Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
For my Thursday Doors post this week I visited Ainsley House located a couple of miles from me in Campbell, CA. A little history about Campbell, and the house.
“Campbell, CA is small city located in Santa Clara County, and Silicon Valley. It’s bordered on the east, and north by San Jose, on the south by Los Gatos, and on the west by a small portion of Saratoga, and San Jose (which is where I live).
Campbell was founded by Benjamin Campbell, after whom the city was named. He came to California in 1846 with his father, William Campbell. William started a sawmill in Saratoga and surveyed the cities of San Jose and Santa Clara. In 1851, Benjamin bought 160 acres (0.65 km2) in southern Santa Clara Valley and cultivated hay and grain on it. This area later became Campbell’s historical downtown core.” ~ Wiki-pedia
This area was largely farm land and orchards in the 1800’s.
” In 1886 John Colpitts Ainsley, and Englishman, immigrated to California and made his fortune here in the canning of fresh fruit, which was almost exclusively exported to England. In 1925, he and his wife Alcinda, built this retirement home in the English Tudor Revival style.
The house is both a symbol of his success and a time capsule of the 1920’s. The house and most of the furnishings were donated to the City of Campbell by the Ainsley’s granddaughters, Geraldine Lloyd Hicks and Georgene Lloyd Bowen.”~ The Campbell Museum Foundation
The house was built in 1925. The house originally sat in the southwest of their 83 acre orchard on the corner of Hamilton and Johnson (now Bascom) Avenues. The historic home was moved to its present location at 300 Grant Street in Downtown Campbell in 1990.
Since its relocation it has been restored to its original 1920’s appearance inside and out.
Today the Ainsley House is a city run historic house museum open to the public.
The carriage house is now the Morgan Gallery. It offers free exhibits and videos detailing the history of Campbell.
Since the museum/house was closed I wasn’t able to get in to see the inside or the backyard, but the Ainsley Volunteer Garden was open so, I popped in there and took a several images of the lovely flowers growing there.
Are these Button Willows? They’re lovely! Tall, and they spread out. They’d be too much for my yard I’m sorry to say.
I don’t know what this flower is either, but it has a lovely cone like center. Is it a Dahlia?
Nikon Df| Nikkor 28-105mm micro lens| Tripod & Hand-held| Delkin Digital Film
This post is part of Norm 2.0’s Thursday Doors. If you love doors and would like to see the doors others are posting, or post doors you’ve photographed and join other door lovers from around the world click here.
At the end of Norm’s latest Thursday Door post is a little Blue Link-up/View button click it to be taken to a page with all the links, or add your own.
More to come…
You must be logged in to post a comment.