Forging Friendships - Page 3

The pandemic hit neighborhood socializing hard, neighbors say. Folks tried to cope by creating new traditions. "Especially during the pandemic," Roxanna says, "we would pull out chairs on the lawn" to chat with neighbors.

But block parties, a tradition at several neighborhood sites, came to a halt. "Another victim of the pandemic," Matt Barthelemy says of the block-party event on Channing. "I mean, who knows? Maybe that will come back."

Faunce Rand, now a 60-year resident, says block parties on Edgewood started early. "Someone decided we should have a picnic, kind of a neighborhood picnic," she recalls. "And then we got so we were doing it for Labor Day, and Christmas, and other holidays; and we would all get together, usually outside. But sometimes, like in the wintertime, of course, it was inside. And just everybody was invited, and most everybody came."

Dan and Daphne Huang, who are originally from Taiwan, say they have been the 'hosting family' for parties on Edgewood Drive in recent years. Some have been inside their home, some outside. Invitations go to people on their cul-de-sac and in nearby homes.

On occasion Edgewood neighbors had larger block parties open to a wider area, with a permit for street closure. "This tradition, I think, has been going on for more than 20 or 30 years," Dan says. "One family hosting will prepare a little bit more food, but everybody will pitch in, bring drinks, dishes, or dessert."

Their most recent outdoor party was to welcome one of the Huangs' three daughters to the neighborhood. Her new home, which no longer resembles an Eichler, is next to her parents' Eichler.

One unique aspect to Green Gables is it's the only neighborhood Eichler ever equipped with stores. Edgewood Shopping Center, built in 1957 to designs by Joe's architects Jones & Emmons, included a gas station and a single-story office that was headquarters for the Eichler Homes staff.

The shopping center's freestanding sign is the first thing you see on busy Embarcadero Road after pulling off Highway 101. By the mid-2000s the once-lively center had quieted down, its supermarket closed, other shops empty or just hanging on.

Efforts to rebuild the place and add housing were fought by some neighbors and some Eichler fans, concerned that the center would lose its distinctive architecture and that new housing would be too dense.

From Green Gables, a handful of residents led the fight. A compromise was reached. The center was altered the same way many houses in the tract have been altered—no longer original, but with modern feeling.

Dense housing was built; too dense for the Huangs, but better than what had originally been proposed, some say. Jon De Feo says he had never seen the neighborhood as active as during this effort, which was led by Angy Volterra and a few others.

"Angy was all over them to block them from completely tearing down everything in the market that was Eichler," he says.

The former Eichler Homes office, which for years had operated as a center for Transcendental Meditation, today again serves as offices.

You won't hear anybody in the neighborhood today badmouth the rebuilt shopping center, which has several plaques celebrating Joe and Eichler Homes in a shaded plaza that is a popular lunch spot. People love the upscale Market at Edgewood, which, thanks to its youthful checkers, manages to feel small-town in the best way.