shrub masses. I look to see what does not appear on the survey, measure it and sketch it onto my plan. Sounds easy. Well, imagine that most of this site is covered in knee-high grass under which are open trenches, holes, thousands of broken panes of glass from the vandalized greenhouses, and pipes of various sizes and materials running everywhere – sometimes 10 feet overhead, sometimes buried, and often just on the surface – there for you to trip over. Walkways that need to be measured are buried under soil, some of the plants that need to be identified have no leaves, and in places the vegetation mass is so dense it is impenetrable. If you can imagine all that you begin to get the puzzle metaphor.

While in the field I measure and sketch, and I also take field photographs that help me confirm what I saw once I am back in the office. Sometimes I see things in the photographs that I had not really noticed in the field. I also use a digital recorder to describe details – this saves time because it is faster for me to record lengthy notes than to write them out. One recorded note explained, “there is a large diameter, red, rubber hose between greenhouses 12 and 13. It has heavy-duty, industrial-grade nozzles. We need to find out what this hose was used for.” I also photographed the hose placing my pencil in the image for scale.

This kind of detail is essential because one of our charges from the National Park Service is to explain not just what the nursery looked like, but how it functioned. This site is all about systems – circulation, watering, heating and cooling, fertilizing, spraying, and it is also where the Sakai and Oishi families lived. The system of pipes that traverse this site is a complex maze. In one location I counted 9 pipes – galvanized and PVC, some insulated, some not – all running in parallel, each with a different function – a three dimensional puzzle. I’ll tell you more about that, and more about the process in subsequent posts.

Dry Creek Garden

A few weeks ago I wrote about the garden at the Alameda residence of architect Henry H. Meyers. The Meyers family also owned property in the Alvarado – Niles district, now a part of Union City. Henry designed a craftsman-style cottage at the site for the family’s use. There is a secluded swimming pool and a garden designed by one of his three daughters, Jeannette. The family used this oasis as their personal summer retreat and also made it available to a number of philanthropic groups who held events at the garden for many years.

When Jeannette died in 1993, the garden became overgrown from lack of regular maintenance. Fortunately, the property was acquired by the East Bay Regional Park (EBRP) District and they, along with a dedicated group of volunteer gardeners have been maintaining and restoring the gardens since. Dry Creek – so named because of the frequently dry creek that traverses the property – is now part of Garin Park, part of the EPRP system. The site recently was opened to the general public on a limited schedule.

In 2008, my firm PGAdesign was hired to prepare a long-term garden restoration and maintenance plan. EBRP had obtained a set of historic family photographs, from the City of Alameda, when the city acquired the family residence. Many of these photographs depicted the garden at Dry Creek.

This image of the Beagle in the garden is one of the photographs aquired by EBRP. In it one can identify different colors of Alyssum - an easily grown annual. Provided by EBRP.

PGA was asked to study these photographs to identify the species of plants shown in the photos, and to prepare a plan for restoring the plantings at Dry Creek, based on the photographs. Sounds easy …. but it wasn’t. Many of the photos had been provided to us reversed making it difficult to figure out what portion of the garden was depicted in a particular photo, until we realized what was amiss. Many of the photos were taken from a distance and were not clear – making plant identification challenging.

Fortunately, there were several photos and by studying the group we were able to piece together the puzzle of most of what had been planted by Jeanette, and from that prepare a planting plan showing what should be planted in each bed to be historically accurate.

EBRP also wanted recommendations on how to reduce water use and maintenance at the garden. In consultation with their staff we defined a hierarchy of garden zones. Areas close to the cottage and along the main entry path would be more intensively planted while areas further from these areas would be planted with larger shrubs, more broadly spaced needing less irrigation and less maintenance.

The process of studying the group of historic photos was much like the “History Detective” – a challenge and great fun. In time, by implementing the recommendations from our report Dry Creek garden will not only be restored to reflect the original design, it will use less water and other resources, and will require less maintenance.

Above, by Mother, Lottie Pattillo and I visited the garden in 2008 for an opening event.

The garden at Dry Creek is a hidden secret for you to discover. It is also available for special events.

The Meyers had several garden ornaments including this bird bath surrounded by stone paving and a boxwood hedge. In the background is one of the well-crafted woooden bridges that crosses the creek

Alviso Adobe Community Park

“As history plays out on the land, it leaves its mark. Sometimes the land remains relatively unchanged from generation to generation, but more often, changes accumulate in layers. In areas of extensive human activity the landscape often appears as a patchwork, with elements of older layers “poking through” newer layers, and surviving side-by-side with the elements of the newer layers. A useful analogy is that of the palimpsest, from a Greek word meaning “scraped or rubbed again.” A palimpsest is a writing material such as parchment from which writing has been partly or completely erased to make room for another text. Older writing can often be discerned under the newer writing. Landscape change occurs in a similar way with elements of past landscapes visible amidst more recent additions.” Quote from “Guidelines for Documenting and Evaluating Historic Military Landscapes: An Integrated Landscape Approach”, by Suzanne Loechl, Samuel Batzli and Susan Enscore.

The Francisco Alviso Adobe site in Pleasanton, California is a palimpsest with three eras of history. If you visit the park today you will see a Native American rock feature - similar to a grinding stone - that was used in ceremonies by the native people. You can tour the now restored Alviso Adobe, from the early Californio period – when California was still owned by Mexico. From 1898 to 1917 the Kroeger family, tenant farmers, lived in the adobe.

All photos used in this post were provided by the City of Pleasanton. This photo shows the Kroeger family in front of the adobe.

The park includes a reconstructed milking barn from the Meadowlark Dairy era. Meadowlark started in 1919, and was known for producing the highest quality milk available until it was closed in 1966. The barn and all the associated dairy buildings were demolished in 1968.

In 1995, my firm, PGAdesign was invited to work with the residents of Pleasanton to develop a master plan for the 7-acre Alviso Adobe Community Park. During community meetings discussion focused on which historic period to feature. Fortunately, the decision was to include them all. The extant adobe – built in 1854 was an obvious choice, and the addition of the milking barn created a new community space for events and performances. This is an excellent example of how history is not always simple and neat. Typically, history is multi-layered with interwoven relationships, and while interpreting these sites is challenging the result is more dynamic.

PGA retained Dan Quan to design the interpretive exhibits. Dan collaborated with Pleasanton staff and residents – some of whom had worked in the dairy, and their stories bring life to the exhibits.

Alviso Adobe Community Park is a perfect day trip for Bay Area residents. Plan a picnic in the park followed by a hike on Pleasanton Ridge. But, this is not a HALS site. One of the criteria for HALS is that the landscape features must have historic integrity. The California Register of Historical Resources defines integrity as "the authenticity of an historical resource's physical identity evidenced by the survival of characteristics that existed during the resource's period of significance." Other than several large native oak trees, little of the historic landscape remains from the Alviso era, and archaeologists were unable to find any significant features from the Meadowlark Dairy era. This site may not qualify for HALS documentation, but the adobe is a State Landmark No. 510 - that, the interpretive exhibits, and beautiful site make this park well worth visiting.