By Bruce Barton
 Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier |
Organizers’ efforts rewarded: New LA museum building to open Sunday
A new chapter in the annals of Los Altos history begins Sunday with the public grand opening of the new Los Altos History Museum. The project is the culmination of strong grassroots efforts, as Los Altos and Los Altos Hills history enthusiasts have poured funding, know-how and labor into a facility bound to entertain and inform succeeding generations.
The three-level, 8,200-square-foot museum, located behind the Los Altos main library at 51 S. San Antonio Road, lovingly and effectively shows the progression of local history from the early Ohlone Indians to modern-day Silicon Valley. The permanent exhibit, covering 1,200 square feet, the entire second floor, is full of surprises - little detours and hideaways that offer intriguing asides as visitors explore the area’s timeline from the Ohlones to the Spanish land grants to early farming and finally the formation of Los Altos.
“It’s going to be the focal point in Los Altos,” said Nan Geschke and husband Chuck, co-founder of Adobe Systems, have been major players in the building’s creation.
“It will be a tremendous resource for people here and it’s going to be important for people who have lived in different places. It wasn’t always Silicon Valley. People want to find out what the history of this region has been,” Nan said.
Fun features
The building flashes the latest technology, some of it whimsical, downright fun, features. As Nan Geschke told a group recently, “This is not your father’s museum.”
Some exhibit stations have touch pads and buttons allowing visitors a hands-on, interactive experience. Ambient noises of birds chirping might be heard at one station. A canoe made of reeds travels down a “vertical river” at a station about the Ohlones, complete with the sound of rushing water.
Surprises await visitors at other stations, such as peep-holes inside old barns to reveal gophers or bats. Children are encouraged to climb into a 90-year-old saddle at another exhibit stop, triggering the sound of a horse neighing. Visitors will no doubt be impressed with the model train engines running amid a painstakingly detailed replica of 1932-era downtown Los Altos.
Modern barn
The building retains an old California barn feel, but the infrastructure is definitely state of the art, with such elements as a climate-controlled vault for storing archives, a very modern kitchen for catering special events, a meeting room with the latest audio-visual equipment, a research center complete with computer access, and even a museum store.
“This was built with all private donations,” marveled Liz Nyberg, who was president of the Los Altos History Museum Association for four years. “The city donated the land but community members donated the money.” The museum has been gifted to the city, Nyberg said, but day-to-day operations are handled by volunteers and paid museum staff.
This $3.3-million project germinated from informal discussions among members of the Los Altos Historical Commission going back 10 years or more. The Los Altos History House, J. Gilbert Smith’s turn-of-the-century farm house converted into a museum in 1977, was forever short on space. Local history lovers used the small farmhouse basement for the volumes of materials gathered over the years, but clearly needed an alternative.
The idea of a new building slowly gained momentum. In 1993, the Association of the Los Altos Historical Museum voted to pursue a new building, and a capital campaign got under way in 1996 co-chaired by Marion Grimm and Ginny Lear.
Team participation
Marion Grimm set the standards high for the new building. “You keep wanting it to be the best it can be,” she said, as supporters saw costs continue to rise over projections.
An initial design was scrapped and organizers needed city approvals to use more space. The Association hired Goody Steinberg, the legendary architect responsible for local landmarks such as the Los Altos Chamber of Commerce and former Kahn’s Corner Pharmacy buildings. The design, said Bob Grimm, was “ostensibly a barn - a very nice barn.”
Considerable thought and attention to detail went into the permanent exhibit, led by Nan Geschke. Her team hired the Sibbett Group of San Francisco, to help with layout and to add whimsy and interaction elements to various stations. Former mayor, Jane Reed, designed some 50 boxed portraits for the “Family Tree”, which feature biographies of some of the key people and organizations of local history. Chuck Geschke, with the help of Adobe’s Ed McCreight have installed five touch-screen monitors at the base of the 20-foot-high structure, allowing visitors to look up information about the featured persons.
Handling details
Los Altos Hills resident Yvonne Olson Jacobson, whose Sunnyvale family was one of that city’s renowned orchardists, worked on the main storyline for the second-story exhibit space, titled “Crown of the Peninsula: Los Altos Land Over Time.” She partnered with Carol Tefft, former head librarian for the Los Altos main library and Julie Cummer.
“We went around to different library collections and looked at a lot of photographs to ferret out the interesting stories of people and how they changed the landscape,” Jacobson said.
She has overseen the historical accuracy of exhibit information, right down to proofing audio tapes that visitors can hear with the press of a button.
Jacobson noted “a lot of charming touches that most museums don’t have.” She said the inclusion of model gophers at one station refers to a time in the early days when Los Altos was nicknamed “Gopherville” and the young town was threatened to be overwhelmed by them.
As a historian, the research for the new building had her reacquainted with nearly forgotten stories, such as the Witness Tree, which is remembered with a plaque at its old site, at the corner of Cuesta Drive and Grant Road. In the 19th century, the tree served as a meeting place and a landmark used to define properties. It also was the subject of a confrontation between landowner William Bubb and Theodore Grant, another notable area figure. It seems Bubb was ready to cut the tree down, prompting Grant to say, “You cut that down and I’ll shoot you.” The tree remained into the 1950s.
Jacobson, who authored the book, “Passing Farms, Enduring Values,” will have another printing of the book in a few months, and copies will be available at the museum store, she said.
Trains come alive
Many of those involved expect the train exhibit to be the highlight or the “signature exhibit” of the new museum. Thanks to train enthusiasts Fred and Tom Vertel, and diarama builder Bob Brown, visitors will thrill to the sights and sounds of steam and electric trains running down tracks with the backdrop of First Street in downtown Los Altos, circa 1932. The scene includes some of the town’s first buildings, complete with passersby and the old train station, where Maria’s Antiques currently stands. Noises of train engines and other sounds of the era will engulf visitors and spark imaginations.
The Vertels and Brown were hired for producing the train exhibit but the results show it was really a labor of love for them.
Museum store volunteers, led by Paula Wildanger, have carefully selected unique items to complement the museum’s theme. For sale are model trains on a short track, furry farm animals, 1930s toys and children’s books, local history books, period jewelry and pewter wine bottle stoppers topped by a train, quail or cable car.
Marion and Bob Grimm, a former mayor and retired Hewlett-Packard engineer, have been involved in every aspect of the museum, including being the major donors. Besides being the project manager, Bob rolled up his sleeves and hauled the old agriculural equipment across the valley for restoration by the inmates at the Elmwood Correctional Facility in Milpitas.
More than 50 volunteers have been putting in untold hours to create the museum experience. Coordination of efforts happened because key volunteers served on multiple teams and could communicate what other teams were doing.
The excitement and anticipation over the new building seems to be catching on. The museum association blanketed Los Altos and Los Altos Hills residents with a mailer in January offering membership. As a result, membership has more than doubled, from about 350 to more than 700.
Other uses
Organizers also took great pains to beautify and make good use of the land outside the museum. The grounds will be available for weddings and other special events.
With the original History House museum now deemed an “exhibit,” other features include an old water tower, an apricot drying shed and a machine shed displaying the original walnut huller built by the Formway Manufacturing Co. in 1930 in Los Altos.
Current co-presidents Marie Backs and Pinky Whelan invite the public to attend Sunday’s grand opening from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., which is free. The formal program, scheduled for 1 p.m., will feature the de Anza Lancers color guard, a welcome from Mayor King Lear, speeches by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Paul Bernal, an Anza descendant, and James Williams, head of the history department at De Anza College.
After the grand opening, admission will be $3 for adults ages 19 and older. Members are free. Children and youth 18 and under are free. Organizers hope the free admission will encourage young visitors to learn local history. New museum hours will be noon to 4 p.m., Thursday through Sunday.
“This admission is really pretty modest, and the association is being generous and thoughtful, executive director Madelyn Crawford said. “Other (similar) museums are charging $7.”
Bob Grimm said organizers had two representatives from the school system offer input as the plans progressed. “They helped us make sure there was some value to the students,” he said. “We tried to do it in a way so that history can be fun.
“I think we’ll have something people can be proud of,” Grimm said.
For more information, call 948-9427.
