Photograph be George Sakkestad
Tom Albanese sits in front of the three outdoor courts at Campo di Bocce.
By Mary Ann Cook
Picture this: an amphitheater carved into the hills in a small mountain town perched somewhere between the bustle of Rome and the gleam of the Adriatic. Olive trees stud the hillsides. Spectators in the amphitheater are watching the action in the eight bocce ball courts spread out below them.
This is what Tom Albanese found on his travels through Italy five years ago when he sought out his grandfather's birthplace, Campo Basso. And this, in many ways, is the vision he wants to give Los Gatos.
OK, OK--so there won't be any 200-seat amphitheater carved out of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The California interpretation is housed in a former lumberyard on University Avenue near Andrews Street, with the hills merely as backdrop. But it will be the valley's biggest concentration of bocce--six, count 'em, six courts, with space to add two more portable ones.
"Everyone said I was crazy to try to start a bocce ball club, and maybe I am, but this is what I've been dreaming of doing ever since I saw that," Albanese says.
Even the fact that the former lumberyard became available at this time is significant, because that's where Albanese made some of his first sales calls when he started working for his father's building materials supply company, just out of college. (Now he owns the company, Central Concrete Supply Co. Inc.)
Not only were the building and grounds the right size, but he personally knew the owners, people he had called on for years. "When I saw it was available, I thought, 'Hey, somebody's trying to tell me something.' "
And so negotiations began. Albanese would write a figure on the scrap paper covering the lumber company's counter and the next time he came in, there would be another number on the sheet, a counteroffer from the owners. This most informal bidding arrangement went on for several months until the deal was clinched and El Gato Building Materials became Campo di Bocce.
The name was chosen after much mulling: It had to convey the feeling he wanted, and "campo," meaning "village," worked. In this "village," which opens for action Feb. 8, there are bocce courts indoors and out, a private clubhouse, a restaurant, pool tables and a gift shop. "It's the only one anywhere anything like it," Albanese says.
To see why his concept is different, one has to understand that although there are public and private courts, none is quite like this. Public courts used to abound in the San Jose area, and there are still a few--in Oak Meadow Park, for instance, just two blocks from Campo di Bocce. There are courts in Willow Glen and at Backesto Park in San Jose.
Martinez and San Rafael, two major centers of bocce fever, have large public facilities. Indeed, Martinez is home to both the national and the Northern California bocce ball associations.
At the other extreme from public parks are a smattering of private bocce ball courts in the back yards of local devotees of the game, including Rolando Negrini, Rich Amico and Marino Cosentino, all of Los Gatos.
Bocce courts are not very expensive to create. If the homeowner does most of the labor, Albanese says, something like $2,500 should get someone into boccedom. Albanese should know. He has one in his Saratoga digs, too. The main requirement is space: Courts are roughly 85 feet long by 12 feet wide.
So although there are public and private courts scattered throughout the peninsula, this is the first recreational club devoted to bocce. That's why Albanese says there's never been anything quite like it here. (The Peninsula Social Club in Menlo Park has bocce, but its emphasis is more on the social, less on the bocce than Campo di Bocce's, he says. There's also a restaurant in Santa Cruz with a bocce court in back.)
"The social thing is a large part of the game," says Joe Morelli, general manager of the club.
The sport is intergenerational; it's easy to learn, and newcomers can get up to speed fast. For example, husbands and wives can compete with each other, even if one has had more experience with the game than the other, explains Michael Grabill of Devcon, superintendent of the club construction.
Youngsters, seniors, even those who have suffered strokes--all can compete at this 7,000 year-old game, Albanese explains. Campo di Bocce is here to prove that bocce is a sport for everyone, at all different levels of play. It's not just elderly Italian males who relish bocce, although that's the public perception. Nationally, 40 percent of bocce players are women, Morelli says.
Certainly the Los Gatos version will be a mix of genders, races and ages. League play will be a mainstay, says Lisa Marusic, Campo's events coordinator. "There'll be different nights of the week for men's leagues, for women's leagues, for coed leagues," she says. Monday will probably be restaurant-and-bar league night. "The Safeway deli department has already formed a league," Albanese reports with a grin.
Seniors will definitely be a big part of the act at Campo di Bocce too, Marusic says, with their own regularly scheduled leagues. Everything from recognized regional and national tournaments to corporate events to kids' parties will be held there, she says.
"People in walkers, people who have had strokes, can still play bocce," Albanese says enthusiastically. Courts both inside and out are wheelchair-accessible. And for lower-income groups who can't afford the dues, Albanese hopes to come up with special arrangements.
He welcomes a strong tie-in with the Italian-American Club in San Jose, and he intends to allow the Italian class at Los Gatos High School to make use of the facilities, gratis. He wants his village to be as egalitarian as he can make it.
Albanese himself has only been playing the game a few years. He's a member of the Los Gatos Bocce Ball Club, which has been in existence seven years and has grown to 50 members from its original handful.
The nucleus of this group takes the game more seriously than most, taking to the road on weekends to compete in tournaments. That nucleus consists of the three private court owners mentioned above--Negrini, Amico and Cosentino--plus Duino and Aldo Giordani, Franco Gallo and Dick Gomes. Duino is a captain in the Los Gatos Police Department.
Albanese has noticed local interest in the game mushrooming. "I talked to a man I didn't know named John Boitano at a nearby coffee shop. He said he couldn't wait for the bocce courts to open." That growing interest was another reason Albanese decided to tackle the $2 million project. Investor and partner Gary Filizetti, Devcon owner and president, came aboard too, "in spite of the fact that he also thinks I'm nuts," Albanese laughs.
Bocce's popularity through the centuries is certainly not to be denied. One of the oldest games known to man, it evidently began in Egypt, journeyed to the Middle East, and then to Greece and Rome, where its popularity spread throughout the Roman Empire. According to legend, a Roman emperor outlawed play because his legions were spending too much time at bocce ball, too little at archery practice.
Though archery practice is no longer an issue, Albanese did want to be true to the Old World roots of the game. His courts are made of pulverized oyster shell, not synthetic material, although the two portable courts have carpeted playing surfaces.
The 11,000-square-foot clubhouse designed by architect Kenneth Rodrigues of Monte Sereno has an open-beam ceiling and makes use of some of the same Santa Cruz Mountains redwood trees that were part of the original building. The original structure was built in 1928 and was used to manufacture dehydrating equipment for fruit-drying and -processing plants. Later it housed El Gato Building Materials for 30 years.
The restaurant is owned by Joe Antuzzi, Albanese's cousin. Antuzzi owns and manages Il Postale in Sunnyvale and his partner/chef, Tommy Caso, was co-founder of Mio Vecchino in Santa Clara. To no one's surprise, the restaurant features Italian specialties, including focaccia, bruschetta and pizza; beer and wine are also available. You don't have to be a club member to dine at the restaurant, though members get a 10 percent discount on their food bills.
The gift shop offers ceramic wares, T-shirts, hats and other Italian or bocce accouterments. The atmosphere continues outside the clubhouse, where fountains, rose bushes, a trellised arbor, and tables for dining beneath the lattice-work provide a fitting place to congregate and kibbitz.
Bocce is played by teams of one to four players. A wooden ball about the size of a tennis ball is rolled past the center of the court. This is called the pallino--Italian for "small ball." Then players take turns rolling larger balls toward the pallino, trying to get as close as they can to it, while keeping their opponents' balls away from the pallino. The balls are the size of a softball and colored red or green.
Each team is assigned a color, and each player rolls two balls per round. The winner of the round is the one whose ball or balls lie nearest the pallino, scoring one point per ball. Twelve points usually constitute a game, but sometimes time limits are set rather than point totals, because as the game continues, the catcalls, exhortations and excitement all escalate. Games can last for hours, Albanese confesses.
Memberships at Campo di Bocce cost $85, a one-time fee. Monthly dues are $34 for seniors and those under 29 years old. For a family (two adults), dues are $64 monthly and each additional member is $5. Children under 18 are free when accompanied by an adult member. Corporate memberships, entitling the holder to four cards, are $150 per month. The nonmember court fee is $10 per person for one and a half hours of court time.
Half of the 250 charter memberships are sold, according to coordinator Lisa Marusic. "Five hundred should make it work," says Morelli.
Two tournaments are already scheduled for the facility on Feb. 15 and March 8. Lessons will be offered, and Albanese would like to ensure that a challenge court is available, where Campo personnel would take on those who stroll in without opponents.
"We're very community minded," Marusic emphasizes. For her, this job was literally a dream come true. "I dreamed I worked here before I got the job." Just back from a year off in Europe, she noticed the building's progress, called to see if they were hiring, and got an interview--and the job. Her grandfather played bocce, but she's just starting her own bocce indoctrination.
In earlier years, there were 80 courts between people's homes in the Italian sections of San Jose, Morelli says. Three University Avenue homes in Los Gatos near Campo di Bocce had courts in their back yards during the '20s and '30s, Albanese reports. Clearly, the area is no stranger to the sound of clinking pallinos.
For the past few years, Albanese and his wife, Maureen, have donated an evening of dinner and bocce ball as part of an auction fundraiser for St. Mary's Church. The event brings 14 people to bocce who have never played before. "After half an hour they're hooked," Albanese says. "They're saying, where has this game been all my life?"
The benefits of bocce are legion, Morelli adds. "Bocce allows you to forget your problems, to switch channels, get into a different mind-set. It's relaxing. It's a different world. It's better than going to a psychiatrist."
Campo di Bocce membership director Michael Hayes can be reached at 395-7650.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, February 5, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.