Los Gatos Weekly-Times Los Gatos Weekly-Times file photograph Ralph Kimball, one of several former owners of Los Gatos' Honeymoon House, sits in a romantic nook. Picture from the Past John S. Baggerly Sweet memories abound in popular Honeymoon House Two old newel posts in the lobby of the Honeymoon House, located at 315 University Ave., will be on view this Saturday and Sunday when the Los Gatos Museum Association conducts its fifth annual Historic Homes Tour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Honeymoon House, also called "The Castle," is now owned by Ron Lykins and Joan Perry, who run The Complete Service Bureau and Take Charge Financial in that building. Newel posts at the bottom and top of stairways have a rich tradition. It was a popular practice of homeowners to drill a hole down the middle of the lower post and therein deposit their paid-up mortgage. They then marked the spot with an appropriate sized coin or colored stone sunk in flush with the post's top. The Honeymoon House was built in 1893 or 1894 by Harry Perrin, a brick mason, for his bride, Teresa Clinkenbeard. And just in time--the couple was married on May Day, 1895. An early Los Gatos newspaper clipping indicates that Perrin built his honeymoon house for $5,000--a princely sum in the 1880s. In 1906, Frank C. Bowman, a teamster, and his wife, Mae, purchased the house; Mae maintained a maternity home at that location during part of their ownership. Nursing homes, where women went to give birth as opposed to in a hospital, were plentiful in early Los Gatos. Present-day Los Gatan Marnya Phelps Campbell was born in a birthing home on Johnson Avenue. A Civil War nurse ran a similar establishment at the top of College Avenue. Many years ago, a descendant of the Bowman family loaned the local newspaper a photograph of Fannie Bowman, teenage daughter of Frank Bowman, standing at the newel post wearing a white, ankle-length dress with a thin ribbon at the waist and a broad hair bow. It was a photo that perfectly dated the era. Perrin's romantic effort is a reminder that another "honeymoon house" was built on Santa Catalina Island "26 miles across the sea" from San Diego, as the song goes. This chap's house was constructed on a cliff overlooking the island's half-moon-shaped bay. While he may have been inspired by the same spirit of love and giving that motivated Harry Perrin to build a honeymoon house for his bride in Los Gatos, that gent didn't fare so well. After all the effort that went into building a honeymoon house on a cliff on an island, his bride refused to live in it. To see a house that was built in the spirit of love--and accepted in kind--join the Museum Association's home tour. You'll see this and four other historic homes. Call Forbes Mill Museum at 395-7375 for reservations. [ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, November 4, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.