Item 5 - Staff Report and Attachments 1 to 3 (PDF)
PREPARED BY: RYAN SAFTY
Associate Planner
110 E. Main Street Los Gatos, CA 95030 ● 408-354-6874
www.losgatosca.gov
TOWN OF LOS GATOS
HISTORIC PRESERVATION
COMMITTEE REPORT
MEETING DATE: 6/28/2023 ITEM NO: 5
DATE: June 23, 2023
TO: Historic Preservation Committee
FROM: Joel Paulson, Community Development Director
SUBJECT: Consider a Request to Remove a Pre-1941 Property from the Historic
Resources Inventory for Property Zoned O. Located at 14331 Capri Drive.
APN 406-32-004. Exempt Pursuant to CEQA Section 15061(b)(3).
Request for Review PHST-23-008.
PROPERTY OWNER: Ravi Vallamdas.
APPLICANT: Gordon K Wong.
PROJECT PLANNER: Ryan Safty.
RECOMMENDATION:
Consider a request to remove a pre-1941 property from the Historic Resources Inventory for
property zoned O (Office) located at 14331 Capri Drive.
PROPERTY DETAILS:
1. Date primary structure was built: 1940 per County Assessor’s Database
2. Town of Los Gatos Historic Status Code: N/A
3. Does property have an LHP Overlay? No
4. Is structure in a historic district? No
5. If yes, is it a contributor? N/A
6. Findings required? Yes
7. Considerations required? No
DISCUSSION:
The applicant is requesting approval to remove the presumptive pre-1941 residence from the
Historic Resources Inventory. The Santa Clara County Assessor’s Database lists a construction
date of 1940. The property is not within a historic district or LHP overlay and is not included in
either the 1990 Anne Bloomfield Survey or the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps.
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DISCUSSION (continued):
The applicant has provided a detailed informational packet with their application, which
includes a robust history of the property and previous residents, as well as building permit
records on the property (Attachment 1). In summary, the property was created, and the house
and garage were constructed in 1940. By 1950, evidence of an apartment above the detached
garage was found, and the subject property appears to have been annexed into the Town in
around 1956. A permit from 1989 was granted to legalize two existing secondary dwelling
units: one inside the previous garage, and one located above.
In addition to the building permit records in Attachment 1, Planning records are provided in
Attachment 2. In addition to the secondary dwelling unit records, the Planning records also
show that the zoning on the property was changed from R-1:B-8 (Single-Family Residential) to
Office in 1964.
Staff was able to locate pictures of the existing residence and detached garage via a real estate
listing as the property was just sold in 2018 (Attachment 3).
CONCLUSION:
Should the Committee find that the structure no longer has historic significance or architectural
merit due to the loss of integrity, the structure would be removed from the Historic Resources
Inventory and any proposed alterations would not return to the Committee.
FINDINGS:
A. Findings - related to a request for a determination that a pre-1941 primary structure has no
historic significance or architectural merit.
In evaluating a request for a determination of historic significance or architectural merit,
the Historic Preservation Committee shall consider the following:
1. The structure is not associated with events that have made a significant contribution
to the Town;
2. No Significant persons are associated with the site;
3. There are no distinctive characteristics of type, period or method of construction or
representation of work of a master;
4. The structure does not yield information to Town history; or
5. The integrity has been compromised such that the structure no longer has the
potential to convey significance.
PAGE 3 OF 3 SUBJECT: 110 Johnson Avenue/PHST-23-005 DATE: June 23, 2023
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ATTACHMENT:
1. Applicant’s Submittal Packet
2. Town Records
3. Property Pictures
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1
History of 14331 Capri Drive, Los Gatos, CA 95032
APN 406-32-004
Bonnie Montgomery, Historical Consultant*
421 N 5th St
San Jose, CA 95112
bayandvalleybooks@gmail.com
408-439-9073
The parcel 406-32-004 was in unincorporated Santa Clara County until it was annexed into the
Town of Los Gatos in 1956 or 1957. It does not appear on the Los Gatos Sanborn maps available
between 1884 and 1944 in the Los Gatos Public Library. Likewise, it is absent from the 1941 Tax
Assessment. The property does not appear on the 1989 Anne Bloomfield Historic Resource
Survey forms. The history prepared here relies on Polk’s directory listings, county assessor’s
records, county official records, recorded maps, newspaper articles, Los Gatos planning records,
and genealogical resources as referenced in the footnotes and attached to this history as figures.
The property’s legal description places it in a portion of Lot 17 of the W. J. Parr Subdivision of the
Rancho Rinconada de Los Gatos, surveyed in July 1872 (Figure 1).1 At that time, Capri Drive was
called San Tomas Aquino Road. On November 14, 1939, farmer Louis Frank and his wife Mary
Ann sold a half-acre of farmland to Russell F. Summers and his wife Muriel A. (Figure 2).2 Mr.
Summers built a house and garage on the property and recorded a Notice of Completion on April
30, 1940 (Figure 3).3 Mr. and Mrs. Russell, with their 9-year-old son Russell Jr., were living in their
new house when they were enumerated in the census on April 15, 1940. The address was Rural
Route 1, Box 235.
The Santa Clara County Residential Unit Property Record, obtained from the County Assessor’s
Office, shows the footprint of the buildings on the property when the record was created in July
1977 (Figure 4). The apartment above the garage is presumed to be original because of similar
construction and stucco patterns of the house and garage. In the 1943 Los Gatos city directory,
Russell and Muriel Summers are listed at Route 1, Box 235b, which suggests a second household
receiving mail at Box 235a. The 1950 census confirms residents in the apartment, with Mr. and
Mrs. Summers living in the main house. By 1950 the address had changed to Rural Route 1, Box
721, which also appears in the Summers’ listing in the 1954 San Jose Suburban directory.
Russell Fee Summers was born on January 11, 1904, in Fresno. He and Muriel married on May 8,
1926, in Visalia.4 Russell wrote to the San Jose Evening News on November 24, 1931, that he was
out of work and trying to support a blind wife and 17-month-old son. The News ran an article on
the family two days later (Figure 5). Muriel went blind on Christmas Eve 1929. Their son Russell
*Bonnie Montgomery meets the requirements in the area of history as listed in the Secretary of the Interior’s
professional qualifications outlined in 36 CFR Part 61.
1 Santa Clara County (hereafter SCC) Recorded Maps Book A, Page 95.
2 SCC Official Records (hereafter OR) Book 958, Page 141.
3 SCC OR Book 979, Page 384.
4 “Parsonage Weddings,” Visalia Daily Times , May 10, 1926, page 8.
ATTACHMENT 1
2
Junior was born on June 25, 1930. An operation to restore her sight in San Francisco was
unsuccessful. A San Jose eye specialist examined Muriel and concluded that another operation
would be unadvisable. Russell, in his appeal for work, reported that he was an experienced bread
baker and electrician’s assistant.5
The Summers family weathered their difficulties through the 1930s and raised their son in their
home outside Los Gatos through the 1940s. Russell Jr. graduated from Campbell High School in
1948 and attended San Jose State. Early in his college career, however, Russell Jr. became blind
from glaucoma. At workshops for the blind he met Nellie Moreno, and they married on January
11, 1953. By 1955, they had two children, which Russell Jr. supported by running a newspaper
stand at the San Jose Post Office and a restaurant in Madrone. In November 1956, Russell Jr. was
struck by a car as he was crossing Highway 101 in Madrone. He broke both legs, and his seeing-
eye dog was killed. He lost both businesses during his convalescence. A lawsuit to recover
damages was unsuccessful. Russell F. Summers Sr. died on May 2, 1958, at the age of 54. The
following month, Russell Jr. and his family were visiting the house on Capri Drive, where two-
year-old Josephine Anne Summers drowned in the pool. An article in the San Jose Mercury on
February 12, 1959, describes the Summers family’s setbacks during the 1950s (Figure 6).6
On August 31, 1960, Muriel A. Summers married John Borba Pacheco. Between 1956 and 1964,
neither Muriel Summers nor Muriel Pacheco appears in the Los Gatos or San Jose Suburban city
directories. (Capri Drive was likewise not listed in reverse directories.) John B. Pacheco died on
September 7, 1963. His obituary in the San Jose Evening News reported that Muriel lived in San
Jose. In settling John’s estate, the parcel at 14331 Capri Drive was surveyed and recorded on
November 15, 1965 (Figure 7).7
Muriel A. Summers defaulted on her mortgage in 1967. She married Cecil J. Maddux on June 21,
1970, and died on March 30, 1971. Los Gatos realtor Lucille B. Hogan managed the property as a
rental between 1967 and 1974, when she sold it to David J Olingy on April 16, 1974. Between
1965 and 1974, 14331 Capri was listed in the Los Gatos or San Jose Suburban directories with the
following occupants: 1965, Joel G (Peggy J) Dooley; 1967, Otis (Ilene) Anthony; 1968 and 1969,
Benny (Terry) Turnage; 1970, Vacant; 1971, James G (Ruth) Lovelace; 1972, Vacant; 1974, Thomas
J (Marla) Jogodka.8
5 California Birth Index; “Will You Help?” San Jose Evening News (hereafter SJEN), November 24, 1931, page 16;
“Coin, Eye Examination Promised Blind Mother,” SJEN, November 25, 1931, page 1; “Husband of Blind Woman
Seeks Employment,” SJEN, November 26, 1931, page 2.
6 “Summers Buys It,” SJEN, May 31, 1954, page 9; Paul Williams, “Prospects Dark for Blindman,” SJEN, November 24,
1956, page 1; “Blind Man Files $250,000 Action,” SJEN, January 11, 1957, page 24; “Russell Summers [obituary],” San
Jose Mercury , May 3, 1958, page 4; “Jury Denies Damages for Blind Man,” SJEN, December 2, 1958, page 40; “Tot
Drowns In Backyard Pool,” SJEN, June 14, 1958, page 3; “Blind Man Gets Second Dog,” San Jose Mercury, February
12 1959, page 43.
7 California Marriage Index; Death notices of John Pacheco published in San Jose Mercury, September 8, 1963, and
SJEN, September 9, 1963; SCC Recorded Maps Book 202, Page 25, November 15, 1965.
8 “Notice of Trustee’s Sale,” Los Gatos Times and Saratoga Observer, March 15, 1967, page 6; Oregon Marriage Index;
California Death Index; Muriel Maddux death notice, SJEN, March 31, 1971; SCC OR 7701:122, April 21, 1967; SCC
OR Book A693, Page 443, December 19, 1973; SCC OR Book A850, Page 111, April 16, 1974.
3
Los Gatos businessman David J. Olingy rented out the property to tenants until he sold it to E.
Phil Hayes and his wife Barbara Jean Hayes on June 28, 1985.9
No Los Gatos building permit and planning documents exist for this property before December
24, 1987, when E. Phil Hayes applied for a permit for the property’s secondary dwelling units. By
that time, the original garage had been converted to an apartment, with another apartment
upstairs. After the exterior stair railings were repaired (under Permit B 1706), the Town granted a
Secondary Dwelling Unit Use and Occupancy Permit on July 18, 1989 (Figure 8).
On May 15, 2015, the Town of Los Gatos issued a stop work order for construction at the rear of
the single-family residence without building permits (Figure 9). Barbara Jean Hayes died in Santa
Barbara on August 12, 2015. On October 29, 2018, E. Phil Hayes sold the property to Ravi Kiran
Vallamdas and Ashwini Priya Kanna, who have since placed the property in trust. On April 5,
2019, the couple applied for a plumbing permit to install a sewer clean out at the property line
(Figure 9).10
9 SCC OR Doc. No. 8454112, June 28, 1985.
10 SCC OR Doc. No. 24051460, October 29, 2018; SCC OR Doc. No. 25216492, January 11, 2022.
Figure 1. W. J. Parr Subdivision of the Rancho Rinconada de Los Gatos, surveyed in July 1872 , SCC Recorded Maps Book A, Page 95.
Figure 2. Grant Deed, Louis and Mary Frank to Russell F. and Muriel A. Summers,
SCC Official Records, Book 958, Page 141, November 14, 1939.
Figure 3 (Page 1 of 2). Notice of Completion,
SCC Official Records, Book 979, Page 384, April 30, 1940.
Figure 3 (Page 2 of 2). Notice of Completion,
SCC Official Records, Book 979, Page 385, April 30, 1940.
Figure 4 (Page 1 of 2). Santa Clara County Residential Unit Property Record,
14331 Capri Drive, Los Gatos.
Figure 4 (Page 2 of 2). Santa Clara County Residential Unit Property Record,
14331 Capri Drive, Los Gatos.
Figure 5. San Jose Evening News, November 26, 1931, page 2.
Figure 6. San Jose Mercury, February 12, 1959, page 38.
Figure 7. Record of Survey, Being the Land of John B. Pacheco, et ux. [and wife],
SCC Recorded Maps Book 202, Page 25.
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ATTACHMENT 2
ATTACHMENT 3