Uncanny Valley

I wouldn’t describe the late Art Beal as a nitwit (despite not having met him). Maybe for calling his patch of hillside a ridge when it isn’t really. What this place is though is an odd ‘outsider art’ home that seems to counterbalance the nearby Hearst Castle.

In fact, Captain Nitt Witt (one of Beal’s aliases) worked at Hearst Castle and took home pieces for his own home, either with or without permission of the Hearst estate. However, most of the decor is from Beal’s work as a trash collector. He would take home interesting pieces and find a place for them. The place is full of knicknacks and architectural uniqueness, even after some of it being stolen after his death at 96 in 1992.

The other recurring themes involve abalone shells, which used to be more common on the shore,and beer cans. Beal used to take ‘coffee’ breaks when he was tinkering and found a use for everything he could. Many of the cans ended up becoming walls.

Back when Beal was alive, if he was in one of his good moods he would invite people in. It was quite a hippie stopover in the day. Now thanks to Michael and Stacey O’Malley, there are organized tours of what is now California Historical Landmark 939.

Michael O’Malley is a font of knowledge and anecdotes on Beal. On the tour, he would talk fast and excitedly, relaing interesting tidbits on the site’s history and design. Sonething I appeciate, being a geek myself. He is a good steward, and needed since the town of Cambria is still rather divided on the whole thing, even without Beal’s cranky episodes and occaisional nudity. However, seeing how the house was buiilt before many of the locals moved in to the area, they can’t (nor shouldn’t) really complain.

The haters did manage to get Beal put in a home near the end of his life in a divide-and-conquer gambit. Despite torturing the old man, the gambit failed and Beal’s ashes were spread around his favorite redwood on Nitt Witt Ridge.

Vistors may want to stop by the Cambria Library and read Beal’s self-published book of poetry, The Nature of Art. Beal was also featured in All Their Own: People and the Places They Build as well as numerous television programs.

Anote on visiting: I called the day we drove by, and left a voice mail that never got a call back. We stopped by anyway, and it seems many people on the tour were walk-ins. The tours are on the hour it seems, but try calling first anyways.

Every community seems to have to find a way to pay the price of progress. Old historic buildings often end up at odds with new development projects, and only the most historic tend to get built around. Either way seems to cause some loss.

The city of Oakland came up with a new solution. They decided to move the old buildings. Yep, just pick them up and move them all together where they can be restored and kept safe.And they’re not just sitting there like some museum. No, its more like in Disney. Plus the buildings are all being used by non-profits and small businesses. It does have that weird artificial hometown feel that some amusement parks have.

The park is full now, so I’m not sure what happens when more old buildings are on the chopping block. Maybe they’ll make a new one? Seeing how this good idea has not swept the nation as it should, I’d have to say that the limit on preserving buildings in this way may have been met.

This area is a combination of the public Coronado Butterfly Preserve and the private Ellwood Main Monarch Butterfly Grove. The butterflies are in the latter (because that’s where the trees are), but the best way to get there is through the former. I’m not sure why they made a public preserve that isn’t a good habitat, but it’s a start. The private part is doing OK for now, as it’s still free and open, and it has the eucalyptus trees the caterpillars like to eat. I had heard the young ones only ate milkweed because its what has the toxins the butterflies need for defense, but I guess once they encountered the non-native and fragrant trees they decided they worked just as well.

So you may be thinking this is not that amazing. You’ll walk through the wood and see a few butterflies and they’re pretty and all. Then you see a few more. You look up and they are fluttering between the top branches like they are relaying messages between trees. That’s when you see a huge clump of animals huddled together for warmth. They look like dead leaves at first, but then you realise, those are all butterflies. You look around and see more and more: They’re everywhere. When you stop moving, you can actually hear them. It sounds like leaves rustling, but there is no wind. Truly a spectacle. I tried to get audio of the flapping, but it was to soft to record. I did get some other animals near the marshy bit.

You have to go in the winter, and December through February is best. It was a bit chilly when I went, but the critters didn’t seem to mind. A neat thing about their huge migration is not that they are one of the few insect species to migrate, but that each butterfly only makes it part way. They only live a few weeks from egg to adult, and so a caterpillar that hatches in winter never sees the summer home. How then, do the butterflies keep coming back to the same spot every year when noone alive remembers being there? That is indeed the mystery.

I passed this house many many times before I found out more. You can’t exactly do a decent search with “blobby house on 280.” Thankfully I found Google Earth and a few decent KML files and I could figure out what this place is. I still am not 100% comfortable with the term ‘Flintstone House.’ Besides the fact that it uses a copyrighted word, but looking at the rough clunky house on the cartoon and the smooth bubbly form of this place, I just don’t see the connection. I called it the blobby house until I dug up the sparse info on it.

The house was designed in 1976 by William Nicholson. There are other houses like this around the country, but they are a dying breed and this one is in good repair and looks to stay that way.

So this is a private residence. You can see it from Interstate 280 North just fine as you cross the Doran Memorial Bridge over San Mateo Creek into Hillsborough. If you want a batter view, you can get off the highway and see it from the dead-end street it’s on. Be respectful and don’t trespass or do anything else retarded.

Before I got here, I assumed incorrectly that there would be some kind of wires that the wind would pass through and make to sing. But upon arrival, I found the whole thing is basically just steel girders. Definitely a bit sophisticated. Timing this for a windy day is the trick though. It helps that the sculpture is atop a hill, but mild zephyrs are no good, you need gusts.

An annoying bit is that there are some noisy compressors nearby: One at the base of the path up, and another at a rooftop nearer the Wind Harp. Definitely detracts from the auditory experience. Here’s my best attempt at recording. My microphone isn’t the best in the wind, though.

There is a sign at the entrance to the park with a picture of some irises that reads:

South San Francisco
HISTORIC SITE
On this site
CABOT CABOT & FORBES TOWER
1967
Aristides Demetries, one of America’s best known sculptors, created this steel sculpture as a symbol of Cabot Cabot & Forbes Industrial Park. Situated 243 feet above sea level, it rises to a height of 94 feet and can be seen from the Bay Bridge, the East Bay, and San Francisco International Airport. Called “the Wind Tower” locally. Places under the auspices of the South San Francisco
Historical Society and Historical Preservation Commission

And at the base of the tower is a plaque that reads:

WIND HARP
Artists: Lucia and Aristides Demetrios
Dedicated by Cabot, Cabot and Forbes March 28, 1967
Acquired by City of South San Francisco 1996
Re-Dedicated March 28, 1997
CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS 1992-1997
James Datzman Gus Nicolopulos
Jack Drago John Penna
Joseph Fernekes Roberta Teglia
Eugene Mullin Robert Yee
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Ted Bartell Victor Feudale
Jose de Larios Jake Jones
CULTURAL ARTS COMMISSION
Glenda Ali Shirley Nichols
Ronald Burgess Elizabeth Nisperos
Patricia Burke Margaret Pierson
Dennis Crossland Elsie Pollastrini
Barbara Dematter Anne Waters
Alicia Gonzales Joy Ann Wandler
Karyl Matsumote Susan Yau
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Genentech Inc.

Cabot Cabot & Forbes in the 1960s was a national real estate developer. It seems nowadays they are confined to New England and the surrounding area is almost completely ruled by Genentech. Also note that the plaque is the only evidence that Lucia Demetrios contributed to the project. She however is a metalworker, and now apparently goes by the surname of Eames

If you like alternate-energy powered sculptures that make sounds, be sure to check out the nearby Wave Organ and Earth Song Tuning Fork.

I’m not sure why I felt the need to visit here. Maybe it’s some sort of non-native San Francisco pride. I think it has more to do with seeing The Cat’s Meow and realising what a kook William Randolph Hearst, Sr. was. I figured (turns out correctly) that this would be a bit of trouble to track down.

I actually had to go here twice because the first time I wrote the directions down wrong and ended up going around and around the cemetery. There’s a road that is like a Celtic cross here, and it’s not as fun to drive in as you may think. The mausoleum is unmarked, and surprisingly not the most grandiloquent on the cemetery. It is in the corner of section H (as in Hearst), near sections D and E.

When I was lost, I went across the road to the office, and got a map and asked for the plot information. Usually this is no big deal, but the receptionist had no idea who Hearst was, and requested a year of death (I had to guess, but it’s 1951). Oh well. She’d needed someone else to get the data in any event. So the supervisor comes out, and kindly tells me that the location can’t be given out. Thankfully, the internet pulls through. And so to keep you from any excitement like that, I have revealed all in this article. So now you won’t go, even though you know how to get there, and Hearst wins again!

The Cypress Lawn cemetery straddles El Camino Real, and Hearst and his kin are in the part on the Northeast of the road. You’ll know you’re on the right side because you’ll go through a large stone arch by a duck pond. Say hi to the duckies for me.

Yes, that picture was take at night, and a misty one. It looks much better in the day.

This odd contraption is a national historic building, number 01000522. It is something of a gussied up pinhole camera, which offers a rotating view of the beach, the Seal Rocks, and even a bit of the Sutro Baths. It located right behind the Cliff House.

People often ask the owners of this place, why should someone pay to go inside and see the view that anyone can see for free outside. Then many of these people put money in those tourist telescope things. Well, I for one took the plunge and was glad for it. The picture is like you can almost touch it. It really puts a new perspective on things. This was also just after taking long looks at the ocean from outside, so I think this is well worth it.

There also are a few holograms here. They are nice, but I rather would spend time looking at the camera image than the holograms.

I am livid about this place. I just heard about it a month ago, and was super-excited to check it out. I went to the Pulgas Water Temple, which is supposedly not nearly as cool, and that was cool, so i was amped up to see the one in Sunol. I planned a whole day off around a visit, due to the draconian hours. But apparently they had MLK day off too. Riddle me this though: Why is this only open on weekdays, and at times when one can’t even skip out of work early to visit? It seems like they only want the terrorists who can take a day off or don’t have jobs to get access, and not normal people. This above and beyond the security cameras and so forth all around. Apparently those won’t foil terrorists on weekends and holidays.

Course if I were a terrorist, I’d just go for the unprotected reservoirs all around and not the temple which would have too many dog walkers to leave me in peace. But that’s just me. It’s not even like anyone can get here from public transportation. Heck, most people don’t even know this place exists. I told you it took me years to learn about it, and even when I told the chatty server at the vegan Japanese restaurant that we we’re going to the water temple he assumed it was the one on the peninsula: He didn’t even know about the one way out in Sunol. I don’t think many people even know where Sunol is either.

I’m also peeved at Save Our Sunol, who’s big agenda after getting the place reopened (thanks for that much atleast) is to stop a quarry from being built next door. Now I’m sure that will be an eyesore, but you know what ruins my panoramic view? These huge bars and fences in the way. Sure wish I had a nice water temple to look at. That would be way cool.

So this is in the ‘defunct’ section because it is dead to me. I know maybe three people can get to see this place, but until normal people can,it’s dead to me. Sorry Sunol.

A company called ESL, now TRW Turntable, wanted to test different antenna types mounted on the bottom of a plane. So they made an antenna shaped like an RC-12 Guardrail plane, and to avoid reflections of the signal off the ground, mounted it upside down. I’m not sure what TRW nor ESL stand for, so if you can de-acronym then let me know.

Both Morrison Canyon Road and Vargas Road are one-lane. No, not one-lane each way, just one lane. So drive carefully, especially on Morrison Canyon Road, which for much of it lacks a shoulder and has dog-walkers and joggers on the road.

It should be noted that TRW Turntable is listed as a security guard and patrol service in the yellow pages. And while many people have had altercations with security guards here, we did not. I was parked for about 5 minutes in broad daylight and taking pictures. Some of the people who have had problems came at night and tried to be sneaky, so perhaps the best course is not hiding, or atleast no climbing the fences and/or tower.

Also note that TRW Turntable lists it’s address as 3001 Morrison Canyon Road, but on Google Maps there is nothing there and it is on the wrong side of the road. When I visited, the ranch directly across the road from the antenna was labeled 2554 on the mail post, so I think 3001 is right and Google is wrong, so use the latitude and longitude or try 3300.

As a total tangent, ESL’s Sunnyvale branch was on 1988 the location of a shooting rampage by Richard Wade Farley, who is currently on death row. This event was portrayed in the 1993 film I Can Make You Love Me and a chapter of Chinese Playground: A Memoir

This bulb has been burning continuously since 1901, except briefly when it was moved to the new firehouse. It is a big record holder, and there are many of the awards present underneath the bulb.

It is only a 4 watt bulb, meant to help the firefighters put their coat and pants on at night. There was a spare bulb bought in 1901, and it has only been used in photo ops.

The bulb is in firehouse #6, and if there are firefighters awake they will show it (they have 3 shifts) but you’ll have best luck during normal business hours. Be sure and sign the guidebook.

Here is a “Bulb cam” if you can’t make it here.