| Brookside Park, Portola
Valley
If you don't know exactly where Brookside Drive is in Portola Valley, you're sure to miss it. A quiet, horseshoe-shaped lane, its two entrances off Portola Road look more like driveways than streets.
But once you do find your way onto the old orchard known as Brookside Park you'll find a leafy neighborhood with quaint homes -- many dating back to the early 1920's. One of the oldest subdivisions in town, the 41 half-acre lots were first sold for around $300 each -- mostly for summer cottages.
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Today, Brookside Park is an enclave where neighbors know each other and families feel safe letting their children play outside.
"We're a street that we like to keep hidden," says longtime Brookside resident Joan Madden. Born and raised here, Ms. Madden and her husband raised their family here too and are still enjoying life on Brookside.
When she was a child, Brookside Park was only half developed. What she calls "the inner circle of the horseshoe" was a working orchard owned by a close family friend, Joseph Ernst, owner of Field Ernst Envelope Company in San Francisco, she says. With the orchard undeveloped, there was plenty of room to roam.
Ms. Madden remembers Portola Valley as a rural town with working ranches and orchards. The granddaughter of Croatian emigrants who came to Portola Valley to farm, she says people led a simple life. Back in 1948 she rode her bike to first-grade classes in the one-room "historic schoolhouse" -- the mission-style building in Town Center, now used for council meetings.
Portola Valley Ranch facts:
CHILD CARE & PRESCHOOLS: Windmill Preschool, 4141 Alpine Road, Portola Valley; Ladera Community Church Preschool, 3300 Alpine Road, Portola Valley; Carillon Preschool at Christ Church, 815 Portola Road, Portola Valley; New Horizons (after school care), 200 Shawnee Pass, Portola Valley
FIRE STATION: Woodside Fire Protection District, Portola Valley Station, 135 Portola Road, Portola Valley
PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Portola Valley School District -- Ormondale School (K-3), 200 Shawnee Pass, Portola Valley; Corte Madera School (4-8), 4575 Alpine Road, Portola Valley Sequoia Union High School District -- Woodside High School, 199 Churchill Ave., Woodside
PRIVATE SCHOOLS: Woodside Priory School, 302 Portola Road, Portola Valley
SHOPPING: Nathhorst Triangle, Portola Road at Alpine Road; Village Square, 884 Portola Road; Ladera Shopping Center, 3130 Alpine Road, Portola Valley
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $1,413,000 ($1,280,000-1,975,000)
NO. OF HOMES SOLD: 4 |
When she married in 1964, Mr. Ernst gave the newlyweds a plot of land from his orchard to build a home. He sold off the rest of the inner-circle lots and Brookside Park was fully developed.
"When I was growing up here it was a bit lonely. But when I was raising my family, there were lots of children. We built our homes at about the same time, and had our children together," says Ms. Madden.
Susan Henderson has lived in Brookside Park since 1975. The neighborhood had been a place of country cottages -- summer homes for wealthy San Franciscans. It was much more of a rural atmosphere then, she said, although she still sees deer, raccoon, and sometimes coyotes.
"It seems more suburban now, a different kind of feeling. Although it's nice to have conveniences, sometimes I yearn for the rustic days," she said.
It is still country -- yet with easy access to the community and shopping -- the kind of neighborhood where it's still safe for children to bike to schools, walk to the grocery store or the library. Every year, young families and old-timers gather for the neighborhood block party, sharing stories and a sense of neighborhood connection.
-- Sharon Driscoll |
