Home sweet hacienda Home sweet hacienda (April 30, 2004)

Historic adobe now a relaxing estate for the Maddens
by Dolores Fox Ciardelli

Virginia and John Madden were planning to build a new home near Castlewood Country Club until John happened to be watching a City Council meeting on TV one night in 1997.

"Look at this, Gin," he called to his wife. Bill Currin, developer of Golden Eagle Estates, was talking about turning the old Bernal Adobe into an events center. The neighbors were dead set against this and wanted the historic home to return to being a private residence.

Agustin Bernal built the six-room adobe against the west foothills in the late 1840s, when he moved to El Valle de San Jose, the 64,000 acres he had received as a Mexican Land Grant in 1838. The adobe was known as Sombras de la Noche, or Shadows of the Evening, because of the tranquility that descends each evening as the sun sets behind the Ridge.

In 1943, Walter S. Johnson, a philanthropist from San Francisco, bought the adobe and its surrounding property. He restored the adobe, adding on to make it a 14-room home, and donated 237 acres to Pleasanton for the Agustin Bernal Park in 1971.

Most recently Currin had used the adobe as the sales office for Golden Eagle Estates, but now it was uninhabited and badly in need of renovations.

Virginia would take on the project on two conditions, she told John, NFL anchorman and former coach of the Oakland Raiders. "I don't want to hear, 'When is it going to be finished?' or 'What is it costing?'" she recalled telling him.

The Maddens remained in their nearby home while Virginia tackled the "renovations," which ending up taking three years, and entailed taking down all of Johnson's additional rooms. She was able to save three rooms of the original adobe - two are combined in the living room and one serves as her study.

"Johnson added on everything with low ceilings, and everything was a half step up and a half step down, just enough to break your neck on," said Virginia.

Johnson also built a grape arbor leading out from the living room with a fountain at the end, which is now the front entrance to the home.

"I didn't do anything to this except try to maintain its position," said Virginia indicating the wooden arbor with picturesquely worn white paint. Forever trimming the wisteria is a gardener, a lifelike Seward Johnson bronze statue dressed in straw hat, blue jeans and gloves, and wielding clippers, titled "Gotcha!"

"He works real slow," quipped Virginia.

When Walter S. Johnson led the restoration of the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts in the 1950s, he brought some of the Greco-Roman art to his Pleasanton home to grace the gardens. Virginia relocated the dramatic "Weeping Lady" to become a centerpiece to the slate wall backing the spa and black-bottomed pool. She also designed the house so the view from the front door is through the entire width of the house and out into the back yard and the two-leveled pools with the lady weeping over them.

Virginia said she would look at the lady and think, "That's how I'm going to feel when it's all done." She said she purposely stayed away went the lady was moved by crane into her position in the back yard.

The adobe's second floor was originally used to store vegetables and to hang peppers in the rafters to dry, according to "Sombras de la Noche: The Agustin Bernal Adobe" by James P. Delgado. It had two dormer windows to provide light and air circulation for the drying process. The Maddens also use the attic for storage, and skylights throughout the home draw their sun from the attic windows, which were designed in the original style.

The living room has its original redwood ceiling beams. "You can see everything is a little off," said Virginia. "Everything sort of slants. That's the charm."

Each section of the large living room, which was originally two rooms, has a fireplace. One has the original painted tiles that Agustin Bernal imported from Seville. Next to it, Virginia has arranged a Louis Vuitton steamer trunk, adorned with a period ball gown and jeweled evening bag, looking straight off the Titanic.

The room north of the living room served as Johnson's dining room but Virginia uses it as her study. It was also part of the original adobe, and the thick walls serve as window seats, as they do in the living room.

The study opens onto the spacious cream-toned kitchen. It was designed around a serendipitous find - a 1920s Occidental range Virginia discovered when she hobbled into a consignment shop she noticed next to the San Mateo Bridge while going to a doctor to have her knee treated. She matched the cupboards and granite counter tops to the old stove, which she said she prefers to the new stainless steel stove for cooking.

The kitchen opens onto a huge room that runs the length of the double living room, John's study and two guestrooms with private baths. Virginia said she had realized when renovating her home in Carmel that she found hallways too confining, so this room opens onto the other rooms of the house, plus serves as the family room and dining room and has several seating areas. French door windows open onto the garden terrace, and 2-foot-by-2-foot slate squares cover all the floors in tones of lavender, pink, beige, gray and gold. Virginia admired the workmanship, pointing out that the installers were meticulous about matching the indoor and outdoor tiles. She also noted that the slate floors are easy to maintain.

The big room - which Virginia calls "the gallery" since it is where she displays much of her art - has a table for four near the kitchen and, for more formal occasions, two larger round tables that seat eight. "John wanted round tables, to see everyone and talk to them," said Virginia.

Chandeliers of brightly colored lights designed by an artist in Carmel hang over each of the large dining tables. Three more individual lights are suspended in the kitchen.

"I got 33, in various sizes," said Virginia. Fifteen are arranged over each round table "like an upside down vase with flowers," Virginia pointed out. Her contractor wanted to drill holes in the ceiling but she nixed that idea and went to Tap Plastics where she ordered a 36-inch-diameter, 1-inch thick form to hold the "stems" of the 15-piece glass bouquet. On top of the plastic, she wrapped the wiring inside a toilet float cut in half.

Virginia's art collection also brings color into the home, including paintings by Dorothy Spangler, a favorite of hers because they "look happy."

"I like happy things," she said. She had a new carousel horse carved for the big room when she missed the one she had sold along with her former house in Blackhawk. On the terrace is a mosaic cow that John brought back from Chicago. She has also purchased whimsical glass to match the Dale Chihuly blown glass art that was a gift from her family. Fresh flowers from the garden are in vases throughout the home.

John's study has massive leather furniture and built-in walnut bookshelves, befitting a man who made his fame as a football coach and NFL anchorman. He had admired the windows in her adobe study, so she copied the look in his den; they look recessed but instead of thick adobe walls, the space is used for bookshelves. The floors, as in the living room, are Pennsylvania barn wood. And as in the living room, a patch of cutaway plaster reveals original adobe bricks.

This design of exposed adobe is carried out on the home's exterior. "We tried to give it the old adobe look, like it is 150 years old," said Virginia.

The master bedroom opens to the terrace on one side and yet another garden - "my secret garden" - on the other. The headboard of the bed backs up to a "bed wall," suggested by one of the builders of Blackhawk. This partition is built out a few feet from the entrance to the bathing and dressing area.

The Maddens share a workout room at the front of the house, overlooking more beautiful gardens. The 2-1/2 acres has some 300 rosebushes, palm trees, pine trees and abundant fruit trees, each with a low rock wall around it. "I was lucky to find a Hispanic artist who works in rock," Virginia said. The rock walls are a theme throughout the yard, setting off barbecues and terracing for flower gardens.

Virginia discovered Pleasanton when they moved to the East Bay in 1966 from San Diego for John to coach the Oakland Raiders. "I got on the freeway in Hayward, went past Castro Valley, and couldn't turn around," she recalled. She finally got off at Foothill Road. "'It's warmer over here,' I thought," she said, which was a good thing.

Back then their two sons Joe and Mike, now 40 and 38, were their main consideration in buying a home. "We were looking at two houses," she said, and they chose the neighborhood with the most children. "I noticed tricycles that matched the size of ours."

After Joe and Mike were on their own, John and Virginia lived in Blackhawk for a few years, but when their sons returned to Pleasanton, they knew that was also where they wanted to be. Now, with four young grandsons, the Maddens have a house to accommodate plenty of family, friends - or fundraisers. They have hosted as many as 300 guests to benefit Pacific Vascular Research Foundation, a special cause of Virginia's. Their home is one of five on a tour May 22 to benefit Pleasanton Partnerships In Education foundation.

Renovations took almost three years. "Every screw, every switch is a decision," Virginia said. "Plus when you try to keep it old, that affects every decision." She added, "I gave up golf. I'm still working to get my game back."

Virginia said that she considers the time and money well spent.

"It's a great house if I'm by myself, and it's great if John is home," she said. "It seems like a big house but it can live like a small house."

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