Our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group had a shorter walk than usual last week because it was warm/hot, so this Wednesday we were up for a longer one. It was a lovely morning and a strong turnout of 50 walkers and one K-9 best friend were at the Exedra ready for it. Before we got started, we recognized it was 9/11 and we remembered those who lost their lives that day 23 years ago and in its aftermath.
St. James Drive is a long, flat, and easy to walk street. Going all the way to its end at Park Boulevard would also let us see a very little visited street with Piedmont homes, Cavendish Lane. There were places along the way to turn back for anyone not wanting to go this far.
We went up Highland Avenue to Sheridan, Wildwood, and Crocker Avenues, past Crocker/Bear Park to Hampton Road, and then to its intersection with St. James Drive, where St. James starts. This first block may have been an extension of St. James because one block further down at La Salle Avenue are two old, white columns that marked one of the many entrances to St. James Woods, a very large, 1920s real estate development.
We took a group photo in front of the columns and information from a Google search was shared. There is a “St. James Wood Homes Association” website. It says the neighborhood is governed by a St. James Wood Homes Association that was founded in 1926 and represents over 185 homes in Piedmont and Oakland. The CC&Rs have some restrictions on what homeowners can do with their property. However, the last annual meeting and website posting was in 2012. Phil Witte, who lives on St. James Drive, said this is all history. The association is no longer active. Phil also said there are numerous “deer highways” along the street.
The columns are missing lanterns on their tops. The neighborhood once wanted the City to put replicas of the originals on them, but neither the residents nor the City were willing to pay for them, so it never happened. Supposedly there is still electricity in the columns if anyone wants to install them. We also noted the distinctive four brown tiles that are inlayed in each section of all the concrete sidewalks that were part of this neighborhood.
St. James Drive is seven tenths of a mile long to its end at Park and we continued on. We noted a very large, uprooted tree stump whose fallen tree obviously once blocked the street. At St. James’ end, down Park, just past Trestle Glen Road, is Cavendish Lane. This is a narrow street that looks like an alley. It is in Oakland, but there are four homes with Piedmont addresses at its end. The street was damaged in February 2017 after it was undermined by heavy rains and a construction project on a Trestle Glen home below. The hillside and road slipped away, and the Piedmont families were unable to access their homes by car for six weeks. The City of Piedmont made temporary fixes, but permanent repairs by Oakland did not begin until 2019, two years later.
After walking a few hundred feet we saw the repaired roadway, a retaining wall, and the hillside below with rusting concrete rebar on top of it. A hard-to-read Piedmont Public Works notice, dated August 2021, was taped on the wall, and said all construction work was to be stopped because of violations of City ordinances. It seems nothing had been done to the hillside since our visit last year.
It was time for us to retrace our steps to the Exedra. It was a four-mile round trip walk, longer than usual, but we had seen the entirety of not one, but two interesting streets on a lovely morning.
P.S. Some walkers asked for information about the next book signing event for Phil Witte’s book, Funny Stuff: How Great Cartoonists Make Great Cartoons. Phil will be at the Cartoon Art Museum, 781 Beach St., SF, near Ghirardelli Square, on Sunday, Sept. 15, at 2 PM. There will also be an event at the Charles Schulz Museum, 2301 Hardies Lane, Santa Rosa on Saturday, Nov. 9, at 10 AM.
P.P.S. Gary Meyer also shared that his feature documentary, The Art of Eating: The Life of M.F.K. Fisher, will be shown on Saturday, September 21, 2024 at 4 PM and 7 PM at the Jarvis Conservatory, 1711 Main Street, Napa. This film is about the dramatic life and lasting impact of the California food writer M.F.K. Fisher, who elevated cooking from a domestic chore to a critical study of what it means to be human. It features Alice Waters, Jacques Pepin, Tanya Holland, Ruth Reichl, and Anne Lamott. More information and tickets are available at: http://jarvisconservatory.com/artfilms.html.
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