Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Zoe Alameda, owner of the Saratoga-Cupertino Funeral Home, checks on work being done during an expansion and beautification project.

Renovations at funeral home should improve city gateway

By Michelle Alaimo

The Saratoga-Cupertino Funeral Home hopes to complete the first phase of its extensive beautification and expansion project by the end of September.

Phase one includes new paint, carpet, restrooms and doors that conform to the Americans With Disabilities Act, repaving and striping the parking lot, removing ivy in front of the building to make way for four handicapped parking spots and re-converting the casket room into two viewing rooms, also called "slumber rooms."

Zoe Cowherd Alameda, the home's funeral director and owner, was part of a city task force in 1996 that studied ways of beautifying the gateway area of Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road, which runs from Prospect Road to the railroad tracks. Alameda said that improving the part of Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road where her business is located might inspire more businesses to do the same.

The remodeling began at the end of July on the funeral home and its one-acre property, which can serve as many as 300 people at a time. Alameda said that in the design of the renovations, she followed customers' wishes after conducting a survey in which she asked how she could improve the home. She said one of the main concerns was the parking.

The parking lot was striped 30 years ago and led to much confusion, and sometimes even an occasional fender bender, when funerals were held. Her customers also asked for more light in the parking lot.

The funeral home was originally set up for four slumber rooms and one large chapel. The slumber rooms are divided by bi-fold doors that can be pushed aside to make the chapel even larger. Another set of two slumber rooms is currently being used as a casket-display room but will be changed back once remodeling is finished. The caskets will then move to the garage, which is being converted into the new casket-display room.

The second phase of the project includes building a new garage and a new preparation room and creating extra storage space. Alameda said the preparation room will serve as a dressing room for people whose cultures prefer to dress their deceased in certain types of clothing. She added that some Chinese cultures dress the deceased in up to 11 layers of clothing and that the current embalming room is not the most aesthetically pleasing place for them to dress their loved ones.

Architect Warren Heid hopes to have the additions, which will add 1,920 square feet to the existing building of 9,368 square feet, completed in three months. However, phase two cannot begin until the Saratoga Planning Commission holds a public meeting in September or October and the permits are approved.

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