Neighbors Seek to Reconnect

Community-building efforts get underway for the Fairgrove Eichlers of Cupertino
By Dave Weinstein
Fridays on the Homefront
Eichler's lone development in Cupertino, the 230‐home Fairgrove, still retains much of its looks, but little of the communal feeling that was felt in its earlier days. Some neighbors are actively pursuing the return of that feeling. Above: Fairgrove has a generous tree canopy, like the tract's Shadygrove Drive here. All photos: Dave Weinstein (except as noted)

When the Fairgrove Eichler tract in Cupertino was new, 'block parties' played a big role tying the community together.

"Everybody in the neighborhood would come," says Nancy Burnett, who with her husband bought their home here from Eichler Homes even before it was built.

Joe Eichler's lone subdivision in this now‐sprawling South Bay city, the 230‐home development, built in 1960 and 1961, still retains much of its looks, but little of the communal feeling that was felt in earlier days.

 

Fridays on the Homefront
One of Fairgrove's loveliest Eichlers, on Stendahl Lane.

But a handful of mostly newcomers are trying to change that. Resident Carol Maa is leading the charge, hoping to model Fairgrove on another Eichler neighborhood, Greenmeadow in Palo Alto, where homeowners know each other, get together regularly, and work to preserve their homes' architectural values.

How does Carol, who is raising two young children in Fairgrove with her husband, envision the neighborhood in the future?

 

Fridays on the Homefront
Fairgrove residents Carol Maa and Chris Tisdell, reaching out to locals: 'Let's Get Reconnected.'

She sees a place where "everybody just goes into each other's houses, and block the street and play in the street," she says, describing of facet of traditional block party festivities. "That, for me, is just the quintessential kind of American, Californian childhood."

"I'd like to see more cohesion," she adds, "because right now there's a lot of, like, seniors who don't leave their houses, and they're literally housebound, and they don't connect."

Carol, who moved to Fairgrove during the early months of the Covid pandemic, was brought into the communitarian fold shortly after arrival by none other than her next‐door neighbor, Nancy Burnett, who had never forgotten the days when Fairgrove buzzed with social activity.

 

  Fridays on the Homefront
Two signs on different entrances welcome visitors to Fairgrove.
 

"We had a little newsletter, and we had get‐togethers, and annual [larger] get‐togethers," Nancy recalls. "We would block off a section of the street so that the traffic could not come through."

For years Nancy, a former teacher with a focus on textiles, clothing, and home economics, served as one of the neighborhood's block leaders, a function that has fallen away, especially since the pandemic.

"The first month we moved in," Carol says, "[Nancy] came by with her walker and said, 'I'm the neighborhood block leader. And would you like to be on the [neighborhood] list?' And I was like, yes!"