De Laveaga's Will

By Ross Eric Gibson

[De Laveaga] and his parents first visited Santa Cruz in the 1870s, they boarded at Andrew Trust’s house on Lincoln Street, bringing their Spanish servants, and doing their own cooking. They eventually made the Joseph Pierrugues residence their local headquarters, at Pacific and Maple streets. De Laveaga loved horseback riding, and was often seen on county roads a-mount a silver-decorated saddle on his black pacer, Duke.

It was not hard to perceive that De Laveaga was a descendent of Spanish nobility, from his quiet composure and distant air. Yet this was more a symptom of his near-total deafness, which isolated him in crowds, and made it hard for this life-long bachelor to make friends. Far from feeling superior and aloof, De Laveaga developed a strong empathy for the helpless, the afflicted, and animals.

His love of nature led him to purchase in gold, a forested estate of hills and canyons in 1887, that grew to 565 acres by 1892, valued at $81,500. He first laid out a network of bridal trails, planting a wide variety of forest trees, vineyards, citrus and nut groves, and rare plantings from around the world. The estate was watered by five springs and 14 streams plus a flume along Branciforte Creek powering a waterwheel.

Local tailor Peter Anderson became his close friend and riding companion, and De Laveaga's ties to the local deaf community eased his lonely existence. But these friendships were cut short in 1894, when De Laveaga died in Santa Cruz at age 50.

This revealed a side of him few knew, as numerous folk told of his unheralded generosity. Even his will left $775,000 of his $900,000 estate to charity, with bequests to his servants, friends, protestant and Jewish hospitals and orphanages, the needy of Spain, Mexico and Switzerland, local societies protecting animals and children, and Golden Gate Park.

And his Santa Cruz estate, straddling the city line, was given to the city and county for a park. 50 acres of the park were to be set aside for a large facility to serve the deaf, blind, lame, paralytic and aged, of restricted means. Rentals of several San Francisco properties would pay for its operation.

Then the illegitimate son of a deceased brother challenged the will, asking for a third of the estate. Litigation dragged on for years, and while the challenger lost, the will was also invalidated by section 1313 of the California Civil Code. It stated that only 1/3rd of an estate can be given to charity. So Santa Cruz got its park, but not its asylum. Yet appropriately, the park became home to a zoo, animal shelter and riding academy.

In 1908, trolley service ran up Morrissey and Pacheco Avenues to its original main entrance, with elegant rock gateposts adorned with six lanterns and flowering arbors. In 1912, the local women's club felt a fitting memorial to this naturalist was to build, overlooking the main entrance, a Rose Pergola, consisting of three rustic gazebos linked by arbors with a central Moorish dome over a fountain. This stood on Rosario Ridge, named for his birthplace, with a commemorative plaque on a stone monument in front of it. Today the remains of his memorial lie in overgrown vandalized ruins.

Over its lifetime, De Laveaga Park has contained 14 park areas, including an 1894 covered bridge, three movie studios complete with false-front architecture, an amphitheater, rifle and archery ranges, and the "Flying Links" Frisbee golf course. The military presence began in 1901, with a decade of the state militia encampment on the western bluff. The Armory took over the zoo site after 1933, blocking off the main entrance, and later the Naval Reserve blocked off the Parkway entrance.

Then in 1974, a group of teachers recovering from strokes, conceived a center with classes teaching how to get well, or how to live with a disability. They acquired Cabrillo College as a sponsor, and located the Cabrillo College Stroke Center in the park's abandoned Naval building. It's served as a model for programs patterned after it around the world, and by shear coincidence, fulfills De Laveaga's original dream for his park.

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