The Hayes Mansion at 200 Edenvale Ave. is now a hotel and conference center. It was built as one of the Santa Clara Valley's grandest family homes.

Mary Hayes Chynoweth

According to the National Park Service, Mary Folsom was born in 1825 in upstate New York. She became a teacher, then left teaching to travel as a preacher and healer, which was very unusual for a woman of her era. She married Anson Hayes and had two sons, Everis and Jay. After Anson's death she married San Jose attorney Thomas Chynoweth.

The Park Service says the family made money in mining near Ashland, Wisconsin, before moving to California. The Hayes brothers became early publishers of the San Jose Mercury and were active in politics and the valley's fruit industry. Wikipedia says Everis Hayes served seven terms in Congress, from 1905 to 1919, and Jay Hayes founded the California Prune and Apricot Growers Association, which became Sunsweet.

A fire-safe villa

Both sources say the family's first house on the site burned in 1899 and that architect George Page designed the replacement. The Park Service says the 41,000-square-foot villa was meant as a triple residence for Mary and her two sons' families, but Mary died before it was finished. It is laid out like a Maltese cross, with an 18-foot-wide solarium joining the north and south wings.

Because of the earlier fire, the Park Service says, the walls are double brick with a stucco coating. There are fire hose cabinets throughout the house, connected to water tanks on the third floor. The kitchen was in a separate building.

The estate was largely self-sufficient. The Park Service says it had its own power plant, post office, railroad station and a dormitory for 40 ranch hands, none of which survive.

Decline and revival

The Hayes families sold the house in the 1950s, and it sat empty and decayed. Wikipedia says the City of San Jose bought it in 1985, and both sources say the restored mansion reopened in 1994 as a conference center. Wikipedia says it is now part of Hilton's Curio Collection and is surrounded by the 20-acre Edenvale Gardens park. It is California Historical Landmark No. 888.