How Mountain View’s oldest house became a motive for the 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping

Most people who have ventured into Shoreline Park probably have seen the historic, two-story, white wooden Rengstorff House — the oldest home in Mountain View and a striking example of Victorian Italianate architecture with front-facing bay windows, a central gable crowned by a widow’s walk and a front portico flanked with square columns that stand out in stark contrast to the surrounding baylands.

More than a decade before the farmhouse was transformed into the city’s landmark history museum representing the area’s early agricultural days, it became part of the motive behind what has been considered the largest mass kidnapping case in American history.

Woodside High School graduates Frederick Woods and brothers James and Richard Schoenfeld – the now infamous Chowchilla school bus kidnappers – reportedly launched their plan to bury 26 school children and their bus driver alive in an underground hole on July 15, 1976, in part because they wanted ransom money to preserve the abandoned, rundown mansion from destruction and make it their private residence, newspapers reported at the time.

A year prior to the kidnapping, two of the men had struck a deal with the city of Mountain View to restore the 15-room house built around 1867 for settler Henry Rengstorff, who came to California hoping to strike it rich in the gold rush but ended up making his money as a rancher and local businessman who operated a ferry between San Francisco and his Mountain View property.

The Peninsula Times Tribune reported on Aug. 26, 1975, that the Mountain View City Council approved a proposal from Woods of Portola Valley and James Schoenfeld of Atherton to buy a half-acre lot from the city at the intersection of Middlefield Road and Independence and Rock streets and move the historic house to the site. The house, located on Stierlin Road at the time, had been abandoned a few years earlier and the new property owner, Newhall Land and Farming Co., offered the home free of charge to anyone who would remove it.

Under the agreement with the city, Woods and Schoenfeld would have to pay $23,000 for the new site, $13,000 to have the home moved and about $66,000 to restore it so it would be habitable.

The two raised the cash needed to purchase the city-owned lot and move the home but struggled to come up with a $60,000 surety bond to guarantee the renovation and finalize the deal, according to an article published in the Peninsula Times Tribune on July 23, 1976.

Reportedly, the duo ended up in debt trying to rescue the old mansion, which in part, led them to began plotting out a scheme that involved kidnapping young school children riding a bus more than 100 miles south in the small farming community of Chowchilla by gunpoint and transporting them to the Bay Area where they would be buried alive in an underground moving van stocked with food and water at the California Rock & Gravel quarry that Woods’ father owned in Livermore. ( CNN released the documentary “Chowchilla” earlier this month that details the kidnapping and its aftermath. The documentary can be rented on Google Play and Vudu and will be streaming on Max starting Jan. 11.

Jack Baugh, chief of the criminal division of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office who worked on the case and later co-wrote a book about the kidnapping, “Why Have They Taken Our Children?”, said James Schoenfeld wrote in a diary that they planned to collect $5 million in ransom money to rehabilitate the Rengstorff House as well as pay off debts and fund inventions, according to a story published by the Montreal Star on Jan. 18, 1978. To avoid getting caught, the men planned to bury all the ransom money for seven years, except for $40,000, which Woods wanted to use immediately to preserve the house.

“(Woods) wanted money to realize his dream of living in a grand, fully restored and modernized Victorian mansion,” Baugh wrote in his book.

Their plan ultimately failed because all 26 children and their bus driver were able to dig their way out of the hole and escape before the trio had sent the ransom note, later discovered at the Woods family’s 79-acre Portola Valley estate directing that the money be dropped from a small plane flying over the Santa Cruz mountains an hour before dawn.

Within days, all three men were in police custody. Richard Schoenfeld, 22, surrendered voluntarily in Oakland, Woods, 24, was captured in Vancouver, British Columbia, and James Schoenfeld, 24, was arrested in Menlo Park. The trio was sentenced to life in prison, but all three have been since granted parole with Woods being the last to be released in August 2022.

As for the Rengstorff House, the city of Mountain View purchased it for $1 in 1979 and moved it to Shoreline Park a year later to make way for a business park. The home sat vacant for more than a decade while political and private disagreement over who should take responsibility for the home raged on.

Offers to turn the home into a restaurant, office building, art gallery and ballroom came and went.

In 1986, the city relocated the home once again; this time to its current location at 3070 N. Shoreline Blvd., and the community launched a massive effort to rescue the historic building.

The home, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, opened to the public as a history museum in 1991 and has since served as a popular destination for weddings, tourists and even ghost hunters.

Interested in visiting the Rengstorff House?

During December, the Rengstorff House home is decorated for the holidays. Guests can grab a complimentary sweet treat and check out the museum’s collection of commemorative Rengstorff House ornaments for sale. Free docent-led tours are offered Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 1-4 p.m. Also in December, there will be tours offered on Saturday, Dec. 16 and 30 from noon to 3 p.m. The garden and grounds are open during Shoreline Park’s regular hours. Friends of “R” House, a nonprofit organization supporting the city-owned landmark that curates and manages the museum exhibit, also offers online exhibits and tours.