AgdaPkt 2014-12-08 Closed and Joint SA

Browse Search

8.B. - Page 20 WELLESLEY PARK HALS NO. CA-44 PAGE 5 be designed in "an architectural combination of the Lakeside and Elizabethan. This will be the residence of the Park Superintendent, whose duties . . . will comprise a general guardianship of the properties of the residents,the employment of minor gardeners for carrying out of improvements, etc., and an attention to such details as marketing orders, mail matters and other affairs in that connection" (Cloud, 1997:5). The workers who were laying out the roads and planting beds worked under the direction of landscape designer William Brown. The papers announced that Mr. Daniel O'Connell of Redwood City was the designer of the park. The 163-acre tract was close to county roads and the Redwood Station of the commuter rail line. The entry design was described as "the most pretentious one on the coast." The tract as a whole was announced as "the most ambitious piece of landscape gardening yet attempted by our real estate men." Additional design features of the tract included the 100-wide entrance driveway and 10-foot wide walkways separated from the street by Australian rye grass,then another strip of grass, then linden trees. Two crouching lions that `protected' either end of the park were designed by a Belgian sculptor named Gaff, according to the description, and between the lions was another feature of the park, the ruins. They consisted of a copy of a Norman tower and Saxon tower connected by a `curtain wall overrun with ivy." In a further bit of romanticism, "In the Norman tower hangs a curfew bell, which will be rung to announce the arrival and departure of the trains." Additional plantings included Abyssinian bananas, palms, "and other unique designs for a residence park." The park, as described in the press, appeared to be quite progressive not only in its design but in its management: "The Park, being a private holding in the sense that its exclusiveness will be the care of each resident with the aid of the superintendent and his employees, every ornamental shrub and every bit of landscape gardening will become by this unanimity of sentiment a common property" (Cloud, 1997:6). A brochure on the development, edited by Daniel O'Connell, and entitled "Views in Wellesley Park"was published in 1889 by H. S. Crocker & Co. of San Francisco. It contained sketches of the future development, mostly featuring landscaped grounds and horses with riders, horses harnessed to small buggies, and strolling pedestrians. It described views within Wellesley Crescent, and included extensive descriptions of the planned exotic foliage, plantings, and animals in the park. The favorable climate,the setting and exemplary schools, the design of