June 15, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Early opponent sells '50,000th acre' to open space district

by Allen Clapp

There's a creek on Beez Jones' Santa Cruz Mountains property that never dries up.

Shaded by stately bay trees, alders and tall pines, the fern-dotted streambed is a reminder of the tremendous wealth of natural beauty the coastal mountains to the west have to offer.

Her children played in that creek, and in the apple and prune orchards that surround the modest house. And they hiked in the grassy, oak-studded meadows up the hill.

It was a dream Jones and her late husband, Sam, worked hard to make a reality for their family. Seemingly endless scrimping and saving to purchase the land -- located in the backwaters of craggy Stevens Canyon -- paid off for the family, who ended up owning 240 acres of glorious, environmental gold.

It also happens to be a key piece of property for the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, which was able to celebrate 50,000 acres of open space last week after acquiring the land at Jones' request -- a huge turnaround for someone who opposed the district for nearly two decades.

"The district has been interested in this property for years," said Nonette Hanko, the Palo Alto representative on MROSD's board of directors and the leading founder of the district a third of a century ago.

And for years, Beez Jones, now 80, attended the board's meetings, keeping a hawk's eye on the proceedings.

"Darn right, I was suspicious," she said. "Even when I was living in Vallejo, I would come down for the meetings."

When she and Sam started buying the land in the early 1950s, the nascent environmental movement hadn't taken root locally. When interest coalesced in the late '60s and early '70s, nobody knew how exactly to make it work.

Some early attempts at land acquisition angered mountain residents and skepticism began to brew. One plan had a public trail running through Jones' property. Another group condemned a property of one of Jones' longtime friends.

"Twenty years ago, I would have bet all my money that this (transaction) would never happen," Hanko said.

Talking to Jones today, wearing her MROSD "50,000 acres of green" T-shirt and beaming at the idea of sharing her treasured land, her change of heart is palpable.

In the mid 1990s, when Sam was diagnosed with brain disease, it became clear they could no longer live in the wilds of Steven's Canyon Ranch. They moved closer to civilization and rented out their home. After Sam's death in 1999, Jones explored her options for the property.

With Santa Clara Valley to the east near the height of a technology and stock boom, she quickly discovered putting the property on the open market would be disastrous. She knew the land would be snapped up by developers.

"I've always been an environmentalist. It's the reason we bought up this land in the first place. I could not stand the thought of a bunch of pink palaces and driveways on my land," Jones said.

So her thoughts turned to the district, whose meetings she had haunted for decades -- possibly attending more meetings than anyone but Hanko.

She said she often opposed General Manager Craig Britton, but the relationship never grew adversarial.

"We disagreed for years, but we always treated each other with respect and honesty. Now that I've had a change of heart, there are no fences to mend because we never said anything we didn't mean," Jones said.

When she called Audrey Rust, president of the private nonprofit organization Peninsula Open Space Trust -- which brokered the $6.6 million deal for MROSD -- Rust said, "I know you. I sat behind you at all those meetings," according to Jones.

The district held a big bash last week on the property, celebrating the acquisition and its importance to the continuing regional environmental movement. More than 250 persons showed up to sit on bales of straw near the all-year creek, in the shade of bay trees and oaks.

And Jones was there, welcoming visitors with a friendly handshake and a heartfelt "Hello."

"This land is just a part of me. I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing than to sit here and enjoy nature," Jones said during an earlier visit for an interview.

It's a place that struck the fancy of a group of earlier pioneers as well. Before the Joneses purchased the property, it enjoyed a colorful past as a winery, a speakeasy and perhaps a brothel.

The apple orchard outside the house used to be a vineyard. Huge redwood doors in the home's basement that lead to the old winery are painted with Art Deco dancing girls. Inside the rough-hewn sandstone walls are old casks on which can still be read "claret," and "peaches."

According to Jones, the wooden stairway in the rear served as an escape hatch during Prohibition. The main customers, she said, were probably workers in nearby logging camps.

Jones herself -- born Bernice Glendenning, but called Beez by her younger sister -- first learned about the land in her youth. The daughter of an early canning-industry captain, George Glendenning, she wanted her father to invest in something other than business and flat orchard land in the valley: something lasting.

Not long after graduating in Stanford's class of 1947 with a double major in economics and political science, she and Sam Jones, a recent U.S. Naval Academy graduate, married in 1951. With an initial investment from her father, the newlyweds "just saved and saved" and started their long acquisition of the Stevens Canyon land -- originally owned since the mid-1800s by the family of Placido Bordy, well known as longtime residents of the Santa Cruz Mountains. While her husband's career led them to many parts of the nation and world, and she worked in merchandising for Macy's and other firms, her heart often returned to Stevens Canyon.

Far from the modern conveniences of post-war Palo Alto, the young family lived without the benefit of inside plumbing for years, using an "ancient outhouse" which is still on the grounds.

When her father installed their first indoor bathroom, it was a momentous occasion.

"The kids had grown up without plumbing, and now suddenly there was a toilet. They gathered round and made songs and dances to the toilet!" Jones laughed.

Among her memories and stories are the several years when she "ran the orchard" and used to sell fruit a local farmer's market.

Driving back down the canyon, Jones recounts names of former canyon neighbors. And she points out Soda Rock, a large boulder overhanging the road at a sharp former, seeping water -- a canyon tradition is for kids to sample the water. "Kids would have to stop and take a taste -- then they don't want another," she recalled.

"It's just part of me. ... The land is part of me," she reflected. "It's so special. I loved it, loved it."

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