Monte Sereno History
Unlike many other Silicon Valley towns, Monte Sereno wasn’t a mill town and, because of its hilly, wooded topography, it didn’t develop any significant agriculture. This is also the reason it never established a traditional downtown area. Instead, Monte Sereno matured slowly as a small gathering of ranches, orchards, dairies, and summer homes accented by a few large estates.
Years ago, Monte Sereno, like neighboring Los Gatos, attracted artists seeking refuge from San Jose and San Francisco. Countless writers, painters, dancers, and general bohemians came to the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains for inspiration – and cheap rent – before and after World War II. The most famous of these was John Steinbeck, who wrote the “Grapes of Wrath” and “Of Mice and Men” between 1936 and 1938 while residing in a small cabin he built on Greenwood Lane. Neal Cassady, a Beat Generation icon who inspired author Jack Kerouac, also lived in Monte Sereno in a modest ranch home. Though known for his wanderings, Cassady lived a fairly conventional life in Monte Sereno during the 1950s, raising his children in a home on Bancroft Avenue that was razed in 1997. In its place stands a much larger, two-story home more consistent with modern Monte Sereno but somewhat lacking in legend.
Be they artists, city refugees, or ranchers, Monte Sereno’s handful of residents were content to live in an unincorporated town with a Los Gatos postal address. That changed in the late 1950s when a retired U.S. Navy Admiral named Thomas B. Inglis noticed what he considered to be some nefarious intentions on the part of the city of Los Gatos.
Inglis began to see signs that Los Gatos was planning to annex Monte Sereno, putting in peril its rural atmosphere and driving up its residents’ property taxes. Along with others, Inglis formed the West County Improvement Association. “By control of zoning, Monte Sereno can preserve the natural scenic beauty and residential character of our city,” Inglis told a reporter in 1982, the town’s 25th anniversary of incorporation. “This can be done through incorporation, which is the only way to protect ourselves against exploitation of empire-building cities and absentee landowners.”
At the time, the annexation of rural areas was relatively easy, a fact compounded by rumors that the city of Los Gatos was promising large landowners that post-annexation, their lots would be rezoned to commercial parcels, making them worth a great deal of money. Monte Sereno moved to incorporate and Los Gatos, taking advantage of an unintended mistake in the map submitted by the Monte Sereno group, responded by trying to block the vote in court. After a great deal of drama, the map was corrected. As such, the original Los Gatos argument that Monte Sereno was essentially uninhabited, and thus not eligible for incorporation, was rebuked. Monte Sereno achieved its incorporation via a 60% majority on April 23, 1957.
