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The Pleasanton City Council approved the floor layout and site plans for the multimillion-dollar project to renovate the historic Century House last week.
Originally built as a hunting lodge, the 150-year-old house on Santa Rita Road was bought by the city in the 1970s. It then became a place for people to get married, hold birthday parties and attend classes onsite — until it was deemed unsafe in 2014 following an inspection, when officials determined there were numerous building and life safety code flaws.
“I thank you for taking this under consideration to save the building because as we wait any longer it’s going to continue to deteriorate,” resident Christine Borg said during public comment at the Aug. 16 council meeting.
In June 2021, the City Council and Parks and Recreation Commission began holding joint workshops to develop different floor and site plans for the council to choose from, which were modified based on public and city staff feedback.
Some of the topics that were discussed at the meetings included building assessment, facility usage and programming, site plan and parking options, and interior floor plan and renovation options.
Now that the plans have been approved and the council having allocated $4.8 million for the Century House master plan design and construction during its midterm budget revision, staff will begin seeking a consultant for the master plan design. They will bring that contract forward to council with actual costs for consideration at a later meeting.
The site plan option that the council approved will construct a pickup and dropoff area directly adjacent to Santa Rita Road and will allow for approximately 29 new parking spaces along the existing driveway.
Mayor Karla Brown and Councilmember Kathy Narum both questioned the dropoff area asking if it was possible to create a loop area for cars or moving the parking lot to the front area of the house, so as to avoid people getting out on the side of traffic.
“When people get out of cars, a lot of times both people get out, and Santa Rita is not where you should be getting out,” Brown said.
Melinda Denis, Pleasanton’s deputy director of community development, told the council that was discussed in other plan options during the workshops but the consensus was it would cut into the beauty of the existing landscape.
“The more you impact that front lawn, the less we can program this space,” Denis said. “That’s where weddings are held, that’s where people have their seat setup, that’s where programs happen. So when you start to impede on it with a drive aisle, and a loading zone, and a walkway, it gets pretty impactful into that lawn space.”
Denis said that cutting into the front for more dropoff access would mean removing several trees, but ultimately agreed with Brown to keep it under consideration.
But the topic of removing trees then shifted to the parking lot renovation plan to remove about 20 redwood trees to build the approximated 29 parking spaces.
“I am a little troubled by the removal of the trees, I never liked to see mature trees removed,” said Vice Mayor Valerie Arkin. “I know some may be diseased or drought stressed … but if there’s any way of preserving some of the trees, I would really strongly recommend that we preserve as many healthy trees as possible.”
Denis said staff haven’t done any tree assessment or land surveys to figure out which ones should be saved and which ones are drought stressed enough to remove.
There will also be several changes to the interior of the house like widening the doorways and openings on the first floor as well as reconstructing the exterior ramp to meet minimum accessibility requirements.
The plan will also: demolish the existing staff room; establish the bridal room on the first floor in the living room; reconstruct the restrooms to provide a minimum of one accessible and one non-accessible gender neutral restrooms; and replace damaged deck material and railings.
Total occupancy for the house would be limited to a maximum of 50 people because only two restrooms could be accommodated inside the house, however that number can be extended by bringing portable restrooms.
But another big talking point during the meeting was preserving the historical significance of the Century House and how accurately the interior was going to represent its history.
Councilmember Julie Testa said she wanted to explore the possibility of requesting the house be added to the National Register of Historic Places, so as to request more funding to preserve the integrity of the house.
“There is so much even state legislation right now that anything on the historic preservation list is protected to a greater level and it would send the direction of really looking at this home as not just being a fake historic home but really taking it and honoring the Pleasanton past,” Testa said.
She said she wants to see a two-phase plan where the first phase restores the exterior of the building with everything that staff recommended and the second phase looks at restoring the interior with more emphasis on preservation.
Denis said the house is not eligible for the historic registration list because there have been too many modifications to the structure — one of the main ones being the front wraparound porch, which is included in the renovation plan and will be used to connect the program spaces inside.
“We’re not going to take it back to a hunting lodge back in the 1800s because then we would lose the porch,” Denis said.
She said that staff’s next step will be working with either museum staff or will hire a historic consultant to focus the interior renovation on maintaining the aesthetic of the time period when it was first built.
Councilmember Jack Balch said he supports that plan of figuring out how to renovate the interior based on the time period it was built and mainly wants to get started on the project so the public can once again use the house.
“The historical splendor without the registry and trying to figure out the period … I’m very comfortable with that because I think that lets us actually accomplish what we want,” Balch said.
Arkin echoed that and added that she wants to see more public feedback to residents have a say in the process.
“I think we need to, you know, make sure that we get plenty of public input and opportunities for the public to weigh in on the whole process,” Arkin said.
I would like to make one correction to this story. The City of Pleasanton didn’t buy this house in the 70’s. This house was given to the City by Dee Wilson. There is a plaque on the grounds stating this.
$4.8 million is the starting cost. It’s going to be interesting to see what the final cost is. My guess is start with 2x $4.8m. Also think of the Opportunity Cost- that is, what else could a huge sum of taxpayer funds be used for in these high inflation and economically uncertain times?