[conspire] Sunset Gardens, Menlo Park: Visit now or never

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> I certainly hope everyone had the chance for a last visit to a really
> great place.  I made a point of going to the last of the annual Sunset
> Celebration Weekends this June.


I was bummed out to be obliged to miss the final Menlo Park Sunset
Celebration Weekend
(http://www.sunset.com/marketplace/celebration-weekend-2015) because my
family was out of the country at the time.  However, I have qualifiedly
good news for you:  Sunset Publications intends (according to an
employee I spoke with yesterday) to keep having Sunset Celebration
Weekends -- at its new 7 acre / 3 hectares gardens and outdoor-kitchen
facility at Cornerstone Sonoma,  near the junction of State Highways 121
and 116.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/4014240-181/sunset-magazine-to-move-test

Apparently, Cornerstone Winery (previously unknown to me) has an existing
outdoor-landscaping attraction, so this will be a joint venture.
Article says the existing Cornerstone Gardens 'gallery-style gardens'
occupy a 36-acre / 14-hectare site in total.

I have no details on when exactly the 2016 event will be, but I guess
look for it starting next summer.  (If you, Paul, are interested, you're
welcome to ride up with my family.)


Some readers might wonder what the big deal is about 'Sunset' in the
first place.

Sunset Magazine and surrounding publishing empire _was_ a big deal,
especially in the post-WWII era through the 1960s.  It established a
very distinctive California and Southwest style that affected house and
commercial architecture, cooking, landscaping, and decoration for
generations.  I didn't always _like_ the Sunset style:  It was and is
easy to mock.  However, it was and is indisputably a pillar of life in
the West, always there, always influential.


The Menlo Park headquarters campus, it extremely distinctive and
influential buildings, and its spacious gardens and forested groves,
were utterly iconic.  I was there for several hours with a good digital
camera, and took many, many photos.

The Sunset Publishing empire was an 1896 spinoff from the Southern
Pacific railroad company, as an inducement to drum up travel to and
around the West on its passenger trains.  (The company was named for
SP's 'Sunset Limited' New Orleans - Los Angeles train route, and _Sunset
Magazine_ started as a freebie aboard the train similar to a modern-era
onflight magazine.  At the time, SP felt it had to work hard to overcome
the 'Wild West' stereotype that was scaring away travelers.) 

Advertising figure Lawrence W. Lane bought the magazine in 1929 and 
created its still-dominant 'lifestyle' emphasis, and it was then very 
successful for over a half century with both the magazine and with
Sunset-branded books on gardening, design, home-decorating, cooking,
etc.  In 1951, Lane Publishing moved Sunset's headquarters from San
Francisco to Menlo Park, with a new ranch-style main building designed
by Cliff May, and gorgeous gardens designed by famous landscape artist
Thomas Church.  

But, after the 1960s, Sunset Publishing coasted, phoning in the
same-old, same-old, and most people stopped thinking about the Sunset
brand.

The Inevitable, Round One happened in 1990 when Lane Publishing cashed
out by selling everything to Time Warner.  At this point, it was only a
matter of time before the conglomerate got around to selling the now
extremely valuable Menlo Park campus, because liquidating valuable real
estate has been a corporate trend.  And, indeed, as The Inevitable,
Round Two, Time, Inc. offloaded it to Embarcadero Capital Partners in
December 2014, which 'office property investment and management firm' is
doubtless going to redevelop and ruin it, turning it into yet another
bland, beige office complex.


The Sunset publishing staff will be operating out of office space at
Jack London Square, Oakland, while the more rural parts of the operation
are moving this weekend to Sonoma.


BTW, I snuck out some ripe chili peppers from the Sunset Editorial Test
Garden (ones that had fallen to the ground), so we'll have Sunset seed
to plant next summer.