Upcoming Events:

May 16-18 - Cooking for Solutions

May 18 - Santa Cruz Mountains Wine Train

May 26 - Boulder Creek Art & Wine

May 31 - Vintners' Festival, Santa Cruz side

Jun 7 - First Saturday Tour

Jun 7-8 - Spring Art Show and Vintners' Festival

The Fruit House - A Diamond Jubilee:

Five eucalyptus globulus trunks measuring 30” in diameter at the butt and 40’ in length were selected for the foundation from a grove of trees planted on the ranch, just over the back ridge and now within the boundaries of the Mid Peninsula Open Space District.  The seedlings had been started by Sophia Garrod in a hot bed on the side of her house and were transplanted between 1905 and 1908 by her son, R.V.  Many fellow immigrants and “new” ranchers were following suit, the idea being to turn a relatively quick profit because the eucalyptus grows so fast!  (David and Sophia Garrod immigrated from England with their 12-year-old son, R.V., and purchased the land for Garrod Farms in 1893.)  By 1922, some of these young trees were sizable. 
The cut trees were dragged down the hillside by a team of horses and laid out below the fruit dying field on the building site, which had been leveled somewhat from its natural slope by horses with a slip scraper.  The five timbers were leveled by hatchet for the floor joists, set directly on the eucalyptus.  R.V. had married in 1915, and his wife, Emma, wanted a good floor for dancing at the social gatherings that occurred after the dried fruit had been shipped. 

R.V. bought the rest of the lumber used, from a Los Gatos warehouse being torn down.  The roof was redwood shakes -- the same size as those used to make fruit drying trays:  3’ x 6” x 1/4”! 

Although the three center posts in The Fruit House are original, with holes from the bark beetles and wood borers in abundant evidence, the five eucalyptus foundation trunks were replaced in 1946 or 1947.  The two outermost trunks had rotted so that The Fruit House was bowed!  The three center trunks were still in good condition, however, and were cut and used as nice, hard firewood.  Vince Garrod (R.V.’s son) and Wayne Ware (George Cooper’s cousin) raised the upper structure with house jacks and put new piers under The Fruit House.  The “new” metal roof was put on by Vince himself in the 1940s, and at some point he added the eastern overhang for equipment storage, covering over a roof made with 3’ split redwood shakes. 

The front porch of The Fruit House has always been a feature of the building, although it doesn’t show in the pictures when it was more of a loading platform prior to the roofing constructed over it.  One of the historic photos on display shows Frankie Bonnet, a neighbor who had a truck and hauled fruit, with a load of prunes in front of The Fruit House loading platform.  Also in the picture are Jack Bonnet and Al Bronzich. 

Emma, R.V., and their children Louise, Vince, and Dick were not the only ones who enjoyed many a neighborhood social in The Fruit House.  Between January and June each year, often once or even twice a month, neighbors came with their own box suppers and the Garrods made the coffee, served in white stoneware cups which appear occasionally at family gatherings to this day.  Rocky Armento played his accordion for $5 or whatever the hat produced.  Everyone chipped in a little more, and Vince remembers one neighbor who took out a lead quarter, bit it, and left his teeth marks on the coin! 

The Fruit House has seen many events over the years, everything from the socials and dancing to 4-H and Scout meetings to riding instructors’ certification courses and the ranch centennial -- 5 years ago already!  Now, of course, we welcome the public to The Fruit House on weekends as our historic tasting room for Cooper-Garrod wines. 

Here’s to the next 75 years! 

reprinted from Fall 1997 Cooper-Garrod newsletter