The Friendly Castle

While visiting the San Mateo County Archives one weekend, I found a newspaper article on Friendly Acres.  It appeared to be the only newspaper article that they had on file (at that time) for the neighborhood, or with any mention of Harry Friend.

The clipping, entitled "A Backward Look: Restoration at 'Friendly Castle'" - Archive Reference # 75-604.1 RC, is undated but it does include the name of the author, a Marian Goodman, who had been a Staff writer with the Redwood City Tribune.

The article introduces us to Ray and Pat Dufour, the then new owners of the "Friendly Castle" who had just moved in, (this is around 1966), and were redecorating the interior, and provides a retrospective of the previous owners and the significance of the house to the neighborhood.

"... This interesting house was built in 1934 by Harry Friend, who once owned all of Friendly Acres, as well as the Industrial Park area which he sold to David Bohannon.  He also donated two acres of land for Taft school.  

One neighbor recalls being offered $400 for the whole acreage, then a salt swamp.  "Are you kidding?" she said, "I wouldn't have it for anything!"

For some time the Friendly Castle was the only house in the area, and it was outstanding because of its size, prominence, and unusual design.  Friend knew just how he wanted it, and how he got it is quite a story.

In Russia, the last of the czars, Nicholas II, had a personal architect, a Russian Pole, named Kapliroff, who designed buildings for the emperor.

During the Russian revolution when the Czar and his family were murdered by the Bolsheviks, Kapliroff escaped, and was smuggled out of the country in a barrel.

He made his way to America, crossed the country, and happened to stop in Redwood City.  He knew no English, but he met Harry Friend, who could speak Russian because he was born in Poland of Russian descent.

The two got along well, and when Kapliroff found that Friend wanted an architect to help with his new house, he was glad to oblige.

Otherwise, because of Kapliroff's language difficulty he didn't do well here.  But someone suggested he go to Hollywood where they could use his type of designs.  He did go to Hollywood and made a fortune before he died. 

The Friends entertained a great deal in their showplace, and people came from all over Northern California to see it.  Students came from Stanford to make sketches, and demands for the plans resulted in a few similar houses being built in Palo Alto. 

But the Friends lived in the house only five years."

Goodman provides further descriptions of the interior of the house and renovations underway and ends the article by letting readers know Mrs Friend's current address.  Already a widow by 1966, when this interview was given, Mrs. Friend was no longer living in Friendly Acres.  The Friends had left the neighborhood in 1939 to settle in San Carlos, where Mr. Friend had a "smaller and less elaborate" house built for her, modeled on the larger one in Friendly Acres.

Apparently the reason for the move was that the house became too much for Mrs Friend to care for and she became ill.  Its interesting to note that Irene Winnick's oral history essay also indicates that Mrs Friend was ill but the reason they chose San Carlos was because it was "higher and drier" than "the salt swamp" and that they first moved to San Francisco for a while before settling down in San Carlos.  (I presume they stayed in San Francisco either for medical care, or while they waited for their house in San Carlos to be built.) 

The article provides other descriptions of the interior of the Friendly Castle and talks about subsequent owners who went on to occupy the place, including a Mr. Preston, a Gillette representative, and a Milton Engel - a chemist.  (Editor's Note: Watch this space for an upcoming post on Milton's story which is decidedly colorful).

Special Note - Ms. Goodman, who wrote the article for the Redwood City Tribune, also wrote pieces on San Mateo history and, notably, would accompany her submissions with hand illustrations of the topic she was writing about.  I came across 2 publications where she's also cited as the illustrator - and clearly an accomplished one.

• Missions of California; Marian Goodman, Redwood City Tribune, 1962
• San Mateo County: Its Story; Marian Goodman, Goodman Publishing Co., 1967

Judging by the covers of these 2 books I suspect that the illustration of the Friendly Castle which was in the Friendly Acres article (see below) was most likely also done by Goodman.

Fiddler on the Roof

Fiddler on the Roof, the movie, just happens to be on the box this evening.  Timely since the story is very evocative of the political background that Harry Friend, the developer of Friendly Acres, left behind when he left Prussia-Poland with his wife in 1901. 

The movie, a musical, is based on the stories of Tevye the Milkman, by Sholem Alecheim, and set in Russia in 1905. Topol stars as the main character.  The original stories were published in 1894, so its quite possible that Harry Friend had read them or heard of them.  But its more likely that Art and Life converged.

The pogroms and unrelenting Tsarist persecutions of the Jews, and brewing Bolshevik revolution, sent many fleeing to England and America at the end of the 19th century.

Putting the Friend in Friendly

When I first moved to this Redwood City neighborhood, one of the things that appealed to me was its name, "Friendly Acres" (not to be confused with the Friendly Acres Ranch in Half Moon Bay).  Our neighbor and a real estate agent had mentioned that there was a indeed a man behind the name.  A man by the name of Friendly who had been the developer of the neighborhood we had bought into, and that he had possible lived on Marsh Road.  That's about as much as the real estate agent knew.

There was nothing online about Mr. Friendly.  But the Redwood City archives yielded a little bit more information, as did Ancestry.com, and some venerable Polk directories.

Harry Friend was his name - a "friendlier" anglicized version of his real name, Abraham Freund, which he adopted after arriving at Ellis Island at the turn of the 20th century.

His story begins back in 1880 in Prussia, (or Poland in today's geo-political maps).  Landing first in New York then he moves west to San Francisco, making a series of property acquisitions south through the Peninsula - residing in Burlingame, San Mateo, and Sweeney Ranch (south of Redwood City) where he purchased some acres, subdivided it, and settled in - calling his settlement "Friendly Acres", before retiring with his wife to San Carlos.

He left us with his name.  But then he's not the only one to have done so.  The entire neighborhood is threaded with names from the past, some of whom were earlier developers and landowners of the area, and others simply civic employees who by their contributions to the city were awarded the honor of a street sign in our vicinity.

The Vice President's visit

It is Tuesday, October 19, 2010 and Senator Barbara Boxer is paying a visit to Taft Elementary School in Friendly Acres, talking to the 3rd grade in an after school program she helped secure funding for.

Expecting the Senator to finally leave, the classroom teacher isn't sure exactly what's going on as more people seem to be arriving instead of going, and helicopters are flying overhead.  Next thing she knows, in walks Vice President Joe Biden.

In a bid to retain her State senate seat, Ms Boxer, who was running against Republican rival Carly Fiorina (former HP CEO), had decided to bring in some big guns to help her campaign's fundraising event in San Francisco - and while he was here, sneak in some warm and fuzzy, kid-friendly P.R.  Apparently Biden's visit was a surprise even to the school district.

No president, no flood, no fire - "a great community"

Jeanette Giovannoni's homework assignment was the second oral interview transcript regarding Friendly Acres that I found at the Redwood City Archives.  Irene Winnick's essay/transcript was the first.  Irene's work is from April 12, 1945, the day F.D.R. died -  but Jeanette's essay is undated.  When I initially saw them I presumed they were written in the same year, for the same class, but they may have conceivably been written a couple of years apart.   Both documents are wonderful artefacts and a creative way of recording and preserving local history information. 

Both girls spoke to Mr. Giovannoni to get information.  While Irene Winnick spoke to several people, Jeanette interviewed one person only: - Giovannoni.  Her excuse for not interviewing anyone else smacks of classic chauvinism, maybe that's because Giovannoni was her father? - then again, it could simply be teenage unwillingness to complete assigned homework, for whatever reason. 

For those of us in the know, Giovannoni's comment on the lack of flooding is an eyebrow raiser...  Presumably, rain and storm runoff in those days had a better chance of getting back into the bay. 

Arthur Radebaugh: Where are my flying cars?

I was researching NMB and kept stumbling on posters, newspaper and magazine ads for the company - all from the 50s, and all designed by Radebaugh.  Fantastical renderings of robotic machines, tools and architecture that captivate the imagination.