I know it's an optical illusion, aided by my overactive imagination, but the effect is the same: Every time I drive by the new Saratoga Library, nearing completion at Saratoga and Fruitvale avenues, the place looks larger than the last time I saw it. This doesn't have to do with construction progress—it has to do with overall space occupied by the structure. It just seems to get bigger.

A couple of other conspicuous edifices come to mind, namely the Parthenon and the Taj Mahal. Of course, one was a temple and the other a tomb, neither being relevant here. However, I like to think of our new library as a monument to culture, and, to quote one of my favorite expressions, Saratoga is simply lousy with culture. I've had the opportunity to tour the building several times with the heritage preservation commission and it truly will be a marvelous addition to our town. Libraries are, after all, reservoirs of distilled wisdom, and this one will have the traditional elements, plus every scientific enhancement to the concept.

Major buildings get me into the subject of monster houses. To say these are a dime a dozen in Saratoga may be stretching the metaphor, if you're talking about price, but there they are. Look on any hillside—or almost anyplace else, for that matter. However, the concept is not new here. I'm thinking of three buildings that go back to the early part of the last century, when Saratoga was a small collection of buildings in a veritable sea of orchards.

Woodleigh, on Saratoga­Los Gatos Road just up the hill from the Village, is a Georgian mansion with a lordly pillared entrance that was built in 1911 for Mr. and Mrs. G.A. Wood. Appropriately, Wood had made his money in lumber. The 6,000-square-foot house was built with six bedrooms—two with fireplaces, three baths and a sitting room on the second floor. As built, there was a parlor with a fireplace and a dining room flanked by a sun porch. The entrance featured beveled-glass windows.

As a youngster, I got to know the house and grounds very well. I was 10 when I started doing yardwork for Carlotta Wood, one of the daughters who lived there with her sister Ruth. The going pay rate for preadolescents was 15 cents an hour. Later on, when I was in high school, I cleaned the house weekly. By that time the hourly pay was up to 25 cents. I also remember carrying vast amounts of firewood and stacking it in the basement.

The year after Woodleigh was built, 1912, James D. Phelan had Villa Montalvo constructed on his 200 acres of choice mountain property. The Montalvo story hardly needs retelling here, but I can't resist getting in my digs again at the naming of the Carriage House Theater, created in Phelan's garage. The only namesake vehicles it ever housed were horseless carriages.

The third house, and one that I think ranks with Villa Montalvo in splendor, is Rancho Bella Vista, built in 1917 for the Charles D. Blaneys. It was designed by Willis Polk, whose architectural reputation was legendary. Among his projects were Filoli in Woodside and the Petite Trianon, which now houses the California History Center at De Anza College.

Again, I have some personal memories of this house, the earliest being from 1930 or 1931 (I hope the Saratoga Fire Department has the date in its records), when something went wrong with an oil furnace and a major fire ensued. Fires were community events in Saratoga back then, and my brother and I went with my dad and other townspeople who helped take out objects, such as books, that might have been endangered.

Saratoga's fire equipment at the time consisted of a Ford Model A chemical engine and a Model T hose truck. Engines were called in from Los Gatos and even San Jose. The fire was confined to a fairly small area of the large house.

Some years later, I had occasion to visit the house with my brother, who had a high school friend who lived there. I never quit being impressed by that place.

The original occupants, the Blaneys, were active in civic and philanthropic ventures, and Charles Blaney was chairman of the first state highway commission. He died in 1923 and his wife 10 years later. Through inheritance, the property passed ultimately to a nephew, Robert Kirkwood, who served as a state assemblyman and later was state controller.

Every house has a story, and some are quite compelling.