Home&Real Estate
OPEN HOME GUIDE 40
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Home Front
TAX CREDITS BACK ... Tax credits for increasing energy efficiency in one’s home, which expired at the end of 2011, are back — renewed retroactively to Jan. 1, 2012, and extended through 2013, according to the City of Palo Alto’s Earth Matters e-newsletter. Tax credits are available for such additions as insulation, certain windows and roofing materials, a main air-circulating fan, high-efficiency furnace, air conditioner or electric heat pump. Maximum amount to be claimed is $500, for all years. Information: www.cityofpaloalto.org FOR BEGINNERS ... Hidden Villa is offering an adult class, “Gardening for Beginners,” from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, March 30, at 26870 Moody Road, Los Altos Hills. Designed for those who don’t know a rake from a shovel, the class is just in time to learn when and what to plant. Cost is $10. Information: www.hiddenvilla.org or 650-949-8650
PLANT EXCHANGE ... All plants, from small fruit trees to succulents and ground covers — clippings, cuttings, seedlings — can be swapped for others at the free plant exchange at the Mountain View Public Library from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 30. Donations do not have to be potted, but can arrive in bags or newspaper. The library is located at 585 Franklin St., Mountain View. Information: http://goo.gl/SL2vI or call Emily Weak at 650-903-6337
Semi-rural charm in the midst of the city
Katie Brigham
HOT TOMATOES ... Nancy Garrison, past coordinator and now retired master gardener, will teach a class on “Growing Great Tomatoes” from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 30, at Common Ground, 559 College Ave., Palo Alto. The class will cover which tomatoes have good flavor and reliable production under regular garden conditions. She will deal with trellising methods, soil preparation and what not to do. Cost is $31. Information: 650-493-6072 or www.commongroundinpaloalto.org
#BSSPO 1BSL
Top: The Toft family — Felix (from left), Kumiko, Liv and Rolf — has lived in the Barron Park neighborhood since 2008. Below: A home on La Calle in the Barron Park neighborhood. by Ranjini Raghunath quiet contrast to Silicon Valley’s technology hub, Barron Park is almost anachronistic amidst the bustle of the city, with its lush, pastoral setting. Strolling down the sidewalk-less streets lined with trees and walking up to the pasture near Cornelis Bol Park, one can meet Barron Park’s “mascots” — the donkeys, Perry and Niner. Watching them graze serenely, you can tune out
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NEIGHBORHOOD SNAPSHOT the traffic on El Camino Real — a stone’s throw away — and feel like you have stepped back in time. Barron Park’s history dates back to the 1850s when it was initially occupied as Mayfield Farm and later sold to Edward Barron, a mining magnate, after whom it was named. In 1925, a 62-lot Santa Clara County subdivision was laid out by
Colonel Sebastian Jones and later annexed to Palo Alto in 1975. Today, the homes in Barron Park — from the million-dollar ones to those in the Buena Vista mobile-home park — are as diverse as the people who live here. Recent years have seen an influx of people from different cultures and even different countries, perhaps lured in by the Silicon (continued on page 31)
CAKES, FLOWERS, SEWING ... Upcoming classes through Menlo Park Recreation Department include “Cake Decorating - Level 1” (Mondays, April 1-22); ‘Ikebana” (Tuesdays, April 2-May 28, $95 materials fee payable first day of class); and “Beginning Sewing” (Thursdays, April 4-25, $5 materials fee payable to instructor, rental machines available). Classes are held at the Arrillaga Family Recreation Center, 700 Alma St., Menlo Park. Cost for each class is $85 nonresidents, $64 residents. Information: 650-330-2200 or www. menlopark.org or email: csd@menlopark.org Katie Brigham
HOME CANNING ... Librarian Can(continued on page 32)
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