Landmarks
McKee-Lundy House
Designated official San Jose Landmark No. 34, the 120-year-old McKee-Lundy home on North 17th Street between Jackson and Empire Streets, was built by Joseph Olcott McKee in 1880 for his daughter, Isabella McKee Lundy. Isabella and her husband, Azariah, raised three daughters and a son in this Eastlake, stickstyle Victorian farmhouse. Aziariah Lundy, an early commuter, traveled by horse and wagon to his ranch in the nearby foothills.J.O. McKee sailed around the Horn in 1849 aboard the Isabella, a ship captained by his father, Henry. Arriving in San Francisco harbor in May 1850, the two McKees started a shipping business and transported the first fruit from Santa Clara County to the San Francisco market place. In 1850, captains Henry and Joseph were credited with moving the archives of California's first state capitol, north from Alviso, aboard their sloop.
In the Fall of 1852, Henry McKee died in a ship accident, just as his wife and children had departed from the East Coast to join him in California. In response, young Joseph sold his sloop and bought the family farm, where San Jose High's pool is now, on McKee Road. He then set his course to become a carpenter, an architect and a builder. He never lost his love of the sea, however, and in later years built a 42-foot yacht, the Comarada. He was the founder of the South Bay Yacht Club and took first place three years running, in 1902, 1903 and 1904, in the South Bay Yacht Harbor Races.
Today, the McKee-Lundy house is inhabited by David and Jean Walker-Wiley and their children, who, after moving in the 1980s, a century after the house was built, have lovingly restored their home. The mantle, hand-inlaid with, "Welcome to Hearth and Home," was moved from McKee's home, which fell in the 1906 earthquake, to the Lundy home. The mantle is a centerpiece of the sitting room, which has been restored with period wallpaper, Eastlake-style furniture, and early photographs of the family. The McKee-Lundy house is now landscaped and fully-restored, and is a spectacular Northside landmark.
Backesto Fountain
Backesto Fountain sits modestly in the Western edge of Backesto Park along N. 13th Street. Barely larger than a person and long since an active fountain, you have probably driven by it hundreds of times without ever noticing it. Yet the Backesto Fountain is at the very geographic, cultural and historical heart of the Northside neighborhood.The clay fountain is a jewel, the symbolic face of Backesto Park, located between Empire and Jackson, N. 13th and N. 15th Streets, in the center of our neighborhood. It displays a cross inscribed, "Backesto Park. Donated to City of San Jose by Ana E. Backesto in memory of her busband, Dr. John Pierre Backesto." The fountain, installed in 1922, dates back to the founding of the park nearly 80 years ago. Yet the most exceptional thing about the fountain is that it is emblazoned with beautifully decorative Arts & Crafts tiles manufactured here in San Jose by one of the most prominent tile makers of the era, Solon & Schemmel.
"Albert Solon, together with his partner, Frank Schemmel, began a distinctive tile manufacturing career back in the early 1920's in San Jose, California," wrote Northside resident Jeanne Lazzarini in the Summer/Fall 1995 edition of Style 1900, a quarterly journal of the Arts & Crafts movement. "Withstanding the test of time . . . exquisite examples of Solon's magnificent work appear throughout the West; a testimony to the abundant popularity of his unique decorative tile artistry."
During the 1920s, Solon& Schemmel tiles were incorporated into schools in Oakland and San Francisco, war memorials in Berkeley, theaters in Los Angeles, YMCA buildings in San Diego and Honolulu, and even the Hearst Castle in San Simeon. The tiles can still be seen on classroom buildings at San Jose State University. However, Lazzarini wrote, "the Backesto Fountain . . . is the oldest dated S&S installation."
Solon & Schemmel were part of a distinctively California aesthetic craft. At the turn of the century, Lazzarini observed, "California offered perfect clay soils and a new place to create hand-finished work reflective of the then recently popular Mission Revival, Spanish Revival, and innovative American Arts and Crafts bungalow architecture. . . . With abundant valleys rich in clay soils, California attracted imaginative artists from all over the world, eager to explore different methods for making and using tiles."
Solon was an Englishman who had emigrated to Northern California in 1908. He taught ceramics and physics at the old San Jose Normal School (now San Jose State). Solon was introduced to Schemmel by Ernie Curtis - the man who designed Backesto Fountain. The partners opened their tile factory in 1920 near downtown San Jose. According to San Jose State archivist Jack Douglas, "Each tile installation became a ceramic masterpiece and soon stairs, floors, fountains, fireplaces, mantles, archways and wall treatments all over California were adorned with [Solon's] ornament."
Solon & Schemmel's business outlasted them, and continues today on Pomona Avenue in San Jose in the incarnation of Stonelight Tile, one of only three California tile manufacturers from the 1920's to have survived. The tiles have seen a revival of interest, including among movie stars and royalty, like Barbra Streisand and the King of Saudi Arabia, who "were known to frequent the San Jose factory, enthusiastically snatching up the beautifully handcrafted Stonelight tiles," Lazzarini wrote.
Of course, you don't have to be royalty to enjoy the beauty and history of Solon & Schemmel tiles. The earliest extant example is right here on the Northside. The Backesto Fountain "is a treasure," Lazzarini said in a telephone interview. "A lot of people go by it and just don't realize it."
Briar Rose Inn
The Briar Rose Inn, a bed-and-breakfast establishment at the corner of N. 19th and Jackson Streets, was built in 1875 by Cornelius J. Harrison. According to the Winter 1996 edition of the Northside newsletter, "Harrison was heavily involved with the Farmer's National Bank and the horse drawn trolley system, which was San Jose's first form of public transportation. He also was on the welcoming committee when President (Ulysses S.) Grant toured California.""The Briar Rose was once part of Harrison's thriving walnut orchard. The house next door was the carriage house, and the house on the corner of 18th and Jackson was the servants' quarters," Northside reported. "The garden cottage was originally the pump house that pumped the water for the orchard."
The Inn is decorated with period Victorian antiques, along with Bradbury and Bradbury period reproduction wallpaper. The Inn has six bedrooms, including the garden cottage. Formal tea is served in the afternoon, cookies and sherry are served in the evening by the fire, and a full breakfast is served in the solarium overlooking the heart-shaped pond. "There is also a wrap-around porch, wonderful for romantic, quiet summer evenings," the Northside newsletter rhapsodized. "As you walk through the rooms you feel transported back in time as you look at the old ornate fireplace mantles, the beautifully redone mirrors, and the comfortable antique beds you just want to climb into. Every corner of the house has something beautiful to look at, whether it be an old clock or vase, or a dried flower swag draping over a hutch."
Briar Rose's gardens boasts eighty roses and seasonal flowers, a gazebo, the afore-mentioned pond, and several arbors, and can accommodate weddings for up to 175 guests.
The Briar Rose Inn is located at 895 Jackson Street, telephone: (408) 279-5999. Website: www.briar-rose.com.
Lost Landmarks
Giant Sycamore Tree
(A Lost Landmark)
"[T]his sycamore was a landmark for the Santa Clara Valley's first settlers from the east." the North San Jose Sun reported in a July 1980 article. It was so tall that it could be distinguished from miles away. The immigrants looked for it as an indication that they were nearing their goal of the settlement of San Jose.
A plaque erected by the San Jose City Council October 16, 1974 commemorates the site where the sentinel sycamore once stood.
The tree, which occupied the front yard of the Frutosa Vasquez family home, was nearly one hundred feet high and had a branch diameter of 80 to 90 feet. Cables had been placed in parts of the canopy to support the various limbs, which arched over the Vasquez kitchen and garage.
In 1999, the City planning department secretly issued a removal permit, allowing the tree to be taken down without the usual public hearings. NNA vice president Chuck Hagenmaier uncovered the plan and "blew the whistle on the bureaucrats," the Northside newsletter reported in its Winter 2000 issue. Councilmember Cindy Chavez then "stepped in and insisted a public hearing be held before the chain saw drops on the heritage tree," according to the San Jose Mercury News. "Everyone in the community has a stake in this tree," Chavez said.
At the public hearing on February 23, 2000, NNA president Don Gagliardi explained that the neighborhood association's goal was to achieve a solution which would keep the Vasquez's and their immediate neighbors safe while at the same time saving the sycamore, "creating what Gagliardi called a 'win-win situation,'"according to the Mercury News. Gagliardi pleaded for more time so that a renowned arborist from Ohio, Dr. Richard Abbott, could inspect the tree and offer his opinion. Abbott had saved a 300-year-old historical cottonwood tree in New York by using extraordinary preservation measures which had never been tried before, despite six separate independent arborists who recommended removal. The City relented and called on Abbott to inspect the tree to see if it couldn't be saved after all.
The Ohio arborist and his staff meticulously examined the tree for two full days. Unfortunately, Abbot concluded that the tree was beyond saving. "I am sorry to report to you that it is not possible to safely preserve the sentinel sycamore . . . Until the very end, we were confident something could be done," Abbott wrote on March 7, 2000. "At the end, we discovered a separation of the trunk and leader not detectable from the ground and not previously noted. . . ." Within a few days the tree was removed.
"I am very disappointed," Gagliardi told the Mercury News. "But I'm very happy that we had this process. Without it we would have always wondered [whether the tree was salvageable] and there would have been a lot of bitterness."
The City agreed to honor the memory of the tree. The City professionally photographed the tree before removal. (A copy of the tree's final photo is on this webpage). Also, the City is saving a cross-section of the trunk together with the plaque for the San Jose History Museum at Kelley Park, and is cloning the tree. In time, a community meeting will be held for the purpose of deciding where to plant genetically identical clones of the tree.
"The Northside Neighborhood Association is to be commended on their proactive interest in preserving a historical tree," Dr. Abbott, the Ohio arborist, wrote. "Urban forestry needs the support of groups like yours if it is to grow and realize its potential in the future and for the community to realize all the benefits trees can provide."
Luna Park (A Lost Landmark)
At the beginning of the 20th century, on the very northern edge of the Northside, stretching from N. 13th Street past N. 17th Street was Luna Park, an amusement park developed at a cost of $50,000 by trolley car magnate Lewis E. Hanchett to provide an entertaining destination for his trolley cars. Luna Park "once was home to a merry-go-round, a roller coaster, rodeo grounds and - most important - a baseball diamond for the fledgling San Jose Prune Pickers" minor league team which debuted in 1907, the San Jose Mercury News reported in December 1999. The major league Chicago White Sox also held played spring training games there against Santa Clara College.The late Florence Menteer, a long-time NNA board member who lived her entire life in the neighborhood reminisced about Luna Park in the Summer 1995 Northside newsletter:
"Growing up in the Northside . . . I remember riding the streetcar with my mother. We boarded on 17th Street at Empire and took the Luna Park line back home. It traveled down 17th Street to the very end. I am not quite sure when that name changed, but it hasn't been that long.
"I remember asking my mother about Luna Park and she told me it had been a big amusement park in the area. As recent arrivals from Italy in 1912, her brothers took my dad and her to the park and took her on a 'hair-raising' ride on a roller coaster. She was never to return! My hundred year old aunt told me about a big dance hall and how people came from all over for a day of fun."
"Luna Park did not enjoy a very long run," according to the Mercury News. "It limped along until 1920, when an axle company bought 12 acres. Soon, most of the land was subdivided into industrial tracts."
This NNA web page sponsored by eNative, "Know YOUR neighborhood!"