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The Peninsula was once a haven for estates of gentleman farmers — people of means who farm, but not for profit. What is now Portola Valley was home to such estates as Villa Lauriston, established by patent medicine entrepreneur Herbert Law, Catoctin and the Hawthorns.
The 79-acre Hawthorns, now owned by the MidPeninsula Regional Open Space District, is still more or less intact and the focus of the recently established Hawthorns Preservation Foundation Trust, which is seeking donors to help fund long-term maintenance and repairs to major structures.
The main house was completed in 1887, and there’s a carriage house/garage reportedly designed by noted California architect Julia Morgan.
The first phase of the project is halting the structures’ deterioration, trust board member Regina Coony said in an email. The trust intends to show the Hawthorns’ owner, the open-space district, “that we have serious commitment and interest from the community and can achieve financial viability to complete the work,” Ms. Coony said. “Our hope is that by the end of summer 2017, we will have raised enough funds to show this level of community commitment.”
The second phase would involve working with the community and the open space district to develop potential uses for the site and structures, Ms. Coony said.
Those potential uses include a museum along with farming and animal care, consistent with past activities, she said.
Julia Morgan design?
While the designer of the carriage house is not definitively known, the trust and Portola Valley historian Nancy Lund provided the Almanac with a digitized page from the “Building and Engineering News” section of a newspaper dated April 3, 1918, that includes notice of a contract awarded to Ms. Morgan for a garage in Menlo Park.
“Back in the day, Portola Valley was a remote place with a small population and was regularly referred to as Menlo or Redwood City in newspapers,” Ms. Lund said in an email when asked about the site being thought of as Menlo Park. “We have an envelope addressed to The Hawthorns, Redwood City, Cal,” Ms. Lund said by way of example. “There is no record of a Julia Morgan garage in Menlo Park. I can only say that the garage (or carriage house) is more likely than not a Morgan design.”
Editor’s note: Portola Valley historian Nancy Lund commented that Herbert Law’s herb farm was a for-profit enterprise to sell his patent medicines, and that the “carriage house/garage” believed to have been designed by Julia Morgan did not house carriages. “It was built as a garage,” she said.
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By Dave Boyce
By Dave Boyce
By Dave Boyce
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