After
being run over by a train...
The Lost Conservatory
The Tale of the Finial(s)
Lost
Money ~ going ~ going ~ gone~
The Lost Conservatory
After
William Merralls
was run over by a train in Alameda
in 1919, his wife, to make ends
meet, turned the property into the “Sunnyside
Laboratories”. The main house
was a convalescent
home for women and
the conservatory and grounds was
used for rest and relaxation.
When Mrs. Merralls had to give up
the property, the verdant grounds
were left to return to nature. The
new owners, the Von Beck’s
had lived in the house for some
time when their dog ran into the
dense and tall foliage and got lost
in it. Workers were sent in to make
a way into the thick greenery. They
cut their way
in and discovered the lost Conservatory!
The owners didn’ t
even know it was there. to top>
The
Tale of the Finial(s)
 The
pointy piece atop a building is called
a finial piece. In the glass-plate
photographs of the Conservatory c.1919,
found in the main house attice by
Chester Hartsough, the owner, there
is shown a rounded ball with a pointy
top atop the Conservatory. That original
redwood finial is not on the Conservatory
now.
When the FoSC started our clean-ups
of the Conservatory in 1999, a parks
supervisor said that a finial piece
for the Conservatory was in the
Rec. & Park
woodshop. He said it blew down during
the big storm of 1993. He also said
it didn’t look like the finial piece
in the c.1919 photograph. It was
in fact, a non-replica replacement
made during the partial renovation
in 1986.
At our next workday, a neighbor,
Roger Pacheco, came up to me, (Arnold
Levine), and asked me if we would
like the Conservatory’
s original
finial! It turns out, at the time
of the thwarted Conservatory demolition
in 1978, the owner gave the finial
piece to Roger, before the demolition
was stopped. Since then, the finial
had been used as a doorstop in his
garage. He was delighted to give
it to us and reunite it with the
Conservatory.
The finial piece has since been
much traveled around the City, appearing
at Supervisor’s meetings in City
Hall and many other public meetings
and events, showcasing the historic
nature of the Sunnyside Conservatory.
 BCCI
the renovation contractors have
taken photographs and measurements
of the original finial and
will be making an exact replica
of the original finial for installing
atop the renovated Conservatory.
to
top>
Lost Money—going—going—gone—
In
2000 we submitted a grant with the
Rec. & Park for a state
grant of $600,000 to begin the Conservatory
renovations. We were awarded the
grant, although the amount was reduced
to $300,000. The FoSC was awarded
the check at a packed community
meeting at the Conservatory by Kevin
Shelley, a State Senator at the
time, a nearby neighbor, and
Elizabeth Goldstein the Rec. & Park
general manager. Then the California
energy crisis hit. Enron and other
energy companies pulled their energy
strings and the state was starving
for power. The state needed emergency
money and Governor Gray Davis stripped
many grants from many organizations.
The Conservatory was one of them.
It took another five years before
the complete renovation costs were
funded out of a special one-time,
supplemental budget in 2006. to
top>
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ABOUT US IN THE CHRONICLE
Feb. 15, 2009
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