By Clyde Noel
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In 1994, the Town of Los Altos Hills designated the Shumate house an historic landmark.
This year the annual Los Altos History House Tour May 9 and 10 will feature this unique estate where Dr. Thomas E. Shumate built the mansion in 1916 for $10,000.
Dr. Shumate originally owned more than 500 acres in Los Altos Hills that included the present site of the Fremont Hills Country Club. Today, the original property has been reduced to 2.73 acres and is owned by Lisa Webster Puri, her husband Ajay, and two sons, Aaron, 16, and Austin, 12.
The house has gone through differwhen the Shumate family subdivided and sold the property. A schoolteacher named Mrs. Blodgett purchased it and ran the Happy Hours Nursery as a pre school for 25 years. When the Puris bought the property in 1989 it was run down with foliage and trees and you couldn’t see the property from the street. It was referred to as an Italian Villa, but people didn’t know where the property was on Viscaino Road.
Today, it is viewed as a classic California Italian Villa, popular during the 1910-1925 period in Southern California. It is similar to Villa Montalvo in Saratoga since they were both built at the same time.
Lisa is a registered architect and loves to do remodels including major remodels.
“I like to take on a house that doesn’t work for the family and make it work for my clients,” Lisa said. “I do one or to a year because I like to work one-on-one with the client.”
When the Puris bought the mansion in 1989, there was a lot of tedious work with the Los Altos Hills Planning Commission with blueprints and studies. Lisa contributed to the plans.
“We were looking for a place for the kids to run around and I fell in love with the exterior and Lisa liked the architecture,” said Ajay.
Today, the mansion is totally renovated with all the modern amenities. The main house is 7,200 square feet, with a detached garage, a two-bedroom cottage and a pool/recreation house. The main house has six bedrooms, six bathrooms and two half baths.
As you enter, you step into the living room with its formal entry. The living room walls and the ceiling are paneled with first-growth redwood remaining from the original house. It has a limestone fireplace and leads into the formal dining room.
The living room is cozy and Lisa said when they have sit-down dinners they always start in the living room with social drinks.
The formal dining room is paneled with redwood and has a fireplace and a beautiful credenza with an Asian influence.
The library is a short step off the living room in the front of the house. It has mahogany bookshelves and cabinets, and the walls are influenced with silk wallpaper. There is a wet-bar with dark green marble to match the mahogany.
“It’s Ajay’s home office and a place to be in as well as work in,” Lisa said.
The kitchen is off the dining room with state-of-the-art built-in closets designed by Lisa because she likes to cook. It includes two sub-zero refrigerators, a professional six-burner grill gas cooktop. It includes two dishwashers and two convection ovens. It has a large eating area with a built-in banquette. A rustic chandelier hangs over the gas cook top, but the two red flowered lithograph paintings over the banquette set off the kitchen with a slight Asian ambiance in a black and white kitchen setting.
Adjacent to the kitchen is a sitting room, or sunroom, that is conducive to relaxing and reading. There is also a large pantry and a wine cellar off the main kitchen.
“I find the sun room an intimate space away from the larger spaces of the house,” said Lisa. “I spend a lot of time in the kitchen because I like to cook India style and the closets are designed so I know where everything is.”
The second floor features a grand family room with a view of the East Bay and the front grounds with palm trees.
“This is a great room for the kids,” Lisa said. “We spend a lot of time here. It has a fireplace, a mini kitchen area and surround sound for watching movies.”
Adjacent to the family room is a unique second level outdoor deck with a built-in gas barbecue for family and entertaining during the warm months. The house has a vacuum system, a whole house sound system and a 16-station phone system. It is wired for LAN and a DSL connection in many rooms.
The master bedroom has a two-sided fireplace open to the bedroom and a separate sitting area. It has an exercise room, a two-person shower, a balcony with a private exterior staircase.
“I love this house. There are many places I can go depending on my mood,” Lisa said. “I have a place to read, a place where I can listen to the music and a place where I can get away from the kids and not hear them”
“In a house this big, the family room and the kitchen are used the most, but we can go anywhere to observe quiet.” Ajay said.
A word should be mentioned about the gardens. They were rebuilt and planted with California drought tolerant plants. The original property had a walnut orchard and later an apricot orchard. The last remaining walnut tree was toppled during the storms of December 2002.
The fountain in front of the house has the original base. The base was coated with many layers of white paint, and workmen spent weeks carefully scraping off the paint so it could be reused. The urn on top of the base is an old light fixture from the original grounds. The fixture is similar to the ones found on Main Street.
The pool was built after the main house and originally filled solely by rainfall. At a later date, the tile was changed, the pool plastered and a heater and pump added. Electricity is now running to the trellis.
Los Altos Hills resolution 67-94 designates the Puri/Shumate property as an historic landmark, dated Sept. 7, 1994. ◊
