Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Five-year-old Rachel Morpeth finds the new playground equipment at Oak Meadow Park to her liking.

Oak Meadow Park gets new playground and old cupola

By Shari Kaplan

Oak Meadow Park is having a party, and the whole town--children and adults alike--is invited to join in the celebration.

On May 31, beginning at 1 p.m., the Los Gatos Parks Commission has scheduled a dual event: the grand reopening of the Oak Meadow playground and the dedication ceremony of the recently restored Lyndon carriage house cupola. Mayor Linda Lubeck, parks commissioners and members of the Los Gatos Community Foundation will perform a ribbon-cutting ceremony, followed by music, children's games and refreshments.

According to parks commissioner April Maiten, the playground was remodeled to bring it up to consumer playground safety standards and make it compliant with the codes of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Among the new additions are a climbable train and fort structure for smaller children and--for older children--a climbing wall, a whirl-around and a large play structure with four high slides and many other activities. A separate area for water- and sand-play will soon be finished. Beneath all equipment is a material designed to cushion children's falls and to allow wheelchairs to roll over it without getting stuck.

Remaining in the playground, freshly painted and safety-inspected, are two longtime favorites of many Los Gatos children: the old-fashioned firetruck and the U.S. Air Force training jet. An Oak Meadow fixture for more than 20 years, the plane is one of only a handful of vintage aircraft in the country that the Air Force loans for recreational purposes.

Although the town has already renovated several other local playgrounds, Oak Meadow has received the most attention, in part because it is the largest and most widely used park in the town, according to parks superintendent John Iaquinto.

The historic cupola originally sat atop the carriage house of John W. Lyndon, owner of the Lyndon Heights Estates on a hill above Broadway in the late 1880s. Lyndon's great-grandson, the late James Farwell, saved the cupola when the family estate was demolished in 1968. Farwell planned to rebuild the carriage house but never did, so the cupola was hidden away for many years in the parking lot behind Lyndon Plaza and later in the town maintenance yard.

For now, the cupola sits on the bandstand within Oak Meadow Park. The Los Gatos Community Foundation hopes its permanent home will one day be on top of a gazebo. The LGCF is currently raising funds to pay for such a structure, and approximately half of the group's $50,000 goal has already been pledged.

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