Over a century ago, wealthy San Franciscans built two country villas in Saratoga, the South Bay city at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains.
It’s worth a springtime drive to see the art, architecture and natural setting of both Montalvo Arts Center and Hakone Estate and Gardens. While you’re there, check out a nearby city park in an old quarry for hiking or picnicking.
The centerpiece of the 175-acre Montalvo Arts Center is the Mediterranean-style home of James Phelan, a former San Francisco mayor and U.S. senator. Today the arts flourish here, with an outdoor theater, an artist-in-residence program, and many sculptures.
Montalvo Arts Center is surrounded by forests and lush gardens, which were designed by John McLaren, the landscape designer of Golden Gate Park. Phelan, who was mayor of San Francisco from 1897-1902 and U.S. senator from 1915-21, bequeathed Montalvo for use as a public park upon his death in 1930.
The site’s beauty is hard to square with the legacy of Phelan, infamous for his efforts to restrict Japanese and Chinese immigration a century ago. The Montalvo Arts Center offers a statement on its website that begins: “Although we are grateful for this historic property, Montalvo Arts Center explicitly affirms our identity as an anti-racist arts institution.”
Admission to Montalvo is free, and there is usually ample parking for hikers and day visitors. On Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., ArtSplash, a free community festival to honor Earth Day (which was rescheduled due to weather) features food trucks, workshops, demonstrations, performances, music and more. To RSVP, go to montalvoarts.org/artsplash.
While Phelan was anti-Asian, Japanese culture is the focus nearby at Hakone Estate and Gardens.
Hakone is an 18-acre traditional Japanese garden, set in the hills next to a koi pond. Like Montalvo, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Hakone and Montalvo, both nonprofit organizations today, are popular venues for weddings and settings for engagement, prom and graduation photographs. At Hakone, permits are required for some types of photography.
Hakone also traces its roots to San Francisco. The property initially was owned by Oliver and Isabel Stine, San Francisco philanthropists who were inspired by the Japanese pavilion at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915.
In 1916, Isabel visited Japan, and then hired Japanese landscapers and architects to design the Hakone property, which remains one of the oldest Japanese gardens on the West Coast. After undergoing a series of different owners, the city of Saratoga took ownership of Hakone in 1966 to save the area from development.
In addition to the traditional Japanese buildings at Hakone — the upper house, the original house owned by the Stines; the lower house, built in 1922 in organic Japanese style; and the Cultural Exchange Center, an Edo-period style Kyoto tea house and shop — there are on trails into the hills on the site, an all-around peaceful place.
Both Hakone and Montalvo are a short drive from historic Saratoga Village, the city’s scenic downtown. Visitors may want to check out Saratoga Quarry Park, which opened in 2015. Located on State Route 9, about two miles from downtown, the 64-acre park was used as a quarry for a century until the mid-1900s. For some of that time, it provided sand and rock for Santa Clara County roads.
A walk through the concrete-lined tunnel at the park entrance, now covered with pictures of the mining past, leads to a hilly area with hiking trails and picnic tables. Saratoga Creek rushes by on one side of the park.
Annette Stransky, president of the Saratoga Historical Foundation, likes all three of the city’s marquee parks: “The Quarry Park reminds me of Saratoga of yesteryear,” she said. “It is more rustic, and a great place to hike, bird watch and people watch.”
Montalvo Arts Center, 15400 Montalvo Road, Saratoga, is open from 8 a.m. to sunset daily. Admission is free; visit montalvoarts.org. Hakone Estate and Gardens, 21000 Big Basin Way, Saratoga, is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekends in summer and until 4 p.m. in winter. Admission is $8-$12; free for children 4 and younger and on the first Tuesday of the month; visit hakone.com. Quarry Park, 22000 Congress Springs Road, Saratoga, is open from dawn to dusk daily; visit saratoga.ca.us.