S E C T I O N
September 15, 2010 ■ News of local people and events A
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Showpiece
STABLE
Historic Folger Stable gets $5 million restoration
0HOTOS BY -ICHELLE ,E s 3TORY BY $AVE "OYCE Pagoda-like roof lines characterize Wunderlich Park’s Folger Stable, which draws on 17th century French Baroque design with Craftsman influences, according to the San Carlos contractor that rehabilitated this 105-year-old structure. Flaviano Gonzalez, a groom at Folger Stable in Woodside, comforts Patron as he fits him with gear for an afternoon ride with the stable’s trainer.
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large and elegant Woodside horse stable, built in 1905 and listed in the National Registry of Historic Places, has a new lease on life that could keep it in operation for another 105 years. At a cost of about $5 million to restore and renew this stable and carriage room, Folger
Stable at 4040 Woodside Road in Wunderlich Park is no longer a dusty, debilitated, termite-ridden echo of its former glamorous self, but a gleaming showpiece. A three-hour open house for the public is set for the afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 19, said Susan Lang, co-chair with Jill Daly of the Folger Stable Project, which raised
money to restore the complex. The 974-acre property was the former estate of coffee magnate James A. Folger II and was donated to San Mateo County in 1974 and forms what is now Wunderlich Park. The open house will include a blacksmith display, agricultural exhibits, a reproduction of the original enclosed hitching-rail area –
ON THE COVER: Upendo heads back to his stall at Folger Stable with Flaviano Gonzalez, the groom who administered a shower and scrub in the sunshine of an August afternoon. The stable, located at Wunderlich Park in Woodside, has been undergoing restoration for the past 18 months and will be celebrating with an open house on Sunday, Sept. 19. Photo by Michelle Le/The Almanac.
called a tie stall – and a self-guided tour of still-standing stone walls built by Chinese laborers in the late 19th century. The stable’s architect was Arthur Brown Jr., who designed notable buildings all over the Bay Area, including the city hall and Coit Tower in San Francisco, and the Bancroft Library at the University of California. Mr. Brown’s design for the stable “draws upon seventeenth-century French Baroque, with Craftsman influences,” said Nicole See FOLGER STABLE, page 23
September 15, 2010 N The Almanac N 21