Photograph by Robert Scheer
The B. Grant Taylor house was operated as The Terrace, a boarding house.
Mention the phrase "bed and breakfast" in a sufficiently audible tone and you're likely to get the kind of anguished reaction reported in the Saratoga Star back in 1921 when someone wanted to open a tuberculosis sanitarium at Grandview Ranch, on the present Pike Road.
Not that a B&B would be all that possible today, what with the zoning restrictions that exist in most areas. But even before these were in place, on the few occasions in recent years when the issue came up, it was evident that B&Bs were regarded as creeping commercialism, something that could set the neighborhood on a slippery slope at the bottom of which might be lurking a Motel 6.
There is more than a trace of irony here because over the years, Saratoga had no fewer than six establishments classifiable under the bed-and-breakfast rubric. Chief among these was the Saratoga Inn, a gracious hostelry that opened in 1912 at the site of the present Saratoga Inn Place condominiums. There were two main buildings on the tree-shaded grounds, and several cottages on the brow of the hill overlooking Dorothea Johnston's Theatre of the Glade, the setting for memorable plays, mostly Shakespearean, between 1934 and 1941. In less exotic pursuits, inn guests could sit in canopied lawn swings and watch spirited croquet games on the court in front of the main building. Many nonguests were attracted to the inn for Sunday dinner and the legendary bread pudding dessert. Time, however, caught up with the inn; it became just plain obsolete and closed in the early 1960s.
During the 1920s, and even later, there were other places that capitalized on Saratoga's uniquely attractive setting. Up Big Basin Way, a short distance past Hakone Gardens, is a private residence that, 70 years ago and more, was known as The Lodge at Saratoga, the brochure for which described a veritable Shangri-la. It even had "a 22,000-gallon glass-enclosed concrete swimming tank." Rates were $5 a day and up. Not quite in the same league with a glass-enclosed swimming tank, but still attracting a loyal clientele, was Toyon Lodge, at the end of Vickery Lane, which opened in the 1920s. There were guest cottages, and it, too, was a popular place for Sunday dinner.
At 14221 Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road is a Julia Morgan-designed residence dating back to 1906 and designated historically as the B. Grant Taylor house. In the early 1920s it was bought by Mrs. Mary Grunsky, who named it The Terrace and operated it as a place where people recuperating from illness or surgery could benefit from restful surroundings and healthful meals. Mrs. Grunsky's son, Robert, attended Whittier College, where he knew Richard Nixon, who stayed there on at least one occasion when the college glee club, the "Ambassadors of Song," presented concerts in Saratoga in the early 1930s.
The category of celebrity housing would have to include Lundblad's Lodge on Oak Street, just below the school. In the early 1920s it was home to Mrs. Lilian de Havilland and her two small daughters, Olivia and Joan. This was before the family moved to a small cottage across the street and the mother later married G.M. Fontaine. Mrs. Hazel Bargas, daughter of the Ludwig Lundblads who opened the lodge in 1918, was serving Sunday dinners into the early 1970s, and Olivia de Havilland made a point of staying there on her visits from her home in Paris.
Last of the B&Bs to be established--the year was 1939--was the Orchard Guest House in the old Neil Carmichael place on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road. The proprietors, Mr. and Mrs. Charles N. Cunningham, both members of early Saratoga families, maintained it for only a few years.
They're long gone, yesterday's B&Bs, and it's hard to think of any of them as dragging down a neighborhood. In truth, they added a touch of class that was distinctly Saratoga.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, January 22, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.