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8.B. - Page 22 <br /> WELLESLEY PARK <br /> HALS NO. CA-44 <br /> PAGE 7 <br /> O'Connell was the very ideal —which of course, he was not" (The Bohemian <br /> Club, 1872 — 1972:104). His funeral was held at St. Mary's Cathedral. <br /> George C. Ross <br /> Attorney George C. Ross was responsible for the actual development of Wellesley <br /> Park, which was spurred in part by demand after the 1906 San Francisco <br /> earthquake and fire. The plat of Wellesley Park Subdivision `A,' which extended <br /> from El Camino Real to just south of Somerset, and from Finger Avenue to <br /> Arlington Road, was "dedicated to public use"by Ross on March 19, 1906. He <br /> certified that the roads and lots in Subdivision `A' were the same as those <br /> delineated on the "Map of Wellesley Park, San Mateo Co. Cal"recorded with the <br /> County on November 26, 1888, under O'Connell's tenure. <br /> George C. Ross was known as the `dean of San Mateo County.' Ross' wedding <br /> to Miss Mary Donald, who was the second white child born in San Mateo County, <br /> occurred on December 24, 1877 and was attended by 700 friends and relatives. <br /> They had three sons: Hall C., Lee T., and Dr. Donald Ross of San Jose; he later <br /> founded a law partnership with sons Hall and Lee. His obituary in the Redwood <br /> City Standard stated that he was "one of the guiding lights" in political affairs in <br /> California for nearly half a century" (March 8, 1928). <br /> Urban Design Context <br /> The design of the Wellesley Park subdivision, a Romantic or Picturesque suburb, <br /> was progressive in its time. Its design was influenced by the latest ideas in <br /> landscape and suburban subdivision design pioneered in the last half of the <br /> nineteenth century by designers such as Frederick Law Olmsted, H.W.S. <br /> Cleveland and Calvert Vaux, primarily on the east coast. The prototypical <br /> subdivision designed in this new style, which represented an outgrowth of the <br /> Romantic landscape movement, was Llewellyn Park in New Jersey. The second <br /> model development at this time was Riverside, Illinois, designed by Frederick <br /> Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1869. Both sought to `provide amenities and <br /> homes that, built at comfortable density, afforded privacy in a naturalistic park- <br /> like setting.' A third example, closer to home, is the Piedmont Avenue <br /> development, known as the Berkeley Property tract and designed by Olmsted in <br /> 1865. <br /> The Picturesque suburban development represented a criticism of the prevailing <br /> grid-iron pattern of land subdivision practiced at the time, developed to facilitate <br /> land development and real estate speculation. This development pattern became <br />