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Tiny parks are oases of nature in city
Little patches of green serve as residents' quiet, somewhat secret, safe hideaways
Joe Brown of Santa Rosa fishes at Frances Nielsen Park in Santa Rosa, one of the lesser-know little parks around Sonoma County.
MARK ARONOFF / PDPublished: Sunday, August 2, 2009 at 3:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, July 31, 2009 at 2:43 p.m.
Jennifer Harrison admits that what sold her on her home was not so much the house itself as the school — and the park that went with it.
That little acre of green beside Hidden Valley School in Santa Rosa for Harrison was like enlarging her compact 6,000-square-foot lot many-fold.
At a time when most parents no longer feel comfortable letting their children freely roam the streets in search of friends, at Hidden Valley Park they can safely meet up with other kids to play.
“The only reason we bought the house we’re in now is because we could walk to the park,” says Harrison, a professional property manager and mom of three. “We have a small back yard and three young children. For us, that was everything. I have two boys that play baseball. And not having a yard to play in, we walk down with our mitts and bats.”
As an additional bonus, mom can take a jog on the quarter-mile track around the park, while never losing site of her brood.
On the beaten path are sprawling community spaces like Santa Rosa’s Howarth Park, well-loved landmarks packed with attractions. And crowds.
But well off the boulevards and expressways are many little secret oases, some as tiny as a city lot, where people can take a load off on a bench, flop out under the shade of an oak with a friend, snooze on the grass or walk their dog.
Many of these neighborhood parks are set within subdivisions and residential areas. Unless you live there or stumble across it by accident, you might never know they exist. And yet, in a digital age of online schmoozing, they remain one place where kids can still climb and swing and people can pass the time conversing in person on a bench.
Safe place
Santa Rosa architectural historian and preservationist Mark Parry, who leads walking tours of Santa Rosa’s old neighborhoods, says city fathers got it right a century ago when they planned these pocket-sizegreen spaces — like Olive Park by the Prince Memorial Greenway, with its old towering palms — offering urban kids a safe place to play near their homes.
“Having parks walkable in neighborhoods extends the community and extends the opportunities folks have to gather and socialize,” said Parry, who notes that within walking distance of the old Burbank Gardens near the Luther Burbank Home there are half a dozen small parks. “And anything you can do within walking distance of your home is a good thing for the planet.”
On a typical summer evening, DeMeo Park in Santa Rosa’s old West End neighborhood near Railroad Square is abuzz. Kids scramble over the climbing gym, a group of young men shoot hoops, a couple plays bocce in a court near one corner and three men kick a soccer ball on the small lawn. It’s a lot of activity packed into a single acre.
A majestic Luther Burbank Paradox Walnut tree “looms over the whole park like this friendly old grandpa,” says Allen Thomas, a longtime neighborhood resident and activist who helped organize an annual July barbecue and Friday night bocce turnaments that draw multiple generations of people, some of whom don’t even live in the city. The Italian outdoor rolling ball game, truth be told, is really a pretense for people to get together. The event warrants its own souvenir T-shirts.
“It’s like the communal front yard,” said Thomas, who counts DeMeo (at the corner of West 7th and Polk streets) as an essential adjunct to a neighborhood where the homes are little more than 1,000 to 1,200 square feet.
Jason Greenwald only recently moved to Petaluma. But he finds himself strolling through Oak Hill Park virtually every day with Josie, a cattle dog who needs room to fetch. Secreted away on Howard Street in the historic west side, the tree-studied commons was originally used as a cemetery in the 1850s.
Leafy retreat nearby
A hundred years ago the Ladies Improvement Club waged a fund-raising campaign to turn the old graveyard into a safe playground, according to Janet Gracyk, a landscape architect and longtime resident of the Oak Hill Historic District who is compiling a guide to Petaluma’s parks.
Having this leafy retreat three houses away from his front door is really better than having a big yard, said Greenwald.
“In a yard there are a lot of things to obstruct your movement. The park is a nice place to have wide open space to throw a tennis ball. I’ve been here a few weeks and already I’ve met 220 people with different dogs. Everybody sits on the benches and gabs. I even met someone who comes down from Rohnert Park just because she likes it so much.”
Covert location
Some hidden parks are so finely knit into their neighborhood they are almost camouflaged, like a caterpillar.
One of Healdsburg’s out-of-the-way green pockets is Gibbs Park at the end of Prentice Street. Nothing flashy, just shaded picnic tables, a patch of lawn, play equipment for older and younger kids and a little trail. But its covert location makes it a relaxing retreat for nearby residents and folks fortunate enough to find it.
“If you didn’t know where it was you wouldn’t get there,” said David Mickaelian, Healdsburg’s Community Services Director. “It’s surrounded by homes where their back yards are literally to the park. If you drive down Sunnyvale and looked to the right all you would see are homes. You wouldn’t know there is a park.”
Former Councilman and Mayor Kent Mitchell takes his 2-year-old granddaughter to Gibbs. But his most constant hang-out, the park equivalent of the corner coffeehouse, is Badger Park, on Heron Drive, near the Russian River.
“I tend to walk or jog there just about every morning,” he said. “There’s a great track at Badger that goes around the lawn area. There are these little side trails that take you through a lovely wooded acre and also down to the Russian River. I’m also an amateur birdwatcher and sometimes I’ll bring my spotting scope. It’s a great place to watch the river birds. It’s really quite spectacular to see a raptor or even an eagle pull a fish out of the river and take it back to her nest.”
Drivers passing through Fountaingrove might never know that there’s a pastoral pond amid the pristine neighborhoods. At 3540 Lake Park Drive is one of the city’s better kept recreational jewels, Frances Nielsen Ranch Park, that offers the illusion of being out in nature right in the middle of suburbia. There is a kiddie playground, a nice path all around the lake and a wooden deck overlooking the water if you want to just sit and meditate.
Residents of the quiet streets of Kenwood have their own secret getaway spot — the Kenwood Plaza Park at 200 Warm Springs Road — not unlike the overworked Sonoma Plaza, but without the crowds and City Hall looming in the middle. This is just big trees, including a giant heritage oak and room to run around or spread out a picnic.
Said regular Theresa Schulz, tossing a Frisbee with her husband Eddy Joseph, 5-year-old daugher Ruby and friends on a weekday evening, “Kenwood is special and this park is one of its most special qualities. It’s so nice to have neighborhood parks like this where the kids are safe and can run around.”
You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at 521-5204 or meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com.
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