Attachment 1 - Applicant's Submittal Packet 1
History of 14340 Browns Lane, Los Gatos, CA 95032
APN 409-14-010
Bonnie Montgomery, Historical Consultant
421 N 5th St
San Jose, CA 95112
bayandvalleybooks@gmail.com
408-439-9073
The parcel 409-14-010 was in unincorporated Santa Clara County until it came under the
jurisdiction of the Town of Los Gatos on February 23, 1979, with the Wedgewood No. 9
annexation. Only two County documents were available upon request: (1) the Assessor’s
Residential Unit Property Record, which documented changes from 1966 to 1998, and (2) a
single county building permit from 1974 for a new water heater. A search of Town of Los Gatos
building department microfiche yielded documents from 1979 to 1998. These documents will be
described in the chronology that follows.
Being so recently annexed into the Town of Los Gatos, this parcel did not appear during a search
at the Los Gatos Public Library on the Los Gatos Sanborn maps available between 1884 and 1944.
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, aerial photographs, newspaper articles, Town of Los Gatos and
County of Santa Clara building permits, 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 10 of the Wedgewood Subdivision of
the Maud E. Parr Tract, surveyed in February 1889 (Figure 1).1 In 1903, the San Jose-Los Gatos
Interurban Railway Company purchased the right-of-way across the Wedgewood Subdivision,
creating a triangle of land bounded by Smith Creek on the west, the railroad to the north, and
Wedgewood Avenue on the south, as shown on the 1929 McMillan and McMillian Official Map
of Santa Clara County (Figure 2).2
The Santa Clara County Assessor gives 1936 as the build date for this property, but an aerial
photograph taken on August 1, 1939, shows that this parcel was still orchard land (Figure 3).3 To
the west of this parcel was a recently surveyed cul-de-sac, La Rinconada Drive, as shown on the
subdivision map of Tract No. 106, La Rinconada Acres (Figure 4).4 Mrs. E. I. Barron subdivided
this tract, and she also owned the portions of Lots 10 and 11 east of this subdivision. On
December 20, 1939, Ethel I. Barron and her husband William S. Barron sold 10 acres of Lots 8, 9,
1 Santa Clara County [hereafter SCC] Recorded Maps Book E, Page 73.
2 SCC Deeds Book 348, Page 270; McMillan and McMillan, Official Map of Santa Clara County, California (San
Francisco: Walk-Up Map Company, 1929), https://archive.org/details/map_santaclaracounty_1929.
3 UC Santa Barbara Geospatial Collection, August 1, 1939, aerial photograph, Flight C_5750, Frame 286-19,
https://mil.library.ucsb.edu/ap indexes/FrameFinder/. Photograph superimposed on Santa Clara County Surveyor
Record Index map,
https://sccplanning.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=bc21a949580746968cb7139386996978.
4 SCC Recorded Maps Book 3, Page 58, May 15, 1939.
ATTACHMENT 1
2
10, and 11 of the Wedgewood Subdivision, including the subject parcel, to the San Jose Abstract
and Title Insurance Company.5
The parcel appears to have been exclusively a rental property and difficult to trace through
official recorded documents from 1939 to 1978. Aerial photographs, census records, directory
listings, and newspaper articles suggest that at least some part of the dwelling had been built by
1955.
On an aerial photograph taken on April 25, 1948 (Figure 5), Browns Lane and some neighboring
houses are visible, but the resolution is not adequate to determine whether trees or structures are
on the parcel. 6 On the 1950 census, John W. Brown, his wife Mary Vera, and their six daughters
are living on a rural route along Wedgewood Avenue. One of their neighbors is Bedford Forrest
and his family. Like John W. Brown, Bedford was a carpenter born in Texas. The Bedford Forrest
family was reported living at 14340 Browns Lane in a blurb published in the July 7, 1955, issue of
the Los Gatos Times-Saratoga Observer, which announced their son Olon’s service in the Navy.7
A June 9, 1956, aerial photograph also has poor resolution (Figure 6). A May 15, 1965, aerial
photograph clearly shows the house to the south and the garage to the north (Figure 7). The
house was advertised for rent as a three-bedroom unfurnished house in the March 24, 1961, issue
of the San Jose Evening News. Starting with the 1962 Los Gatos city directory, the property is
listed in the reverse Los Gatos city directory. The tenants were: in 1962, Pierre and Gaby
Leidelmeyer; in 1964, Willy F. and Mira A. Ferns; in 1965, “no return”; and in 1967, Richard
Dalton. The address is listed in the Los Gatos section of the San Jose Suburban city directory
between 1968 and 1974. The tenants were: in 1968, 1969, and 1970, Wesley E. Chambers, a
carpenter, and his wife Sharon; in 1971, 1972, and 1974, Kenneth Watrous, an employee for the
Coca-Cola Bottling Company, and his wife Bonnie.
In 1966, the County Assessor visited the parcel, measured the buildings on the site, and took a
photo of the front elevation. According to the Residential Unit Property Record (Figure 8), the
house was 748 square feet with a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms. It was of
wood-frame construction on a raised concrete foundation. It had a side-gable roof with a front
porch under the eaves. The detached garage was 440 square feet with a garage door along the full
width of the front elevation and a front-facing gable roof. A shed or garage in the backyard was
not measured, because no tax was assessed (NTA).
On October 16, 1974, then-owner Francisco Diaz received a building permit from the County of
Santa Clara (No. 20204) for a new water heater. That is the only building permit in the records of
the Santa Clara County Planning Department. On January 6, 1978, Francisco and Zulima Diaz
granted the parcel to Louis C. and Marilyn D. Franckx.8 Mr. and Mrs. Franckx lived in Saratoga,
and this property continued as a rental property.
5 SCC Official Records [hereafter OR] Book 962, Page 313.
6 UC Santa Barbara Geospatial Collection, April 25, 1948, aerial photograph, Flight CDF5, Frame 4-44,
https://mil.library.ucsb.edu/ap indexes/FrameFinder/.
7 Browns Lane is along the southeast property line of parcels 409-14-035 (14331 Browns Lane) and 409-14-013
(17291 Wedgewood Avenue). Th is parcel and its neighbors have an ease ment for ingress and egress along Browns
Lane.
8 SCC OR Book D390, Page 221, January 6, 1978.
3
On February 23, 1979, the Wedgewood No. 9 annexation placed this parcel under the
jurisdiction of the Town of Los Gatos. Soon afterward, the tenants complained to the Town of
Los Gatos about the condition of the property. The building department inspected the property
on March 21, 1979. The inspector described a one-story wood-frame dwelling with at least two
rear additions. The garage had been converted to a separate living unit around March 1978, not
long after the Franckx became the new landlords. The space between the dwelling and garage had
been filled in with a kitchen. The structure in the backyard labeled a “shed, garage” on the
assessor’s Residential Unit Property Record was described by the inspector as a “large wood
frame metal roof patio cover…with open gas barbecue.” The 21 code deficiencies and violations
observed are listed in Figure 9. Mr. and Mrs. Franckx received an electrical permit on September
13, 1990 (No. E 18124) for outlets, appliances, and service equipment (Figure 10). Mr. Franckx
died on September 5, 1994, in San Francisco. On August 3, 1995, Marilyn D. Franckx sold the
property to Peter Miklos Vadasz and Cathleen Joyce Vadasz.9
On March 11, 1998, Peter and Cathleen Vadasz received Permit No. B98-00206 to “repair &
replace sheetrock, insulate exterior wall (Figure 11); Permit No. E98-000103 for “electrical for
rewiring” (Figure 12); Permit No. P98-000105 for “plumbing to remodel furnace, replace old
plumbing (Figure 13); and Permit No. M98-00075 for “mechanical for furnace” (Figure 14). A
hand-drawn floor plan was also approved, presumably to show how the interior spaces would be
reconfigured with new sheetrock. The extensive remodel did not entirely match the plans; for
example, the front entry is in the space between the original house and the garage instead of from
the kitchen. On August 7, 2019, Peter Miklos Vadasz granted the parcel to the current owner,
Cathleen Joyce Vadasz, as her sole and separate property.10
9 SCC OR Book N946, Page 1279, August 3, 1995.
10 SCC OR Doc. No. 24248124, August 7, 2019.
4
FIGURES
Figure 1. Wedgewood Subdivision, 1889. Figure 2. Wedgewood Subdivision, 1929.
Figure 3. August 1, 1939, aerial photograph superimposed on Santa Clara County Surveyor Record Index map.
Parcel is highlighted in red.
5
Figure 4. La Rinconada Acres tract map, just west of
parcel, subdivided in 1939.
Figure 5. April 25, 1948, aerial photograph with parcel
highlighted in red.
Figure 6. June 9, 1956, aerial photograph with parcel
highlighted in red.
Figure 7. May 15, 1965, aerial photograph with parcel
highlighted in red.
Figure 8. Page 1
Figure 8. Page 2
Figure 9. Page 1
Figure 9. Page 2
Figure 11.
Figure 12.
Figure 13.
Figure 14.