Aaron Augustus Sargent Garden, Nevada City

This is a continuation of last week’s post about the California Preservation Foundation conference in Grass Valley and Nevada City. The historic downtowns of both Grass Valley and Nevada City have been nicely rehabilitated to accommodate current business enterprises and to provide an appealing destination for visitors. Most of the businesses and many of the homes in and around the downtowns have been restored – including the gardens.

Between education sessions of the conference I wandered around downtown Nevada City taking in some of the shops and admiring the homes. One of the properties that piqued my interest was the Aaron Augustus Sargent Home and garden. The home is currently unoccupied and the garden, though showing signs of short-term neglect, was intriguing. It occupies a corner lot and is defined across the front by am ornately-detailed wrought iron fence and gate covered in Cecil Brunner small, pale pink roses. The fence is set in a stout, rectangular concrete curb.

At about the corner of the house the fence changes to a 2x2 wood picket fence also set in a stout concrete curb, but here the curb is rounded on top. As you turn the corner, the side property line fence is an old-fashioned twisted wire fence similar if not identical to one that was in my grandparent’s yard.


It is a large, gently sloping lot with several specimen trees and an eclectic assortment of garden paths that were intriguing because they seemed to lead to nothing or end abruptly with the suggestion of something that use to be there.

The trees included a very large Redwood near the sidewalk, a large, multi-trunk Deodar cedar, and a Umbrella Pine (Sciadopitys verticillata), which my friend Janet Gracyk identified for me. I was vaguely familiar with the plant but know that I’d never seen one that large in a private garden. Sunset’s Western Garden Book says it grows to 120 feet in Japan where it is native, but only to 25-40 in western gardens. This is not really a pine but it does have 3” to 6” long needles that are thick and glossy – quite unusual. Each corner of the house was marked by a very old and sculptured Red Laceleaf Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum `Dissectum Atropurpurea’).

So, who was Aaron Augustus Sargent? Fortunately, there was a bronze plaque embedded in a boulder that told me everything I needed to know. He came to Grass Valley during the Gold Rush as a journeyman printer and went on to become the editor and owner of the first local newspaper – The Nevada Journal. He passed the bar and served an Attorney General from 1855 – 1857. He was the first citizen elected to the House of Representatives in 1861, and later the first to be elected to the US Senate in 1873. During his tenure he authored the bill that created the first Continental Railroad, and was an advocate for women’s suffrage.

After exploring the garden I headed off to the Pioneer Cemetery where I encountered Mr. Sargent again buried at the top of the knoll. Though much of the cemetery was shaded, Sargent’s tomb was dramatically illuminated by the afternoon sun – clearly I was meant to notice this monument. Here I learned that Sargent was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts on September 28, 1827 and died in San Francisco in 1887 where he was buried until all who were buried in San Francisco were disinterred for reburial in Colma, at which time Mr. Sargent made his way back to Grass Valley, thanks to the Native Sons of the Golden West.

Pioneer Cemetery Nevada City

Last week I attended the 35^th annual California Preservation Foundation (CPF) conference in Nevada City and Grass Valley – the gold country. According to the conference brochure, “Nevada City once had a larger population than San Francisco and was considered as the first capitol of California at statehood.” In 1985, preservationist succeeded in having the entire downtown listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

I think it may have been the best conference I’ve ever attended – due in large part to the venue, and also the consistently high caliber of speakers. Like many conferences the schedule was intense – the moment I walked into the Miners Foundry on Tuesday evening I felt drawn into a vortex of intense preservation that I didn’t escape until Saturday as I headed home.

I did carve out a few hours of unscheduled time between education sessions, when I checked out a few of Nevada City’s shops, had lunch, and took a self-guided tour of town enjoying a wonderful collection of well-maintained historic homes and gardens. Just beyond downtown I was drawn to the Pioneer Cemetery, established in 1851, on West Broad Street. It is a small cemetery located adjacent to a newer, more modern burial ground. The Pioneer cemetery is located on a knoll surrounded by mature Ponderosa Pines with an understory of grasses, some wildflowers and a few hardy shrubs and ground covers.

Many of the graves were marked with small, simple wood markers. Some had marble headstones while many had no marker at all. The graves that most interested me were those that were surrounded by ornamental iron fences set in granite curbs. The fences varied from very simple, light-weight hoops (Alphonse and Keller), to richly detailed pressed metal (CF Taylor and Burnett).

The Meredith monument had solid cast-iron corner posts and the fence was made from ¾” thick cast iron. The gate had heavy-duty hinges and latches that have not failed after 150 seasons of snow and summer heat. The marble obelisk was engraved, “Brave, gifted, generous and faithful closed a life of usefulness and purity by a death of honor”.

Top Photo: Grave of William Alphonse; 2nd Photo: MW Burnett; Third Photo: CF Taylor 18440 - 1922; Fourth Photo: Frederick, Rosa and Nicolas Keller; Photo Below: Henry Meredith.

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

Frank Raines Park, Stanislaus County

Today we did one of my favorite day trips to Mines Road in Livermore and Del Puerto Canyon Road where Alameda, Santa Clara, San Joaquin and Stanislaus Counties converge. We go there almost every spring for birding, and to see the wildflowers. It is a good place to see Western Bluebirds, Lewis’ Woodpeckers, Phainopepla, Western Kingbird, and if you are lucky, which we were today, Black-headed Grossbeak and Wood Duck. We missed Roadrunner though. I expected the wildflowers to be spectacular given our very wet winter, but while the wildflowers were good – I’ve seen better in this area in previous years.

Every time we do this day trip I am struck by how remote this place seems, knowing we are less than an hour from home. The birds, the profusion of wildflowers, the rocks, the terrain are so profoundly different from where we live it is like being in another state. After driving for miles, taking in a new scene with every turn in the narrow road, you come to Frank Raines Park, and though I know it’s there – it has been for the 26 years we’ve been doing this trip, I am always a bit surprised to see it, because it appears in the middle of nowhere.

To make my point, a site on Google identifies the nine closest towns, they are: Ashrama, Westley, Patterson, Solyo, Grayson, Jet, Ohm, Vernalis, Crows Landing, and Stomar. Other than Patterson, have you ever heard of any of these towns?

Frank Raines Park is 2000 acres. It is best known as an off road vehicle park – not exactly my kind of place, but I am glad these sort of parks exist, because it provides a place for those who enjoy the sport to do their thing, without destroying sensitive habitat outside the lands set aside for off road biking. The part of the park we always stop at is a traditional county park with picnic facilities, bar-b-ques, a restroom and baseball field.

The park was dedicated in 1953 and what I like about it is all the stone work. There is a stone wall with monumental columns along Del Puerto Canyon Road, at either side of the entrance to the park. Within the park there are stone walls that define the picnic and parking areas. There is a round, raised stone planter built around an Oak tree, and a curved stone wall with built-in seat walls on both sides. All this stone work reminds me of the stone work done by the CCC during the depression, but according to a Stanislaus County website, it was built by county personnel.

So, who was Frank Raines? Now, this is the great thing about writing a blog. I have visited this park literally dozens of times, and to be honest I never really thought about Frank Raines before, but it’s the weekend and I try to post to my blog every weekend. That means I need to come up with a topic, and this weekend Frank’s my man.

Thanks to Google, I now know that Frank Raines was born in Vallejo, California in 1876. He first arrived in Stanislaus County in 1895 and was a man of many trades – a farmer, a fireman, a telegraph operator, a first baseman and short stop baseball player, and a publisher. He published the only newspaper ever published in Grayosn, the Try-Weekly, oh, and he also raised turkeys. But Frank’s real claim to fame is that he served on the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors for 36 years – from 1916 to 1953 – the same year the park was dedicated.

The other bit of history about this park is that in includes a historic marker for the Patterson and Western Railroad. The inscription on the granite monument reads in part as follows: “The narrow gauge railroad winding some 25 miles from Patterson through Del Puerto Canyon operated from September 20, 1916 to August 14, 1920. During World War I, the railroad brought the much needed minerals of magnesite, manganese chrome and quicksilver down the rugged canyon to the processing plant. The railroad served dozens of mines. There was a 3000 foot tramway up to a mine high up on the side of the canyon.” Erected 2001 by Estanislao Chapter, E Clampus Vitus.

This is an interesting day trip through rugged cattle ranchland, that offers glimpses of a different lifestyle and a different time. It’s a beautiful drive and a favorite of cyclists and motorcyclists on cool spring days.

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.

Garin Regional Park

It’s the weekend, when I usually write my posts, but I just wasn’t in the mood to visit a historic landscape. Instead Dianne and I headed to Garin Regional Park for a hike and some bird watching. Garin Park is contiguous with Dry Creek Park and together they offer 3082 acres of open space in Hayward and Union City. It was a perfect time to visit the park because it was cool and sunny, a few wildflowers were out, and the trees were just leafing out, so it was easy to see the birds. There was a lot of bird activity – calls, drumming and flitting about, so we easily saw a Black-headed Grossbeak, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, Western Bluebird, Warbling Vireo, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and the flashiest Red-winged Blackbirds with blazing epilates. We also saw a Red-throated Loon on Jordon Pond, which was unusual for this time of year.

We took a leisurely hike soaking in beautiful scenes – green coated hills, tight candles on the Buckeye, bright California Poppy, darting lizards, a quiet pond, families picnicking - walking under massive oak limbs, down narrow paths lined with fresh poison oak, and over the narrowest wooden bridge I’ve ever seen.

Everything was vibrant and I was taking lots of photos, and thinking, “I wish there was something historic here so I’d have a reason to write about this special place on my HALS blog.” After our hike we headed to the visitors’ center, housed in an old red barn, but found it closed with a note saying, “Out to lunch, back shortly.” Something about the note made me suspicious. We waited till nearly 2:00, but when I inquired at the entry booth, I learned that the visitor’s center does not open until Memorial Day weekend.

Fortunately, an interpretive sign provided me with just want I was hoping for – a historic hook, and not just an ordinary history about the ranching culture in the Hayward area. Turns out this site was once known as Ukrania. Here is the text from the sign.

“A long the ridge behind this panel lies a 52-acre parcel of historical significance. This farmstead known as “Ukrania” was the home of Ukrainian patriot, writer, and publisher Father Agapius Honcharenko. He and his wife Albina lived here for 43 years during their exile from Ukraine. Born in Kiev in 1832, Honcharenko attended Kiev Theological Seminary and entered a monastery at 21. He was appalled by the Church’s suppression of peasants while the monks lived in luxury. This led him to dedicate his work to the overthrow of the feudal system in the Russian Empire. His writings and activities earned him his revolutionary reputation among government officials. Among freedom fighters and patriots, he was respected around the world. Honcharenko faced many hardships including arrest warrants and death threats, forcing his escape to New York. In 1867, while being stalked by Czarist police, he moved to San Francisco. Finally in 1873, he was tracked to the west. Honcharenko sought sanctuary on the remote farm they purchased in the Hayward hills. For decades, they quietly tended their orchards, while Honcharenko remained a champion of the under classes. He died in 1916, a year after Albina’s death.”

The site is State Historic Landmark No. 1025. Honcharenko and Albina are buried at the site.

East Bay Regional Parks acquired the property in 1965. Today little remains of the original farmstead except the barn, some remnant stone walls that appear to have lined the original drive to the barn, and a two acre orchard with 160 varieties of heritage apples. So, for history lovers, bird watchers, hikers or wild flower seekers – this is a great spot.