It’s a real shame that Leonard McKay didn’t live to see Pellier Park finally reopen Wednesday. The longtime San Jose historian and member of the historical society E Clampus Vitus — along with Jim Arbuckle — was the driving force behind building a city park to honor Louis Pellier, who was the renowned “Prune King” of California back in the late 1800s.
McKay and Arbuckle raised money for the park on a half-acre of land at Terraine and St. James streets downtown — once the site of the Pellier house and the City Gardens, a nursery managed by Pellier and his brothers, Pierre and Jean. The red-shirted members of E Clampus Vitus’ Mountain Charlie Chapter 1850 volunteered $70,000 in labor — that’s 1970s dollars — to build the park, which originally was dedicated for San Jose’s 200th birthday in 1977.
The wrought-iron gates on its adobe walls were closed just a year later after the city realized it didn’t have the resources to maintain an agricultural park, even a small one, and Pellier Park essentially went dormant. When McKay died in 2006, he was looking forward to the park’s restoration and expansion the following year upon the completion of the City Heights residential building. Economic issues, street realignments and redesigns pushed the project back until ground broke in the summer of 2021. But it was worth the wait.
Unlike the dusty original, the new Pellier Park is open and inviting with benches and tables and trees that will eventually provide lots of shade. Towering light structures, which lean over slightly like trees themselves, have programmable LEDs that can change the park’s vibe at night, depending on the event or the season. Landscape architects SWA and Seattle artist Norie Sato collaborated on the features of the park, which evokes the shape of a plum when seen from above, including the landscaping and a wall that tells the story of Pellier and the Valley of Heart’s Delight in photos and text.
“What is the most unusual thing about being an artist on this project is I was not allowed to make art,” Sato said at Wednesday’s celebration. “Sometimes, it’s OK just to put art thinking into a space and not to have to always make art out of it.”
Donor plaques saved from the original park’s demolition are also on display, and two of the original four gates stand on the north and south ends of the park, with handles in the shape of the initials “LP.” Mike Eckley with E Clampus Vitus says plans are in the works to donate the other two to History San Jose.
There is also a single French prune tree — don’t let longtime Santa Clara Valley residents hear you call it a plum tree — in the park to honor Pellier’s introduction of the fruit to the valley’s agricultural legacy. Jon Cicirelli, San Jose’s director of parks, recreation and neighborhood services, said it was harder than you’d think to procure the tree, an irony given that thousands of them used to carpet the valley.
This is the second park to open in San Jose this month with an emphasis on local history, and Cicirelli said that is a new but important role our parks can play. “Your kids aren’t really going to learn about this in high school. It’s not necessarily going to show up in the history books unless you’re really looking for it,” he said. “But here we are; we can put it on display for everybody to know and to preserve it for history.”
DIA FOR DAYS: San Jose’s Day of the Dead festivities get started Saturday with the annual Dia San Jose celebration at Plaza de Cesar Chavez. The festivities get started at 11 a.m. and include live music, luchadores wrestling, mariachis and folklorico and Aztec dancing. It’s $10 for adults to get in and $5 for students (with kids 12 and under free). Get more information at diasanjose.com.
Saturday also is when the Signia by Hilton hotel in downtown San Jose is kicking off its two-week Dia de los Muertos celebration, which includes a special Mexican-themed menu, complemented by tequila and mezcal cocktails, at AJI Bar & Robata.
There’s also “El Baile de los Muertos,” a costume party headlined by Chicana artist La Doña on Oct. 27 and “Spirits of Mexico,” a tequila-fueled cocktail reception followed by a five-course Mexican winemaker dinner on Nov. 2. The dinner also is a fundraiser with some of its proceeds benefitting arts organization Local Color. Executive Director Erin Salazar has hand-painted wine and spirit bottles for the occasion.
HISTORY FOR SALE: A Spanish revival house in San Jose’s Shasta-Hanchett neighborhood that was designed and owned by architect Ralph Wyckoff is up for sale for $1.827 million. Sotheby’s Realty has an open house this weekend for the 1923 home at 310 Sequoia Ave if you want to check it out.
Wyckoff’s most well-known surviving buildings in San Jose include the St. James Post Office, the old science building at San Jose State, now known as Washington Square Hall, and the Moderne Drug building on Second and Santa Clara Street that was most recently home to Western Dental.
