Barron House

In the 1890s G.W. Snyder owned the original 9.1-acre parcel. Ernest S. Barron, sales manager for the Ainsley Packing Company, first occupied the commodious California bungalow, built in 1917. The house featured a large sun porch, gabled dormer, and porte-cochere with wisteria vines and iris annuals, while its interior beamed ceilings and mirrored, leaded glass dining cabinet were classic for the period. In 1924 Barron founded Barron-Gray Packing Company, later known as Dole Pineapple Canning Company; that same year he died and left the business to his partner Herbert Gray, who developed fruit cocktail in 1926. In the 1930s the house was the residence of realtor Charles W. and Ethel Shumway, whose family's deodra cedar Christmas trees were planted in the front yard in 1931 and 1937. In 1949 Fred I. and Dixie Rice owned the house until 1962, when it was expanded and converted to the Pine Gables Guest House, operated by Beatrice Crill. In 1970 Marjorie Schneider continued its operation as a home for the aged. In 1997 Joseph Quilici and his father Adolph removed the non-original additions and restored the building to an adaptive commercial office reuse to buffer the Union Avenue residential areas from the bustling Prune Yard and Campbell Avenue Retail Centers. This portion of Union Avenue in Campbell has long been occupied by important local business people and forms a historically and architecturally significant district.

Campbell, California · United States