REDWOODS IN SILICON VALLEY?
Groundbreaking ceremony for new park scheduled today for a 1,432-acre expanse of forest, woodlands and meadows south of Los Gatos
When it comes to redwood forests, most people think of Muir Woods in Marin County, Big Basin in Santa Cruz County or Redwood National Park near the California-Oregon border.
But a plan to open a new redwood park on Silicon Valley’s edges will take a major step forward today, when a groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for a 1,432-acre expanse of redwood forest, oak woodlands and sweeping meadows south of Los Gatos.
The property, known as the Bear Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve, sits in the hills west of Highway 17 across from Lexington Reservoir. Plans call for construction crews to build 6 miles of trails for hiking and horseback riding — many of them on old logging roads — along with interpretive signs, culverts and a 50-car parking lot along Bear Creek Road, in time for a grand opening to the public next spring.
“It’s going to be a really amazing place. It’s some of the best-preserved secondgrowth redwood forest in the South Bay,” said Ana Ruiz, general manager of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, a government agency that owns the land.
“To be able to go out there and experience the redwood forest,” she said, “and walk down the trail and feel the dampness of the air and see the light trickle through the trees; it’s an amazing experience.”
One point of controversy: Mountain bikers won’t be allowed on the property until at least 2020 and possibly as late as 2026. That’s when a multi-use trail will be built as part of Phase 2 of the $35 million, 20-year plan to bring public amenities into the whole property.
The land has a colorful history. In 1906, Harry Tevis, the heir to a vast San Francisco mining fortune, built a 50-room mansion in the hills there, with a huge Roman-style swimming pool, a palatial library, horse stables and 43 fulltime gardeners who grew prize-winning dahlias, lilies and roses. When he died in 1931, the land was purchased by the Sacred Heart Novitiate, a Jesuit order that had operated a center in the Los Gatos hills nearby since 1886.
The Jesuits built classrooms, dormitories and a chapel. From 1934 to 1969, the land was the site of Alma College. For years, Jesuit priests-in-training studied the Bible and meditated in rustic classroom buildings amid the forest.
The property is home to mountain lions, blacktailed deer, coyotes, bobcats, song sparrows, mallard ducks, bullfrogs and dozens of other species.
“It’s a long time coming,” said Audrey Rust, former president of the Peninsula Open Space Trust, a Palo Alto environmental group that led efforts to preserve the land in the late 1990s. “But this really is a place where we need public access. It’s a redwood resource that is not available on the Santa Clara County side of the hill. People feel different, I think, when they go into a forest like that, and God knows we all need to feel a little different with the hectic life Silicon Valley has to offer.”
One occasional visitor to Alma College in the 1950s was a young student based a mile away at Sacred Heart who was considering a career in the priesthood: future California Gov. Jerry Brown.
Most of the now dilapidated dozen or so buildings left from Alma College will be demolished, except for the chapel and library, in a second phase of work between 2020 and 2026. Horse stables dating to 1916 will undergo a major renovation then, after the open space district’s board decides this year on a plan for the stables.
The governor entered Sacred Heart at age 18 in 1956 and studied at the novitiate for three years before leaving to enroll at UC Berkeley. He said in 2016 that he visited Alma College several times and found it “very beautiful.”
“The Jesuits should have never sold it,” he said.
But the Jesuits closed Alma College and moved to Berkeley in 1969. They sold the property in 1989 to Stanley Ho, a Hong Kong casino billionaire who hoped to build luxury homes there. The property sat quietly until Los Gatos developer Pete Denevi applied to build a golf course on the site.
But he was turned down in 1996 by Santa Clara County supervisors after environmentalists mounted a fierce challenge, saying the course would harm the rural character of the area.
In 1999, after the land had passed to an Oregon owner, the Arlie Land and Cattle Company, the open space district and Peninsula Open Space Trust bought nearly 1,100 acres of it for $25 million.
Rust said she was dismayed over the years when it sat padlocked.
“When we bought it, we thought it would take about four years to open,” she said. “It’s a matter of priorities. You have a certain amount of money and you spend it a certain way. It was disappointing that it has taken this long, but I’m so glad voters passed the measure to fund it. It’s fabulous.”
After voters approved Measure AA, a $300 million bond for the district in 2014, the cash was finally available to remove the buildings and build trails, Ruiz said.
So far, the district has used funds from the measure to open to the public the summit of Mount Umunhum, a former 1950s era Air Force radar station with sweeping views of San Francisco Bay and Monterey Bay, and La Honda Creek Open Space Preserve, a 6,142-acre expanse in rural San Mateo County filled with bucolic meadows and vistas of the Pacific Ocean.
“Some things are worth waiting for,” Ruiz said. “This is one of them. Now we have the funding, the staffing, volunteers and partners. It’s an exciting time.”