The L-shaped one story structure in Stanford University’s graduate housing village may be the community’s administrative nerve center today but there was a time it housed a family. It was the home Peter Coutts built for his family and from where he ran his huge stock farm until he sold it to his famous next door neighbor, Leland Stanford.
Dubbed Escondite Cottage (the Hiding Place) by David Starr Jordan, who lived in the house for a short time as the president of Stanford University, the house was known for its Chintz wallpaper and odd French furniture. From Escondite, Coutts kept himself busy and a crew employed constructing buildings, planting trees and even installing a man-made lake at the top of what is now Frenchman’s Road.
Adjacent to Escondite, the Tower House is yet another remnant of the Coutts Ranch. Recently renovated, the brick house and its tower next door to the Bing Nursery School were built with the intention of housing Coutts’ rare book collection. After Stanford purchased the Coutts farm, he turned the Tower House into a night school for his employees. It has also been used as a drafting room, the office of university president David Starr Jordan and later a school for faculty children. It will now take on a new life as workspace for the Bing Nursery School staff.
Today a drive up Frenchman’s Road reveals other vestiges of Coutts’ elaborate plans for his farm. Around a gap in the ground that was once a man-made reservoir for Coutts ranch are the crumbling remains of a miniature tower and rock walls along with an arched brick footbridge. Ringed by Gerona and Frenchman’s Road, this area is no longer filled with water. It is now Frenchman’s Park, the scene of many block parties and daily dog walking.
More than 100 years after Peter Coutts pulled up roots and returned to his origins in France, his presence is still felt on the campus of the world-renowned Stanford University. Sure academic buildings and student life has sprouted up where cattle and horses once roamed. If you look closely though, you can still see the hand of the mysterious Frenchman who had such visions for his one time farm.
