Landscape

Wurster asked landscape architect Lawrence Halprin to design a small garden for his new home on Greenwood Terrace shortly after he moved in. At the time they discussed ideas for Greenwood Common. Lawrence Halprin’s suggestions included many of the ideas that still exist.

Halprin thought the common area should function as a community center rather than as a decorative piece and favored leaving it open and simple. The program specified among other things that an open feeling should be maintained, native plants should be used, and some area should be assigned to children’s play and some for adult relaxation with book and blanket.

Halprin’s plan proposed a biomorphic oval filled with grass set at the end of the plum allée between the Maenchen and Baer homes. Benches provided places to rest along the oval path; lighting marked the way at night. A fountain would have stood in the curve where the oval path joined the path to the parking lot. 

Halprin considered a fountain “a funny thing to have on the Common,”  and it raised a number of concerns such as whether it would enhance the area or create a problem and whether it would it be safe for children. Although charming in a sort of 50’s way, it is probably just as well that it was never constructed as it would have grounded the landscape in a specific era rather than allow the existing feeling of natural timelessness.

Overall, the design reflected both the needs of the residents and a respect for the site. Retaining the Monterey pines, the simple elegance of the plum allée, the central lawn, and the choice and placement of the native and low-maintenance plants resulted in an unpretentious yet near-perfect relationship between home and collective landscape.

Wurster’s original idea pushed the north rank of houses to the rear of their lots to maximize the garden spaces facing the Common. That raised the question of whether Halprin should develop a uniform planting scheme for all the properties on the north side of the driveway. Sadly, a uniform plan was mooted as the north side properties became isolated from the Common by tall fences that created gardens for each of the homes and provided privacy from the public areas as well as the intended homes on the center lots.

In 1976, after 25 years of not exercising their option to build, the heirs of the owners of lots 5 & 6, who resided on the East Coast, offered to sell their lots to the residents of the Common. The owners agreed to purchase the two lots and add them to the commonly held open space. Not developing the two lots contributed enormously to the identity of the Common, both for the residents and the wider community. Rather than simply a closed community with a common space at its center, Greenwood Common became the current open green area with the stupendous view of the San Francisco Bay now graciously shared by the owners of its homes and their neighbors.