The community gathered on Dec. 4 to celebrate the project's completion and to raise the remaining $6,000 needed for the $143,000 project. San Jose District 6 Councilman Ken Yeager, whose help was essential to the project, also attended. The event's silent auction raised $3,500, which will be used to pay the final bills.

The last four pillars in the restoration were completed in November. The first three were completed more than a year earlier, in August 2004. In addition to the pillar restoration, the neighborhood will have plaza landscaping to control flooding near the pillars in the park.

When the project began in January 2002, the goal was more rudimentary and the cost was not expected to exceed $15,000.

Palm Haven resident Rosemarie Delson knew that families around Palm Haven were interested in restoring the pillars located in the neighborhood park and at the neighborhood's entrances by Coe Avenue and Plaza Drive and Palm Haven and Bird avenues. Delson arranged the first meeting in the park to discuss the plan, which led to the creation of the Palm Haven Restoration Committee.

The original $15,000 estimate was merely to improve the aesthetics of the long-neglected pillars. But the committee, headed by Palm Haven resident Michael Borbely, decided to restore the pillars to their original grandeur. This brought the project up to $120,000.

The pillars were built when the residence park was developed in 1913. They were originally maintained by the developers and later by a group of neighbors called the Palm Haven Tract Association until the 1940s.

Borbely said after World War II, soldiers returning from the war flocked to new suburbs. As a consequence, older neighborhoods such as Palm Haven declined.

Committee member Gracie Willson said the pillars and some homes were already in disrepair when she bought her home in 1965. Her home had been vacant for two years and was vandalized. Willson could look out her window and watch her own children and their friends climbing the pillars.

"We knew at one time it had been beautiful, but we did feel helpless to restore it," she said.

Delson moved into her Palm Haven home in 1974. She, too, said the pillars were an eyesore.

"The pillars stuck out like a sore thumb," Delson said. "They were torn, broken and neglected."

Delson said the Palm Haven Restoration Committee met regularly, spending many hours on weekends discussing everything from how the pillars should be restored to organizing fundraisers.

"When we started we knew next to nothing about what to do," Borbely said.

The project required a lot of work--repairing the foundation, concrete and stucco. They also had to track down redwood lumber for the arms that held the lanterns. While researching the project the committee could only find black and white photos of the original pillars. They scraped back the paint layers, which varied from Christmas green to mauve, to reveal the pillars' true colors--an off-white. The urns that once graced the pillars' bases were also long gone. They had to be recreated from photographs.

In order to light the pillars, which had not been lit in more than 50 years, the committee hired contractors to complete the electrical work.

With support from Yeager, the committee managed to get through the city's legal hurdles. The group received grants from San Jose Beautiful and San Jose Community Action and Pride.

The community developed other sources of revenue, including the annual Palm Haven Homes Tour. The event attracted more than 100 volunteers, bringing the neighborhood closer.

"They're all so happy to be involved in something so positive," Willson said.

Delson agrees.

"It brought us more than just fixing the pillars, it brought us together, it brought us good friends," she said.

Borbely said the benefits far outweighted all the hurdles the residents encountered.

"The success that towers above all the technical things is that this whole effort did a big thing for the neighborhood," Borbely said. "It's not something you can quantify, but it's very profound."

The Palm Haven Restoration Committee continues to raise additional funds by selling pillar replicas, including key chains and paperweights. For more information, visit www.palmhaven.info.