fall/winter 2016 - los altos town crier · fall/winter 2016 wine time los altos hills showplace...

A Los Altos Town Crier Publication

&&m a g a z i n em a g a z i n ehome gardenhome garden


Fall/Winter 2016

Wine timeLos Altos Hills showplaceboasts vineyard, winery

Playroom makeoverFight the toy takeoverwith organization tips

Also inside:Native oak speciesCalifornia lilacs

| Home & Garden | August 31, 2016

Home & Garden | August 31, 2016 |

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Los Altos Town Crier138 Main St., Los Altos, CA 94022

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Editor Bruce Barton

Magazine Editor Traci Newell

Designer Mary Watanabe

Writers Tanya Kucak

Amanda Kuzak

Carolyn Snyder

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Photographer Megan V. Winslow

Sales Staff Janice Fabella

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Cover photo: Nancy and Jerre Hitz’s Los Altos Hills home winery showcases Tuscan influences.

Photo by Megan V. Winslow/Town Crier

Magazine Staff SSSS

Circulation: 16,500. Mailed directly to households in Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and select areas of Mountain View. Hundreds of subscribers receive the Town Crier in neighboring communities as well as out of state. The Town Crier can be purchased at newsstands in Los Altos, Mountain View and Palo Alto.

Upcoming 2016 Magazines

Living in Los AltosPublishes September 28, 2016

Home for the HolidaysPublishes November 16, 2016

˙© Los Altos Town Crier Company Inc., 2016. All Rights Reserved.

&&home gardenhome gardenm a g a z i n em a g a z i n e

VineyardLos Altos Hills residents Nancy and Jerre Hitz transformed their property into a vineyard and winery.

Page 5

PlayroomAvoid toy takeover

with tips for purging and organzing

children’s spaces.

Page 14

TomatoesDetermine which tomato varieties grow best in your microclimate.

Page 18

OaksSudden Oak Death is not a problem for all

native oak species.

Page 22

LilacsCalifornia lilacs come in a variety of shapes and sizes and can be a pretty addition to any garden.

Page 27

Have a story idea for the Home for the Holidays magazine?

Email editor Asher Kohn at [email protected].


The view from the Los Altos Hills home of Nancy and Jerre Hitz is a head-turner. The San Francisco Bay and its surroundings are framed by the front windows of their California Mission-style home. On either side are ancient oaks, rock-lined paths and native vegetation. And in back, a vineyard, winery and undulating hills transport visitors to Tuscany. The house and 12-acre property have interesting stories, as do the vineyard and winery. Supposedly, the adobe house was built circa 1938 by the person who built the Golden Gate Bridge. The fact that there’s a lot of steel in the house (bridge leftovers?) makes the story believable. The Hitzes are the fourth owners of the house. Among the previous owners was Edward Scarff, president of Trans-america, who left a souvenir in the backyard – a birdhouse shaped like the Transamerica Pyramid. The house itself is warm and inviting, with a mix of contemporary and antique furnishings. Accents are provided by objets d’art acquired by the couple on their travels both in this country and abroad. And some of the artwork came from the Rotary Club of Los Altos’ Fine Art in the Park. The 12-acre property was about to be subdivided into nine lots when the couple’s son Dave, co-founder of Network Appliance, first saw it. He bought it all to protect it from development and moved his parents into the house in 1999. They previously lived in Virginia.

VINEYARD

Vineyard viewsLos Altos Hills family transforms showcase property into Chateau d’Hitz

Continued on Page 6

MEGAN V. WINSLOW/TOWN CRIER

Los Altos Hills residents Nancy and Jerre Hitz own a 1930s adobe home that boasts views of the San Francisco Bay. The 12-acre property houses a working vineyard and winery.

By Carolyn SnyderSpecial to the Town Crier


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When he retired, Jerre was chief engineer of the Sys-tems Division of the global manufacturing and service company TRW. Nancy previously worked as assistant to the director of the Parent Educational Advocacy Training Center, headquartered in Springfield, Va. A year after the couple moved to their hilltop home, son Ken came to visit. He was between jobs as a globetrot-ting computer systems architect consultant. “I thought the southwest-facing hillside would be the perfect place to plant a vineyard,” Ken said. “I thought it would be cool and kind of romantic.” So, did he buy a book about how to become a vintner, or what? “I’m a consultant, so I hired a consultant,” said Ken, who, of course, purchased books, did his research and later took viticulture classes at UC Davis. “My father and I went out with tape measures and put plastic straws every six feet to indicate where the grapes would be planted. The day everything arrived, I left for Hong Kong and left him in the lurch.”

Wine time The fledgling vineyard survived – and thrived. Ini-tially there were 12 grape varieties from France grafted to American root stock. The number has grown to 14

Continued from Page 5

VINEYARD

Nancy and Jerre Hitz’s winery, Chateau d’Hitz, sits on their expansive property in Los Altos Hills. Paul Conrado of the Conrado Company helped the Hitzesand their sons, Dave and Ken, build the state-of-the-art


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varieties, approximately 950 vines, on little more than an acre of land. “Los Altos Hills is an amazing place to grow wine. The grapes taste fantastic,” Ken has been quoted as say-ing. When the vines began producing viable fruit in 2003, it was wine time. “I learned from my mistakes,” said Ken, who referred to his first vintage as “painting the driveway purple,” an-other way of saying it wasn’t bottled. Next season, some of the crop mildewed. But the Hitz family persevered in their winemaking endeavors, even-tually outgrowing the garage. “We decided we needed a building,” Ken said. Enter contractor Paul Conrado of the Conrado Com-pany in Saratoga, a highly regarded home winemaker who became Ken’s mentor and helped the family build a state-of-the-art winery. His Conrado Cellars label proclaims, “Builders of fine homes, makers of fine wines.” The Tuscan-style building was designed with the en-vironment in mind and settles into the hillside with the lower level becoming the wine “cave” and production area. Ceiling beams are reclaimed lumber and floors are bamboo. Solar panels provide energy for both the winery and house. “We wanted part of the winery to look like an old

VINEYARD

facility. The Tuscan-inspired winery settles into the vineyard hillside naturally.


Continued on Page 10


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original building” Ken said. “One that was added onto.” And it does. The “old” part features a stone-clad facade with deep-set wood-framed windows and a door beneath a lin-tel. The “new” part has aluminum case-ments and carriage house doors on high lift tracks. “We wanted the roof of the winery to match the house, but old mission tiles are hard to come by, so instead the tiles came from a French chateau,” Ken said.

Chateau d’Hitz Drum roll. The name of their winery is Chateau d’Hitz – a good choice for anoth-er reason. Ken tends to like French wine and uses French oak barrels, French yeast and a long fermentation process. He applies a light touch in his winemaking. “I pretty much pick the grapes, ferment them, sometimes use post-fermentation maceration, rack a couple of times and bottle. I sometimes do an egg-white fining,” he said. The Hitzes are noted for their harvest and bottling parties. “We have all ages, friends, family … 60 to 80 people who pick and stomp and later help bottle,” Nancy said. Party central is the winery. What was to have been the “office” is now where gatherings are held. The bar in the


VINEYARD


The ceiling beams in Chateau d’Hitz are reclaimed lumber and the floors are bamboo. The winery uses solar panels for energy.



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tasting room is made from redwood planks milled from a tree that fell on Sonoma property owned by Nancy and Jerre. Ken’s “office” is his lab (adjacent to the cave), where he tests sugar content (on the Brix scale) and acidity and uses a com-puter program to chart the most efficient blends of his different wines. The Hitz family, which is toasting the winery’s 10th anniver-sary, has produced approximately 12,000 bottles of wine, cases of which have been donated to charitable events and auctions. “We have more than we can drink in our lifetimes,” Jerre said. The family also administers a charitable fund created by Dave that focuses on global sustainability, social justice and community betterment. r


VINEYARD About the wine You’ll never see the Chateau d’Hitz Screaming Priest Los Altos Hills Rouge 2009 on a wine list, but it has a great fan base, having sold in the neighborhood of $1,000 at a couple of charity auctions. It’s a blend of Shiraz, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, San-giovese, Zinfandel and Petite Sirah. (The winery spe-cializes in blends.) Other grapes you’ll find on the prop-erty are Petit Verdot, Malbec, Pinot Noir, Grenache, Mourvedre, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. Ken Hitz creates and prints his own labels, each of which has a story to tell. Take the Screaming Priest label, for example, which stemmed from his brother’s wedding. “I became an internet-ordained minister in order to perform the ceremony and wore a black jacket that I had received as a gift in India so I would look the part,” Ken said. “A photographer friend of ours was shooting photos after the wedding and was trying to get me to loosen up. He told me to ‘shake my head and scream.’ The result was so great, it had to be a wine label.” Then there’s the 2008 Reve Heureux Sauvignon Blanc. It has a photo of his newborn niece asleep with a wine bottle photoshopped to replace the blanket she was holding. The name translates as “Happy Dream.” A Super Tuscan-style blend called Sangue della Terra (“Blood of the Earth”) has an erupting volcano on the label. After he selected the photo, Ken realized that he recognized the volcano. It is next to the Guatemala volcano where a friend grows coffee. These storied wines and more are being well treated in the winery’s cave, where they are stored in a wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling rack designed and made by Ken and his father.

The Hitz family has produced 12,000 bottles of wine in 10 years on their Los Altos Hills property.MEGAN V. WINSLOW/ TOWN CRIER


PLAYROOM

By Amanda Kuzak

All of my clients struggle with space – they either have too much of it or not enough. For this project, the problem was too much space. A family recently moved into a larger home and had more space than they ever dreamed of. The challenge was that their 8-year-old daugh-ter had taken over most of it. They had avoided giving her a dedicated, organized playroom, hoping that she would stick to storing her toys in her bedroom, but she managed to take over six spaces in their home. The following tips aim to help you organize your child’s playroom for maximum enjoyment and efficiency. • Create a dedicated play space to avoid having toys and crafts take over. A spunky child managed to let her clutter creep. Her mom, our client, wanted to maintain her in-home of-fice, but after spending some time together seeking to solve the space problem, we deter-mined that the office was the optimal space for her daughter’s dedicated playroom. Unfortunately, my client would have to give up her office. But she never really got to use it because all of her daughter’s toys and crafts spread across the floor and desktops. It’s all about give and take, and this client was happy to sacrifice her office if it meant she could regain control of the five additional spaces her daughter had overtaken. Mom was happy to use her laptop on the kitchen table and enjoy the Zen this clutter-curbing session would produce. • Be realistic about who is using the space and how. Focus on how it can be functional in the current moment. My assistant and I spent the morning collecting all of the toys from the six areas and sorting them in the foyer. Items were spread between three levels of the home, so we got our exercise for the day. We divided toys into catego-ries and purged a huge amount of stuff. My sprinter van was half-full at the end of the session, which means a big bravo to my client for letting go. With the big purge underway, we repurposed a guest room bookcase that had previously stored children’s toys and books. It made sense to move it down to the new playroom and set up a proper system. (The Expedit shelves from Ikea really are wonderful – I would have to rate them as my top Ikea product of all time. They look nice and can be so versatile.) • Purge. Letting go enables you to enjoy more of what you have. I always tell my clients that a space can hold only so much – the sole thing you can change is how much you choose to keep/store. For example, an 8-ounce cup of cof-fee can hold only 8 ounces – if you put in more than 8 ounces, it cannot be enjoyed.

Kuzak’s ClosetPlayroom organization can help curb toy takeover

COURTESY OF AMANDA KUZAK

Sorting and organizing toys into a functional space can reduce clutter and chaos in a playroom.


PLAYROOM

We repurposed the pink bins used in different areas of the house to give an organized and uniform look to the new playroom space. I added chalk labels because they can be changed easily as the young girl develops new interests. Now she can easily be inspired to be crafty and also maintain the space. • Repurpose what you have. I always sort, purge, plan and then shop for products. On the other side of the room is a craft station. We outfitted a simple desk with all of the basic craft supplies a girl could ask for. Her desktop features old standbys, and the drawers are organized with craft kits, office sup-plies, stickers and more. • Schedule time for children to put away and main-tain items in the space. Children love to follow a system once it’s in place. I suggest scheduling short bits of time weekly and longer chunks around birthdays and holi-days, when they will be adding new items to the space. Organization is a learned behavior, so start them young. Before the reorganization, a desk was blocking the window; now it is light and bright. The playroom is just off the living room and kitchen, so it’s right where my client’s daughter wants to be. An added bonus is that the room has a door that can be closed if creativity takes over. Amanda Kuzak is a Los Altos-based professional organizer and estate liquidator. For more information, visit kuzakscloset.com. r

COURTESY OF AMANDA KUZAK

Using bins to store different categories of items adds a nice design flair to any organization project.


TOMATOES

By Tanya KucakSpecial to the Town Crier

The last week of August to the first week of September is the peak of the tomato-growing season in the Bay Area, according to Cynthia Sandberg, owner of Love Apple Farms in Santa Cruz. Depending on the weather, these warmth-lovers are best planted between April 15 and May 1, she said. Cool nights in March and early April will stunt their growth if you plant much earlier. By the time August rolls around, she said, the ones planted at the proper time will be “healthier and happier” than the ones planted in cooler weather. In a presentation on tomato growing earlier this year, Sandberg discussed how to select which varieties to grow.

Sun hours One of the most important factors for gardeners who don’t have an open spot with full-day sun is determining which varieties will be successful in your microclimate. In the following list, “sun hours” means the minimum number of hours of direct sun falling on the leaves of the plant that are required to produce any tomatoes. Of course, the more sun hours you have at your location, the better your chances of getting a good crop. • Cherry tomatoes (1/2 ounce): 3 sun hours minimum • Small tomatoes (1-3 ounces): 4-5 sun hours minimum • Medium tomatoes (4-8 ounces): 5-6 sun hours minimum • Large to extra-large tomatoes (more than 9 ounces): 7-8 sun hours minimum If you don’t have much sun, Sandberg said, you can still grow herbs, greens and root vegetables. Sandberg recommended thinking about how you will use the harvest before selecting varieties to plant. Beefsteak tomatoes – juicy and seedy – are used mostly raw in salads and sliced in sandwiches. They’re “not great for canning,

Size, shape, colorHow to select which types tomatoes to grow

TANYA KUCAK/SPECIAL TO THE TOWN CRIER

Ananas Noire, right, is a beautiful and tasty bi- or tricolor tomato. Also pictured are Purple Calabash, left, and Carmello, center.


TOMATOES

salsa and sauces,” she said, because they contain a lot of liquid and take longer to cook down than less-juicy variet-ies. Oxheart tomatoes, on the other hand, have little juice and very thin skin. Sandberg uses them raw or cooked, for salsa, slicing or canning. Added to a sandwich packed for lunch, they won’t make the bread soggy a couple of hours later, she noted. They’re also the top choice for people who don’t like to eat tomato seeds. Plum, pear and Roma tomatoes, which have an elon-gated shape and thick walls, are also used for salsa and canning. Ruffled tomatoes that are dry and a bit hollow inside are best used for stuffing, Sandberg said. Of course, you will find as many opinions about how to grow and use tomatoes as there are tomato growers. Some aficionados will simply use their best-tasting tomatoes for sauce or salsa, or slice cherry tomatoes for sandwiches, or make a sauce with all yellow varieties.

Color Another dimension of choice is color. Red tomatoes tend to have an old-fashioned flavor that “bites you back,” robust and not sweet, Sandberg said. Pink tomatoes are sweet. Orange and yellow tomatoes tend to be sweet and mild. Black or purple varieties often have a smoky flavor. Green-when-ripe tomatoes have a “complex and interesting” flavor with hints of pineapple and an excellent acid/sweet balance, according to Sandberg, and white varieties can be “some of the sweetest,” with “hints of guava and honey.” Finally, bicolor tomatoes take on the flavor of their coloring. Bicolors can be striped or swirled, with two or more


Heart-shaped tomatoes, like this Belize Pink Heart, are wider than plum or Roma tomatoes, especially on the top half, and often come to a point at the bottom. Also called oxhearts, they are solid, with thin skin and few seeds, so can be used as slicers or canners, salsa or salad tomatoes.



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different colors inside and out, and “every individual tomato looks different,” Sandberg said. Her two favorite tomatoes, Ananas Noire and Orange Russian 117, are in this category. Tanya Kucak is growing approximately 50 varieties of tomatoes this year and is already making a list of new varieties to try next year. Email her at [email protected]. r


TOMATOES

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OAKS

Not all native oaks are susceptible to SODBy Tanya KucakSpecial to the Town Crier

If you love oak trees but are wary of planting one because of Sudden Oak Death, you’ll be glad to know that not all native oaks are sus-ceptible to the pathogen. SOD is a problem for home gar-deners mostly on the edges of wild-lands, where acres of trees, in places, have been lost. It is also prudent to avoid planting known carriers, or TANYA KUCAK/SPECIAL TO THE TOWN CRIER

Blue oaks are named for the blue-green color of their deciduous leaves, seen here in the rain against the reddish-brown bark of a young tree.Continued on Page 24


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host plants, of the pathogen if you live near wild oaks, and to avoid importing mulch from areas where the infection has been found. The iconic oak of California hillsides, coast live oak, is susceptible. So are the other native red/black oaks, including California black oak, interior live oak and Shreve oak. Non-native oaks in this group include red, scarlet and pin oaks. In addition, the oaks classified as intermediate oaks are also susceptible. This taxonomic group includes canyon live oak and island oak, as well as three shrub oaks: huckleberry oak, Cedros Island oak and Palmer’s oak.

White oaks So what’s left? In fact, the pathogen has not infected the largest group of native oaks – white oaks – nor are they thought to be hosts of the pathogen. Furthermore, no hybrids have been found between white and red/black oaks, though “pro-miscuous hybridization” is found among the shrubby white oaks, according to Matt Ritter, a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo biology professor who hosted a recent workshop on tree identification. The names of the groups refer to the color of the wood: red/black oaks feature reddish-brown wood,

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OAKS


In the wild, blue oaks grow in poor soils and areas with little rainfall, so they are well adapted to dry slopes and


hot areas. This blue oak in Los Altos was starting to leaf out in the spring.


intermediate oaks have light-brown wood and white oaks have light-brown or yellowish wood. Other characteris-tics define the groups as well. The white oak group boasts four trees – including California’s largest oak, the valley oak – and eight shrub oaks that are not often seen in gardens. Notably, the acorns of white oaks are usually less bitter than the acorns of red/black oaks. Native white oak trees in-clude: • Valley oak. It grows relatively fast in gardens, up to 40 feet tall and wide in 25 years, eventually reaching 100 feet, with deeply lobed deciduous leaves. • Blue oak. It grows relatively slowly to 15-30 feet high, with gnarled branches, but in time can reach 60 feet, with deciduous blue-green leaves. • Oregon white oak, or Garry oak. It grows 25 feet in 20 years, eventually reaching 90 feet, with deciduous dark green lobed leaves. • Engelmann oak. Grown mainly in Southern Cali-fornia, it can reach 40 feet, with semievergreen blue-green leaves. Shrubby white oaks include scrub oak, Muller oak, Nuttall’s scrub oak, leather oak, Tucker’s oak, island scrub oak, deer oak and desert scrub oak.


OAKS


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Valley oaks Valley oaks once covered the Central Valley, but most of these magnificent trees were cut down to convert the fertile soils to agricultural use. They thrive in rich soils and where their roots can find groundwater, such as near a watercourse or in ar-eas with a high water table, so they are more adaptable to gardens than other oaks. Young trees are more up-right, with age developing a rounded profile, the craggy branches swooping to touch the ground. Like other native oaks, they support a diverse and abundant population of beneficial bugs and birds. Tanya Kucak gardens or-ganically. Email her at [email protected]. r

OAKS

Continued from Page 25 Engelmann oaks are smaller than other white oaks, with blue-green semievergreen leaves. They are less commonly planted than other white oaks.

TANYA KUCAK/ SPECIAL TO THE TOWN CRIER

LILACS


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LILACS

California lilacs come in all sizes

By Tanya KucakSpecial to the Town Crier

Pete Veilleux experiments with all kinds of native plants at his Oakland nursery, has experience planting natives all over the Bay Area and takes regular trips to wild areas. At a recent Gardening with Natives meeting in Los Altos, he discussed some of his favorite ceanothus (also known as California lilac) varieties for gardens. Ceanothus plants come in all sizes, from groundcov-ers a few inches high to a treelike Ray Hartman that “can easily reach 25 feet in a few years,” Veilleux said. And though some varieties of ceanothus like Julia Phelps may be short-lived in gardens, other varieties survive longer. In one garden, Veilleux saw a thriving greenbark ceano-thus that was planted 80 years ago by the client’s grand-father. Unless otherwise noted, ceanothus plants require full sun and don’t need water after they’re established. Most varieties bloom profusely in the spring, usually in shades of blue, with flowers often covering the plant. Some groundcover varieties are grown primarily for the neat-looking foliage and don’t flower as profusely.


The profuse blue flowers of ceanothus shrubs in late winter to late spring lure many pollinators. On a sunny day, you can find the nearest California lilac by listening for the sound of happy bees.



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Ceanothus varieties A very flat groundcover for small, formal gardens, Hearst ceanothus “is pretty even without flowers,” Veilleux said. It performs best in dappled light or, if it’s in full sun, shielded from af-ternoon sun with an eastern or north-ern exposure. Centennial ceanothus is similar, with dark leaves and cobalt-blue flowers. Both are 8-12 inches high and are easy to propagate. Frosty Blue, a tough, dense shrub with light-blue flowers and succulent leaves, “can outcompete weeds,” Veil-leux said. It can reach 8-12 feet. For a lower-growing dense variety, try An-chor Bay, which tops out at approxi-mately 3 feet. Both varieties can toler-ate heavier soils as well. Another variety that does best in part shade is Diamond Heights, which has variegated foliage. The bright-green leaves can add interest to a not-too-dark corner of the garden. It stays under a foot high and spreads only 3-5 feet. Kurt Zadnik is one of Veilleux’s favorites. It grows fast and doesn’t get too big, under 6 feet tall, with sky-blue



The bright-green variegated leaves of Diamond Heights ceanothus are its main attraction, though it also sports light-blue flowers in the spring. Plant it in part shade, and prune solid-colored leaves as soon as they appear to preserve the variegation.



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flowers. It thrives in shade, and even flowers well in part shade. One of the most dependable variet-ies is Joyce Coulter. Veilleux uses it a lot in the gardens he creates. It’s especially good where not much else grows, on slopes or in poor soil, he said. It com-bines well with other aggressive plants like Point Sal purple sage. Typically it grows 2-3 feet high and spreads widely with long, trailing branches featuring prolific gentian blue flowers in the spring. According to Veilleux, a newer va-riety, Blue Ray, has “gorgeous flowers” and is a good alternative to Ray Hart-man if you need a taller variety that “stays nice” after it flowers. It can reach 10 feet high and 15 feet wide. Berryhill is another variety Veilleux recommends. It has shiny leaves and grows in low mounds up to 2 feet high. The flowers are brilliant blue. Tanya Kucak gardens organically. Email her at [email protected]. r



This young, small-leafed Dark Star ceanothus is similar to Julia Phelps ceanothus, but it has a more upright and less spreading form. Both have dark-blue flowers and small dark-green leaves, grow fast and are shorter-lived than other varieties if they get summer water.


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