Nestled among one-story homes and wide streets, surrounded by fences and trees, the Fairbrae Swim and Racquet Club is all but hidden from view.

But anyone strolling by can hear unmistakable summer sounds coming from the walled complex: laughing children, idle chatter and the sound of splashing water. Now that the weather is creeping into the 80s and 90s, the sounds grow more frequent.

While it may go unnoticed by people who drive past the intersection of Hollenbeck and Sheraton avenues on any given day, the club has been a social center for Sunnyvale residents for the past 43 years.

This summer, the club is working to bring more attention to the "racquet" portion of its operation by resurfacing its old, cracked tennis courts and offering more tennis lessons--equivalent to the swimming lessons it has offered for years.

By providing tennis, which attracts adult players, Fairbrae's directors hope to make the family-oriented program more appealing.

Fairbrae began in 1961, when architect Joseph Eichler designed the low-priced, modern, now-revered "Eichler Homes." According to Delores Dunlap, who became a member of the club as a child in 1965, Eichler donated the space where Fairbrae now sits to the neighborhood to build a social center with athletic activities for residents.

"The neighbors sold memberships to raise money to build the pool and tennis courts," Dunlap said. "They sold the memberships for $300, and that was a lot of money back then, considering homes were selling for $25,000."

Today, members pay $5,000 for a lifetime family membership. Fewer than 300 memberships are available, and new people typically join by buying a departing family's membership. Two-thirds of the money from a sale goes to the family selling the membership, and the rest goes to maintenance fees for the facilities.

Club dues of $70 a month support the swimming and tennis programs as well as pay for social events for members. In addition to holiday parties and other get-togethers, the club serves hors d' oeuvres on Sunday evenings, and many members come with their families and stay to barbecue and relax before the coming week.

"I think it has--in itself--a feeling of community. Some of my best friends are people I met at Fairbrae when our kids were young 40 years ago," Dunlap says.

By combining exercise, relaxation and social interaction, Fairbrae provides a country-club atmosphere in Sunnyvale.

"It's like having a summer cottage in your backyard," said board of directors President Kedith Wickware. "You can do all this stuff right here; you don't have to pack up and go anywhere."

While the club is open year-round for members, many say it's the water that brings them back, especially during the summer.

"I think the big draw for adults who don't have kids is that we have lap swimming year-round, and the pool is always heated to 82 degrees," Dunlap said.

There are two pools, a foot-deep wading pool for toddlers and a larger pool with racing lanes, a diving well and stairs for easy access. During the day, Red Cross-trained lifeguards--often teenagers who grew up swimming at the club--watch over the swimmers.

In the evening, lane lines are stretched across the pool, and the Manta Rays swim team--133 members this year--takes to the pool.

The team is made up of three groups based on skill level and age.

The beginner group swims from 6 to 6:30 p.m.

"I really like to see the kids improve. At first, a lot of our youngest kids were struggling to get across the pool, but now they can do four laps--one of each stroke," said Wickware's son, co-head coach Andrew Amm.

The intermediate group swims from 6:30 to 7:15, and the most advanced group--teenagers and swimmers from other clubs--swims for the last hour from 7:15 to 8:15.

Members of that group often swim for their high schools or at other clubs in the area, such as De Anza Cupertino Aquatics, a United States swim team that trains swimmers of all levels. Amm, 18, said swimmers come back to Fairbrae because it's a more relaxed workout environment.

"We're a first swim team. We don't go to sectional meets and we don't plan on sending swimmers to big meets," Amm said. "We're about having fun, getting a good workout and getting used to being on a team for the kids who want to move on."

Former board president Bruce DaRos says the team currently competes in the Silicon Valley Swim League, a league started at Fairbrae in 1996. It competes against other cabana teams in the area.

"We look more at individual improvement for scoring as opposed to first, second or third places," DaRos said.

Many of the children who swim at the club choose to continue on at higher levels and find it easy because of the training they received from coaches such as Amm.

Amm swam and played water polo for two years at Fremont High School before graduating. He recently finished his first year at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and returned to Fairbrae to work this summer. He got involved with the swim team after working for several years as a Fairbrae lifeguard.

Swimmers, coaches and members all know one another from Fairbrae events, which members say makes the pool deck a much safer place. Amm said it's easy to be a lifeguard at the pool because the majority of youngsters who swim there also take swim lessons or swim on the team at the club.

"Most of the time, you know the people swimming in the pool by name, so it gives you a more personal connection," Amm said.

Pool involvement runs in Amm's family. His mother is the manager of the California Sports Center at Fremont High School's pool. This is her first summer at Fremont after two years on the Fairbrae board of directors. In March she was elected president of the board at Fairbrae, and now she oversees the day-to-day operations of the club.

Wickware says her primary focus as president has been promoting and maintaining the club as a family-based operation where parents can come to relax with their children or feel safe leaving their children for swim practice.

"It's a family club; it's not a country club," she said. "We want people to come and spend time together here. This is not a world where we do that much these days, so we really encourage people to bring their children with them."

One of Wickware's focuses this summer is the revitalization of the club's tennis program. That includes more tennis lessons and a resurfaced tennis court to make the sport more appealing to casual players and seniors.

"The sports go in cycles, and tennis has been lagging lately," Wickware says.

Tennis has long been a tradition at Fairbrae, a tradition that has been kept alive, although on a smaller scale, by players such as Michelle Pett.

"When I was a kid, tennis was the biggest thing," she said. "The tennis players kind of had control [and] there were always competitions for kids and adults."

Although it enjoyed an early popularity, tennis slowly declined as a draw. Pett attributes it to changing demographics in the area and the Sunnyvale Tennis Club that started in the 1970s at Las Palmas Park just a few blocks away. Fairbrae's casual two-court setup couldn't compete with the number of courts and top-notch coaches at Las Palmas.

"There has always been social tennis, but there hasn't been as much organized tennis for adults," Pett said. "We're hoping we can bring it back to Fairbrae."

The first step was resurfacing the old, cracked courts. Instead of asphalt, the courts are now covered in Plexipave, the same acrylic surface used in major San Jose tournaments at the HP Pavilion.

Fairbrae manager Bill Callahan says, in addition to not cracking like asphalt, the new surface is softer and doesn't impact players' joints as much. This should make tennis more inviting for older players.

In addition to a new tennis surface, the club recently got a new deck made of plastic that looks like wood paneling. Callahan said the deck was the latest in a continuous process of improvement, funded by the money the club makes when members sell their memberships.

The new deck surrounds another Fairbrae landmark--a 250-year-old live oak tree. Its branches are long and tall enough to shade almost the entire eastern half of the pool deck.

Callahan says before the deck was built, he had an arborist look at the tree. He estimated its age, making it more than 150 years older than Sunnyvale itself.

When the deck was built, the board took precautions to make sure that nothing about the construction would damage the landmark.

"We didn't want a single leaf to fall off of that tree because of the deck," he said.

The tree is really the only readily visible Fairbrae landmark, and even it blends in with flora in the area. It's valued by the members but relatively unknown to the rest of Sunnyvale, much like the club it stands over.

"We're kind of the best-kept secret in Sunnyvale," DaRos said. "It's a cliché, but it's true."

For more information on the Fairbrae Swim and Racquet Club,
visit www.fairbrae.com.