A year after a judge halted plans to tear down Douglass Hall, officials at Menlo School in Atherton have announced they will undertake another study to decide the historic building's fate.
"There's not a commitment to save the building. There's not a commitment to destroy it," said Peter Stent, chairman of the private school's board of trustees. "We're trying to start over."
The new study, which Stent said would explore the possible renovation of the 82-year-old mansion, will be part of a larger review the school plans to conduct this year of its need for more classroom space to meet growing enrollment.
Stent's announcement was met with some skepticism from ardent opponents of the school's attempts since 1991 to raze the former home of inventor Leon Douglass.
"We are approaching it with cautious optimism," said Allan Douglass, great-grandson of Leon, who with his father, Earl Douglass, hope to meet with school officials sometime in the next few weeks to discuss how a new study might proceed.
After the Atherton City Council in October 1993 approved the school's plans to demolish the majestic but aging 52-room building, the group Friends of Douglass Hall filed a lawsuit in San Mateo County Superior Court halting its destruction.
Judge Walter Harrington ruled in February 1994 that the school hadn't explored all possible options for saving the building. Harrington said the school's $6.1 million estimate for repairing it was possibly inflated and dismissed the school's claims that the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake had rendered it unsafe.
"It will address the deficiencies as stated in the injunction," Stent said in describing the scope of the study.
The school stopped using the building three years ago, and has put up a fence around it to keep out students.
Aside from outlining what steps the school expects to take in putting together a new study, the announcement was intended to illustrate the school's desire to adopt a more open approach in its handling of Douglass Hall.
Critics have accused school officials in the past of being less than forthright in their efforts to get rid of a building which they have viewed as a costly hindrance to their plans to expand. The school has an annual budget of about $7 million.
Stent acknowledged that bad publicity attached to the fight over Douglass Hall has dented the school's reputation.
"We want to make sure at the very least we are completely open with the community," Stent said last week during a meeting that he, Headmaster Norman Colb and Director of Special Projects Elaine French had requested with the Weekly to discuss the school's plans.
Allan Douglass declined to comment directly about the school's intentions, but pointed out that the steps it has outlined for studying the building's condition are those prescribed by the court ruling and those "which we have been saying they (should) do from day one."
--Rufus Jeffris
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