Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Connie and Bill Norman grow corn--and other produce--around their Cornucopia Fruitstand in Los Gatos.

Cornucopia is filled with produce for every season

By Suzanne Cristallo

City roads have whittled away at their property, and their children have left home, but Connie and Bill Norman continue to provide the fresh, tree-ripened fruit and home-grown vegetables their customers have enjoyed for the past 22 years.

Cornucopia Fruitstand, on Winchester Boulevard near Highway 85, is an artist's delight and a schoolteacher's champion. It's the annual destination of Santa Clara Valley watercolorists, who relish the fragrance of the harvest while they capture its rich hues. It's also the autumn field trip local teachers count on.

The fruit stand has enough color, seasonal gaiety, rich taste and fragrances to tempt any visitor. And it all came about as an experiment in survival.

In the early 1970s, newlyweds Connie and Bill--she originally from Kansas and he from Palo Alto--found their jobs in the electronics field wiped out. They remembered their Depression-era parents telling stories of businessmen selling apples on the street. They decided to update the experience for themselves, understanding that food is a commodity that never goes out of style.

In 1975, they bought part of what once was an extensive apricot orchard owned by longtime resident Joe Falcone. Soon the city-bred Normans were selling fresh cherries by the roadside, which was then Capri Street, the main artery to downtown Los Gatos.

Cherry-selling expanded to a pumpkin patch in the fall. Next came Christmas trees. The cherries soon became merely a portion of the produce, which today includes strawberries from Morgan Hill, peaches from south valley orchards, melons from the Central Valley, Gilroy garlic and vegetables from Half Moon Bay and Watsonville. Corn, herbs and heirloom tomatoes grow on the triangle-shaped acre of Norman property, all that remains after the mid-1980s installation of Winchester Boulevard.

"It's the next best thing to having my own backyard garden," says one regular Cornucopia customer.

Bill sometimes leaves before 6 a.m. to make his buying rounds at local farms.

It's a seven-day-a-week, 10-hour-a-day job during the summer. "The children would help with watering, some planting and harvesting," says Connie, who remembers children Billy and Heather on a rope swing hung from the landmark "Falcone Oak." Saved from destruction when Winchester was widened, the tree, planted in 1937, has been immortalized, along with the fruit stand and family home, in a watercolor by local artist Marian Gault.

Billy is now a Redwood City police officer and Heather a busy mother, but parents Connie and Bill continue a routine that changes with the seasons. After Labor Day, the stand closes briefly for an annual trek to Oregon tree-growing farms, where the Normans hand-tag Christmas trees.

Customers look for the red tractor and wagon filled with pumpkins and cornstalks to herald the coming of fall and Halloween. The day after Thanksgiving is the start of the tree season and a 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. day.

Cornucopia Fruitstand, Winchester Boulevard between Knowles Avenue and Highway 85. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. daily during summer. 374-6453.

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