Sunnyvale’s oldest house has been through some changes
After the first house built in Sunnyvale—the Murphy’s Bay View home of 1850— was demolished in 1961, the Wright House became the oldest house in the city. The exact year the wooden frame structure was built is unknown, but 1862 seems to be the year on which most sources agree.
The house had a variety of styles ascribed to it before a major renovation at the beginning of the 20th century, and several more since then.
The original Pioneer look is typical of the style settlers from the East Coast were erecting in the West, copying what they knew from home: the simple shape of an I or L and a hipped roof with a gable. The man who built the house, William Wright, was just such an East Coast man. He came from Maryland in 1849, at age 23, to seek his fortune in the gold fields of California.
After a few years of checkered success in mining and running a store, Wright gave up prospecting and came to the Santa Clara Valley. He bought 160 acres of land from Martin Murphy, Jr., and since he had never farmed before, he hired a foreman at $100 a month (one source says per year) to teach him. He grew wheat and barley and raised stock, and after a year was successful enough to buy an additional 160 acres.
Eventually, he added fruit to his crops and enlarged his property to about 640 acres total—the area from today’s Homestead Road to Knickerbocker Drive or even as far as El Camino Real, and from Mary Avenue to Bernardo Avenue.
In preparation for bringing his bride Helena from
Maryland, Wright expanded his house in a Gothic Revival style, with a centered gable and a full-width open porch, as depicted in an 1876 lithograph. The Wrights had two children, William Tarleton and Dora, and after Wright’s death in 1890, his widow managed 220 acres of the property, whereas their son inherited 25 acres and the house.
The younger William’s life was cut short by an accident in 1912, when his clothes were caught in the machinery of the well pump. His mother Helena died just year later. This left William T.’s widow, Ada, and her three children trying to keep the orchard property going. Ada appealed to the city of Sunnyvale to name the milelong driveway up to the house Wright Avenue. The family eventually lost the house during the Great Depression.
Following the sale, a string of owners lived in the Wright house, including a retired GM executive; Sunnyvale’s first city manager, Ken Hunter; a local veterinarian, Dr. Humphrey; the Seagraves; and Michael Malone, the current owner.
In 1961 Humphrey petitioned the city to subdivide the remaining 1.56 acres of the Wright property, claiming that the land required too much maintenance. A Feb. 24 newspaper article from that year makes a dramatic statement about the decision the planning commission was faced with: “whether Sunnyvale should have a historical past—more to the point, whether a historical landmark should be removed in favor of modern housing. There are few grand old houses around.”
Another question was how the subdivision would be zoned: for single-family homes or multi-family dwellings. One commissioner was in favor of removing the house, saying it was in bad repair and “probably termite-eaten,” and, after all, “only an old farmhouse, anyway.” The extensive remodeling and beautification Hunter had accomplished when he owned the house spoke against its destruction. Considering that this was the same year the city decided to destroy the Murphy home, the Wright house probably had a narrow escape.
The next threat to the old home came in 1977 when Janis and Frank Seagrave, who called the house Cranberry Meadows (the property is located at Cranberry Avenue), tried to turn it into a bed and breakfast. Thanks to massive resistance from the neighbors, that did not happen.
Janis Seagrave was an interior decorator and launched her own set of remodels, including “rewiring, replumbing, adding a bathroom, lowering the kitchen ceiling and converting an entryway off the master bedroom into hisand-hers dressing rooms” (S.L. Wykes, Mercury News, April 8, 1987).
Furniture from Frank Seagrave’s family was brought out west to use in their vintage home. During their ownership, the house contained four or five bedrooms, a library, three baths, two fireplaces and a sunroom. The Seagraves had the water tower moved to the side of the street, and Janis intended to use it as her studio (the actual water tank is now serving its original purpose in the Santa Cruz Mountains).
The Seagraves had sold most of the surrounding land to be developed, and three homes would be constructed there, while the old dwelling was added to the Santa Clara Valley Historical Heritage Inventory.
The Seagraves opened the home to the public during the Sunnyvale’s 75th anniversary celebration in June 1987, with ticket sales benefiting the Sunnyvale Heritage Park Museum. Signing a Mills Act contract with the city in 1991 allowed the Seagraves to pay lower taxes for their property in return for preserving its historic character. This was the first such contract to be approved in Sunnyvale, and the fourth in the county. At the time, they estimated their cost for the upkeep of the place to be $6,600 a year.
When Michael Malone and his wife, Carol Marschner, bought the house in the early ’90s, what started as a simple renovation of turned into a vast project. When the house was jacked up to level the uneven floors, the walls cracked and needed replastering. During that process, they uncovered auger holes for gas lines to 24 wall sconces and decided to restore those.
The Malones laid a new foundation, extended the basement and removed walls that were not original to the house. They threw out carpets and refinished the oak and redwood floors, stripped paint from crown moldings as well as the doors and placed those doors in their original locations.
Unfortunately, Michael’s father, Pat Malone, erstwhile president and supporter of the Sunnyvale Historical Society, did not live to see his son’s restoration of the home.