Jack Copple and his company, Copple Construction, built the Willow Wood Park neighborhood, which is surrounded by Dry Creek Road to the north, Booksin Avenue to the west, Curtner Avenue to the south and Hicks Avenue to the east.


In the beginning

The neighborhood consists of Edgewood, Cheryl and Parkwood ways, Georgetta Drive, Marques and Bello avenues, and a portion of Hicks Avenue.

Copple's tract houses were primarily three-bedroom, one-bathroom houses with two-car garages. There were two architectural styles: the Willow-Dale model, which featured an attached garage and a kitchen situated in the rear of the home, and the Cherry-Glen model, with its split-brick central fireplace and kitchen in the front of the house.

Photograph courtesy of Lucille Cistulli Now and Then: Lucille Cistulli, who has lived in the Willow Wood Park neighborhood since 1956, has not changed the architectural style of her home in the front, but built an addition in the back. Her house is typical of those constructed in the 1950s.

"This used to be a cherry orchard," he says.

Ed, who grew up in the River Glen area of Willow Glen, remembers when Willow Glen wasn't so big.

"I laugh at how the boundaries keep expanding," Purdy said, referring to surrounding areas claiming to be parts of Willow Glen just for the prestige of it.

Purdy, like other Willow Wood Park residents, misses the cherry and peach orchards that would go into full bloom in spring.

"You thought you were living on a cloud," reminisces 82-year-old Lucille Cistulli, who lives on Cheryl Way. "The blossoming fruit trees looked like cotton balls."

Cistulli and her husband, Joseph, moved into Willow Wood Park in 1956. She is one of approximately nine original owners who still live in the neighborhood. During the past decade, she has watched the children who grew up in the area return to Willow Wood Park. Some inherited their parents' homes; others purchased new houses in the area.

In the 1950s there were 48 children living on her block, Cistulli says.

"They would play in the street until one or two in the morning, and we didn't worry a bit," she says.

Photograph courtesy of Lucille Cistulli Without a Care: Lucille Cistulli's sons, Victor and Anthony, spent hours playing with all the other children that lived in the Willow Wood Park area when it was new.

"There were a lot of stay-at-home mothers in the 1960s, so there were always enough mothers in the neighborhood looking after the kids while the husbands were at work," she says.

Another longtime resident, 1966 Willow Glen High School graduate David Stohlman, remembers when "these streets were loaded with kids."

"I remember we'd play fighter pilots on our bikes, and the girls would play nurses," he recalls. "Whenever any of us got 'shot down' the girls would pull us guys out of our 'planes' and fix us up and we'd go and play again."

Though the pilots and nurses have grown up and flown away, a handful have returned. But filling the streets with children has been slow. "Very rarely do you see any kids anymore," Stohlman said.

Purdy recalls when Parkwood Way was overrun with children on Halloween.

"We'd get about 100 kids coming to our door," he says.

Photograph by Sean Penello Land Ahoy: The open fields at Booksin Elementary School provide children in the Willow Wood Park neighborhood with a place to play.

The number of children has dropped dramatically since those years, and he was surprised this past Halloween by the many children who trick-or-treated on the block. It might be part of a pattern—second-generation Willow Glen residents returning to their childhood neighborhood. Or it might be the reputation of nearby Booksin Elementary School, which is drawing new families to the area.

The school and the street were named after Henry Booksin, who owned 80 acres of orchards, some of which were located on what is now Meridian Road near the Los Gatos Creek, according to The Willow Glen Neighborhood: Then and Now, by April Hope Halberstadt.

Purdy helped build Booksin Elementary, along with the late Robert King, a bricklayer who moved to Willow Glen from Ohio.

Robert and his wife, Betty, 77, who lives on Marques Avenue, built a home on the corner of Marques Avenue and Georgetta Drive.

"Robert had a bricklaying business," Betty says. "During the day he'd go to work and at night he'd build that house by the headlights from his truck."

They eventually sold that house but moved just down the street.

Another couple still residing in the neighborhood is Lauretta and Leonard Scarpelli, who live across from St. Christopher's Church. They bought their home on the corner of Bello and Curtner avenues in 1957. The former owner sold it to them because he didn't like the cars from the church crowding around his property.

"It has been my dream house for a long time," says Lauretta, who raised four daughters and a son in the house.

Leonard owned a television repair company called Mr. Color TV and had a store on Lincoln Avenue that later moved to Meridian Avenue and Willow Street. He retired from servicing televisions a few years ago.

"This was a popular place to live," Leonard said. "It was close to the school and the church and not too far from Lincoln Avenue. It was always an old joke around here after church for someone to ask you if you needed a ride home because everybody lived so close."

The Scarpellis, like the Purdys and the Headlands, have witnessed decades of growth and change in the Willow Wood Park neighborhood.

Leonard notes that a lot of younger couples are moving into the neighborhood.

"Who knows? This area might become revitalized with families," he says.

But it may be a long time coming, at least on Bello Avenue, Stohlman says. He's seen some families move in only to stay a few years and then move away. He says most residents only seem like friendly strangers.

"People pretty much keep to themselves these days," he says.

King agrees. "No one has the time to get to know each other. But I understand why that is—everybody works nowadays."


A unique sense of community

But there are a couple of events that bring Willow Wood Park residents together.

Every December, neighborhood leader Rosamaria Hernandez, who lives on Parkwood Way, arranges to provide pine trees for the residents, who place the trees in their front yards and adorn them with lights.

"I love doing it," Hernandez says. "It really brings the neighborhood together and creates a unique sense of community."

Once the holidays end, Willow Wood Park residents wait about six months for their next big event, the popular Fourth of July block party on Bello Avenue.

Each year, Bello Avenue residents block off the street at Curtner Avenue with the help of the San Jose Fire Department, which parks one of its firetrucks from nearby Station No. 6 on the street. The residents gather for a potluck and various activities, which are often concentrated on Bello Avenue toward Georgetta Drive.

Former San Jose firefighter Ken Martin, who lives with his wife, Carmen, on Bello Avenue, looks forward to the event every year.

"Last year we roasted a wild pig," chuckles Martin, who has hunting access to a ranch in Hollister. "Every year people put up volleyball nets or put some food out in their driveways."

Stohlman says his son occasionally plugs in his electric guitar and wails out a version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" like Jimi Hendrix.

The neighborhood also selects a residence to host a Neighborhood Watch orientation, and a police officer visits with residents and discusses curbing crime. Last year 68-year-old Jerry Method, who lives with his wife, Sandy, on Parkwood Way, hosted the Neighborhood Watch meeting.

Willow Wood Park hasn't been immune to crime despite its friendly appearance. Lights have been stolen from the outdoor Christmas trees and once a car's windshield was smashed with a concrete block.

Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer Mixing Styles: Although many Willow Wood Park homes have not changed in appearance since they were built in the 1950s, several new families moving into the area have built new houses, adding a mix of architectural styles to the neighborhood.

Very few of Copple's homes look the same as they did when they were first built.

"Almost everyone around here has made some addition to their homes," says Cistulli, who renovated her home to add another bathroom and a utility room so her washer and dryer wouldn't take up space in the kitchen.

"I'm getting calls all the time from real estate agents asking me to sell," she says. "It's flattering up to a point."

Phyllis Headland says she and her husband were lucky to buy when they did. But in the 1950s, paying only $12,350 for a house was incredibly daunting.

"At the time it was still pretty hard to pay down the house payments," she said. "We have a hard time convincing our kids that we really had a hard time."


Heritage remains strong

The neighborhood continues to have appeal, which is why Willow Wood Park homeowners would rather renovate their homes than move away.

"I won't sell," Cistulli insists. "My children love it here, and besides, where else would I go?"

The Copple family, who constructed the homes in the Willow Wood area, didn't leave either.

Jack and Barbara Copple married in 1943. He was an Army soldier who fought in World War II. He came to San Jose to visit an Army buddy and the visit started a construction company.

Barbara said her husband's timing was excellent. San Jose was expanding and construction was a good business to get into.

"It was the land of opportunity," Barbara says. "But building materials were scarce. Jack would go as far as Washington state to buy lumber for the houses."

In 1964, Jack was in a plane crash that damaged his spine, causing him to use crutches for the next 30 years. He died in 1994, but his wife still lives on Cherry Avenue. His son Jim Copple, one of seven children, coaches Willow Glen's Little League team.

When told that Willow Wood Park is still home to a number of its original residents, Barbara says she's not surprised. And she is pleased that some original owners haven't renovated their Copple homes, noting that the houses have held up well over the decades.

"Jack would have been proud of that," she says.