Homestead Valley Community Association

The Homestead Valley Community Association (HVCA)
Some opinions and, Some facts.

For openers, the HVCA website (www.homesteadvalley.org.) is the place to
go for background: history, commercials for their swimming pool, that
sort of stuff. And while you're there, check out the Marin IJ article on
Maury Maverick from January 2, 2011, if it's still posted. He's lived in
Homestead Valley a LONG time and has a good nose for what's going on.
There are several pictures of him and his guitar, one of them from about
the time I moved here in 1970. If you have a chance, talk to him about
the old-time concerts at Stolte Grove. I still recall the first one my
wife and I attended, which was with an exceptionally handsome old friend
and lifetime Marin County resident, who for quite a few years now is
deceased, rest his beautiful soul, who had to explain that the sweet
pungent smell wafting among the redwoods was neither smoldering sagebrush
nor hippie incense. (Oh?)
As soon as you finish the Maverick article, recall reading here that he
and I have discovered we share a common interest in goats. I, too, had a
pet goat when I was a boy, and as far as I'm concerned, anybody who likes
goats is just fine with me! Although there is an explanation of my
preference for the company of goats to those of our own kind we
occasionally meet on life's lanes and byways – and find exasperating for
one reason or another – it is interminable and better left unsaid.
Now, back to HVCA.
Until the issue of a certain statement made in 1973 by the then President
of HVCA to the assembled Marin County Board of Supervisors regarding the
approaching bond issue for acquisition of open space is publicly settled,
I will continue to regard the HVCA website as a textbook for advanced
students of political science – in its manifold historical sense.
But let's not spoil our fun on that account.
I once went to the HVLT (Homestead Valley Land Trust ) with an urgent
plea to include the old Santos property at 35 Laverne Avenue into the Land
Trust ( which is the land Marin County had bought in Homestead Valley
with the 1973 bond money and set aside as open space, which I voted FOR)
but was rebuffed, and rather rudely as I recall.
But let's not spoil our fun on that account.
At the time, I believed the old Santos property to be the last surviving
"homestead" in Homestead Valley, even if it was up here on the ridge that
separates Homestead Valley from Tamalpais Valley to the south. It was, as
I am, part of the Homestead Valley tax district, and consisted of the old
Santos house where my neighbor and good friend George Santos was born in
1914 and died in 1992, and an old barn adorned with souvenir deer antlers,
and chicken coops and sundry out-buildings spread around among the
scraggly fruit trees over the acre and a half that remained of the Santos
property. I knew George well, and his older brother Tony not as well
because Tony died while our acquaintance was still young. They were old
bachelors who lived and died in the house where they entered this world,
and enjoyed one another's company puttering around the barn their father
had built. They were aging sons of the last of the Portuguese dairymen
that populate Marin County's rich history. The subdivision where my house
sits and where I write these words was once Santos property. All of which
interested HVLT not in the least. The property was sold to private
investors rather than Marin County. Everything was demolished in 1998 and
two expensive new houses were erected on the site. If you're interested,
you can see pictures of the old Santos place in Chuck Oldenburg's history
of Homestead on the HVCA website. George and Tony are buried in Fernwood
Cemetery on Tennessee Valley Road, which soon will become my final
address. On this earth.
In the following paragraphs and subject to the temperament of the digital
and wireless media I will try to conclude this edition of On the Beam with
copies (which have been scanned, cut and copied so many times I'm almost
blind) of the HV Land Trust Agenda for their meeting, November 16, 1993,
and of the letter I presented to them at that meeting urgently
recommending the Santos property be preserved, "in the interest of noble
community values," which failed like the proverbial lead balloon to stir
anyone's interest but my own.
That's it for today. And many thanks for your kind attention,
Ray Cook
$$$$ (Agenda below) $$$$

HOMESTEAD VALLEY LAND TRUST
AGENDA
NOVEMBER 16, 1993
Call to Order.
Introduction of guests.
Approval of the Minutes.
Treasurer's Report.
Letter from Warren Mullen re: 1994 Budget Request.
Ron Crawford - Homestead map.
Santos property - Ray Cook.
Committee Reports
Parks Report - Phil Moyer
Request 'from theater group to use Stolte Grove.
CSA 14 - Eric Stoelting
Open Space - Eric Stoelting
Pixie Trail work - Andy Stoelting.
Deux Chevaux at Madrone Trail.
Bike signs up again.
Tree Safety - Maverick
Publicity - Rob Kilby
Thank you to Volunteer Park clean up crew.
Announcement on board elections.
Old Business
Bond issue - meeting held on Nov. 5 to discuss timing and
terms of bond sale.
Fire Warning System.
Law Suit.
Virginia Spalding Memorial.
New Business
Adjournment.
$$$$$ (My letter, below ) $$$$
115 Homestead Blvd.
Mill Valley, CA 94941
November 10, 1993
Homestead Valley Land Trust
315 Montford Avenue
Mill Valley, CA 94941
Dear Land Trust:
Has the Land Trust given any thought to acquiring the old Santos property
at 35 Laverne, between Laverne and Homestead Blvd.? I believe it is
assessor's parcel number 48-051-08. It contains about an acre and a half,
and is improved with the old house and barn that have survived pretty much
as they always were.
The property was put on the market after George Santos, my neighbor, died
last year. He was born in the house in 1914 and spent his entire life
there as a bachelor, and in the twenty three years I knew him he
maintained a quiet and modest lifestyle, heating the house and cooking
with a stove fueled by wood from "them old ukes" that line the property.
He related many tales and yarns about the old days when his family were
dairypeople on our hill, and how they sustained themselves to a
considerable extent with the-natural bounties around them at the time. He
and his family are at rest now in Daphne Fernwood Cemetary on Tennessee
Valley Road.
Although this parcel is not as well known as Three Groves, it is
none-the-less an historical treasure which the community will be deprived
of when it is subdivided. In the interest of noble community values, is
the preservation of this fragment of our past not to be urgently
recommended?
The property is listed with Coldwell Banker, 331-2700.
Yours very truly,
/s/ Ray Cook