Making up more than one-third of Cupertino's geographic area and located on the city's western front, Monta Vista's boundaries have been much debated. The most inclusive version shows that the neighborhood is bordered by Highway 280 to the north, Highway 85 to the east, Rainbow Drive to the south and Cupertino's western border to the west.

The area is a microcosm of the valley's evolution from an agriculture-based economy to the high-tech world of Silicon Valley. Here one finds tension between those who want to preserve the old ways and those who have accepted change as inevitable.


They came for the land

Although he's lived in Monta Vista his entire life, Jim Guidotti could hardly be called a typical Monta Vistan. It's true that he and his wife, Connie, own expensive property in the hills off of Stevens Canyon Road, where million-dollar "monster homes" loom, but that's just about all the Guidottis have in common with their neighbors.

The Guidottis are a manifestation of the old, self-sufficient way of life that once characterized Monta Vista.

"This was country covered by apricot and prune orchards and vineyards. It was a beautiful place and time," Jim reminisces.

Joining many families in search of country living in the 1940s, Jim's parents moved their family from South San Francisco to Monta Vista in 1943, when he was just 8 years old.

"My dad worked in a slaughterhouse in South San Francisco at the time, and the doctor told him that his health was failing and that he shouldn't continue to work there. So my parents decided to move to Monta Vista. It was beautiful here," he remembers.

The rural atmosphere, along with the moderate climate and rich soil, also attracted many wealthy San Franciscans as well as Jesuit priests from Santa Clara University to build cottages in Monta Vista, where they retreated for the summer.

A promotional real estate brochure published by Monta Vista Estates Inc. in the early 1900s said that Monta Vista's strategic location in the "golden cup" of Santa Clara Valley made it the most favorable region in "the Valley of the Heart's Delight."

The brochure stated, "It is sheltered continuously by mountain ridges from ocean winds and is free from excessive heat in summer and low temperatures in winter. There being practically no fog at Monta Vista, the sun shines about 300 days in the year, while the rainfall is sufficient to render irrigation unnecessary. The soil of this section is among the best and most productive in the Santa Clara Valley."

After their relocation, life quickly improved for the Guidottis.

With $2,000, Jim's father bought one acre of land on the western side of town, and the family settled into their new home.

While Jim's father opened and ran a butcher shop in town, Jim and his siblings explored their new surroundings.

"For the first four to five years, we were the only kids here. We played in the creek, hiked the mountains and worked at my uncle's horse ranch down the street. We had the run of the area," Jim says.

Besides taking the bus to attend Cupertino Grammar School, the only elementary school in the West Side area, and going to San Jose and the Crossroads to buy meat and supplies, the Guidottis pretty much stayed close to Monta Vista.

As stable and tranquil as life was for the Guidottis, Monta Vista had already been through many changes by the time they arrived in the 1940s.

Photograph by Erin Day Anne Dor owns a large home on Balboa Road, a hill in Monta Vista. There she enjoys a sweeping view of Monta Vista when she's out gardening.

When the Spanish arrived in the West Valley centuries ago, they forever changed the landscape that had been up until then inhabited only by Native Americans.

According to The West Side and How We Grew—A Geographic History of Cupertino, by longtime Monta Vista resident Robert Levy, during the post-Spanish and Mexican periods in the 1850s, Capt. Elisha Stephens arrived in Monta Vista. Stephens was the wagon master of the first wagon train to successfully cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains to reach California without losing a single human life.

Stephens purchased more than 155 acres of land here for $855 and settled for a brief period along the creek that was later named Stevens Creek after him.

According to Gail Hugger, local historian and also a longtime Monta Vistan, Capt. Stephens' residence was located somewhere in the Blackberry Farm area.

"That was the first recorded Caucasian person in this area. He was the starting point," Hugger says.

Stephens sold the land to W.T. McClellan in 1864 and left the area because it had simply become "too darn civilized" for him.

Another key figure in the area, John T. Doyle, arrived in Monta Vista. A successful lawyer from San Francisco and a man known throughout the state, Doyle purchased part of the McClellan land and started what was once the famous Las Palmas Vineyard of the Cupertino Wine Co.

Palm Avenue off of Foothill Boulevard, where the old palm trees still sway, was once the entrance to the winery's western facility.

According to Hugger, at one time the vineyards stretched 450 acres on both sides of the creek.

"It was a huge operation, a state-of-the-art winery in the 1870s. But at the turn of the century, a horrible disease known as phylloxera infected grape vines worldwide and crippled the production level," says Hugger, whose great-grandfather immigrated to Monta Vista from Italy and worked for the Doyle winery in the late 1800s.

The 1906 earthquake further damaged the industry. After Doyle's death in the early 1900s, the winery saw a succession of owners; however, the operation never returned to its former production level.

According to Monta Vista Estates informational materials, as one of the oldest vineyards in California, the Monta Vista (Las Palmas) Vineyard was one of the world's foremost vineyards, taking world prizes in 1899 and 1900.

Another of Doyle's contributions was the water pumping system he built for the winery operations and later evolved into the Water Works of Monta Vista Ltd. under the direction of Chester Damico.

"Damico built the water company based on Doyle's water-pumping system, and eventually it supplied water for the farms," Hugger says.

As Doyle's descendents sold the land little by little in the early 1900s, the vineyards transformed into apricot and prune orchards.

By the 1930s, Monta Vista had become a self-sufficient rural town that was an ideal location for families such as the Guidottis to make their homes and raise their children.

"It was like a little city," Hugger says. "We had stores, a post office, a hotel. It was a real community here."

Photograph by Erin Day Monta Vista residents May Sun and Qixiu Dai (right) enjoy a sunny morning while practicing tai chi sword.

Decades later, except for the palm trees, the creek and some older homes in the area, the land that Jim Guidotti once knew as Monta Vista has been covered with paved roads, fancy new homes and other new developments.

"It's unfortunate that the neighborhood is changing the way it is. It started mushrooming in the 1950s."

But not without going through transitions.

When Warren and Ty Dunn built their house in 1975 on Cordova Street, their part of Monta Vista was not such a good area. Warren Dunn says there were old houses, vacant lots and ranches, and living in the area were young men who robbed the homes around there. "The Bank of America wouldn't give me a loan to build here because they said it was not a very desirable area," Dunn says. He got his loan somewhere else and built his home.

Dunn says he's heard there was a house of prostitution at one time on McClellan Road. "It was a pink house," he says, "and they made a fortune during World War II." He says the old pink house wasn't torn down until about 15 years ago.

As more and more people moved into the area and the land became valuable, the lots in Monta Vista became smaller. "We're losing the rural atmosphere, the open space. I don't like it, but I can't stop it," Jim Guidotti says.

"We understand that change is inevitable," Connie Guidotti says. "But people need to preserve and respect the proper use of the land."

The Guidottis try to preserve as much as possible on their 10,000-square-foot lot on Ricardo Road.

But with the influx of the high-tech world into the Valley of the Heart's Delight and the new population that has come with it, Monta Vista, like the rest of the valley, has changed considerably.

Today the population is extremely diverse, the homes are much larger and more expensive, and the schools have become world-renowned.

Photograph by Erin Day Older and brand new homes are located side-by-side along Byrne Avenue and the surrounding neighborhood in Monta Vista.

Monta Vistans are proud of their "tri-school" area, which is made up of Lincoln Elementary, Kennedy Middle and Monta Vista High schools in the southeast section of the neighborhood.

Stevens Creek Elementary School, another public school in the award-winning Cupertino Union School District, is in the northern part of Monta Vista. The scholastic reputation of these schools is known as far away as India and Japan.

Attracting many young families from all over the world, these schools have made Monta Vista one of the most sought-after and expensive neighborhoods in the region.

"Education is very important to people in Monta Vista," says David Knapp, city manager and also a three-year resident of the neighborhood. "As a matter of fact, the neighborhood identifies itself with the school boundaries."

With people from other countries moving into the neighborhood on a regular basis, Monta Vista has taken on new characteristics and is confronting new issues.

"It's a very diverse neighborhood; you don't find a concentration of any one ethnic group. There's a good cross section of all cultural and ethnic backgrounds, which is good," Knapp says.

Dunn points out that his neighbors surrounding him are from around the world—Egypt, India, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia.

David Greenstein, who moved his family into their Granada Avenue home in 1997 in order to send his child to the prestigious schools in the area, quickly found himself in the middle of the change-versus-preservation theme that has come to categorize the many issues facing the neighborhood.

For example, neighbors disagree over the issue of whether the last remaining county pockets east of Blackberry Farm should be incorporated into the city.

"Neighbors have mixed feelings," says Greenstein, a management consultant for a semiconductor company who also serves on the Cupertino Bicycle Pedestrian Commission. "In the 1950s, when Cupertino became a city, Monta Vista didn't want to be a part of it. But since then the city has incorporated most of the areas. I think new residents think it's a good idea to be part of the city because the county doesn't provide good municipal services. But the old-timers share deep-seated feelings about the neighborhood, about its past. For me, personally, I think annexation is a good thing."

According to Knapp, while the city council could force the annexation, council members want area homeowners to have the final say on the issue.

Knapp believes the city's annexation of the last county pockets in Monta Vista is only a matter of time

"It's like a melting iceberg—the county pockets are getting smaller, and eventually they will become a part of the city," Knapp says.

Although they might have different views on the annexation issues, most residents agree that Monta Vista is a unique neighborhood and needs to be preserved to some degree.

"I just hope Monta Vista will not be like the rest of Cupertino and lose its uniqueness," Greenstein says. "Neighbors feel strongly about the neighborhood and are interested in preserving it."

The preservation efforts and tension can be seen in the city's current task of outlining a master plan for the Stevens Creek Corridor area, which covers Blackberry Farm and McClellan Ranch Park. Many Monta Vista residents have asked the city council to preserve the riparian woodlands and the creek and not build in a paved, multiuse trail through the area.

To share information and communicate ideas, Greenstein and some other residents have recently formed the Monta Vista Neighborhood Association.

"Our goals are to get information like city hall decisions out to the community, create an environment for neighbors to meet and discuss issues, and build a sense of community in Monta Vista. It's ridiculous that we haven't organized a neighborhood association before. But we're working on it," Greenstein says.

"I think Monta Vista has really evolved into a vibrant, diverse and interesting community," Greenstein says. "I think of myself as a Cupertino resident, but I am very neighborhood-biased. Monta Vista is a wonderful community. It always will be."

Jim Guidotti, more interested in preserving the values of old Monta Vista, says, "This land means a lot to me; everything here is a piece of me. I guess I am sentimental. I feel very attached to this land. It will always be our home; nothing can make us leave.

"But we can't stop progress," he says. "All we can do is to continue our way of life and keep the traditions going. I guess I am spoiled; I grew up with all this space. ... We are not a typical family in Monta Vista anymore; we used to be. In today's mobile society, it's all about moving on. You don't find too many families stay intact. I still love the old way of life, the rural atmosphere."