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7.B. - Page 23 of 23 REDWOOD CITY HISTORIC RESOURCES INVENTORY Continuation of "Description" and "Significance" Categories 7. DESCRIPTION: (continued) Simple board casings trim each of the front windows. The builder accentuated the rake of the eaves with prominent undecorated fascia boards. The eaves of both front gables overhang slightly, and are supported by large elbow brackets. A gable dormer with elbow brackets and a six -light fixed window illuminates a second floor room on the southwest side. The roof is covered in tar paper. On the rear exists a glazed porch covered with a shed roof. It is accessible from the outside by a back door with steps. A detached garage, perhaps once a stable, also stands in back. 19. SIGNIFICANCE AND EVALUATION: (continued) The builder elevated living quarters higher than typical late nineteenth-century buildings, perhaps to avoid small floods from the nearby Redwood Creek and marshlands. Servants or renters may have occupied this tall cellar space. Other early structures in this Mezesville area as at 530 Warren and 628 Maple have been elevated in this manner also. Because of the residence's unusual raised form and as an increasingly rare artefact of working class housing in Redwood City, the house at 221 Standish Street has architectural significance. This house was built in 1893 for Joseph and Lettera DeBenedetti, Italian immigrants, who raised their nine children in this home. Joseph DeBenedetti was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1858, and after taking a course in agriculture, came to America as a young man to make his fortune. He arrived in San Francisco and worked there for awhile, before traveling down the Peninsula to find work and settle in the more rural area of Redwood City. He went into the fresh fruit and vegetable business. When construction work began in 1887 on the Crystal Springs dam, he peddled his produce to the dam workers. During the early 1890s when Stanford University was being built, he found a good market for his produce there, as Italian immigrants came to work on the stonework and tiles. Not only could he speak their language, he sold them the vegetables they were used to eating in the Old Country. Because he worked very hard, the business was good; he saved his money and was able to buy the lot in August 1893 with $250 in gold coin. He admired the houses he had seen in San Francisco so much that he hired a San Francisco contractor to build a "San Francisco house." Of course, it would have to have a full basement for his vegetables and home-made wine! About 1897, during the world-wide Depression, Joseph DeBenedetti lost his produce business. He had extended credit to many families and they could not pay him. So, to support his growing family, he went to work as a gardener on the Talbot Estate, which was located on El Camino Real. About 1905, William J. Dingee, a multi -millionaire and real estate developer from Oakland, bought the Talbot Estate and the adjacent Moses Hopkins Estate. He and his wife loved trees and flowers, so they combined both estates into one lavish "garden estate" with ponds, speciman trees and plants. They also entertained so they had a large fruit and vegetable garden to supply the estate. Joseph DeBenedetti was responsible for the fruit and vegetable garden; he was also in charge of setting out all the blooming bushes and bedding plants in season. Great flower beds rimmed the winding driveway from El Camino Real to the Dingee mansion. Blooming flowers were set out so the short ones were in front. As carriages slowly approached the mansions, visitors would see wave after wave of color as it slowly rose in height until the house entrance was reached. It was a garden showplace on the Peninsula! Joseph DeBenedetti died in his home on Standish Street in 1926. The home remained in the family until it was sold in 1989. Today (1992) it remains with few changes or alterations from the way it appeared 99 years ago built by the Italian immigrant who came to America, following the American dream. 20. Sources: Ref: Deed records, Vol. 65-475, Hall of Records, County Clerk's Office, San Mateo Co. Obit: RC Tribune October 21, 1926 Oral interviews with James DeBenedetti, 1976, 1990. Richard Schellens Collection, Local History Room, RC Public Library. Redwood City Directories 1907, 1909, 1917, 1926. Map: Town of Mezesville surveyed Jan 1854, by W. W. O'Dyer for S. M. Mezes. Filed Aug. 1, 1856. 537