Last updated: May 18, 2018
Place
Messina Orchard
Photograph by Seth Bergstein, courtesy of California State Historic Preservation Office
Quick Facts
Location:
San Jose, California
Significance:
agriculture, architecture
Designation:
Listed in the National Register of Historic Places (ref# 100002288)
OPEN TO PUBLIC:
No
The Messina Orchard is significant in the area of agriculture, for its association with the agricultural development of the Santa Clara Valley and for its architecture, for its two intact, period revival single-family residences, formal landscaping, extant farm buildings and orchard trees. Two generations of the Messina family worked the orchard. Stefano and Marie Messina constructed the 1935 Stefano and Marie Messina house and formal gardens as a distinctive and representative example of the Spanish Revival style. The residence possesses a high degree of historic integrity. Richard Messina, Stefano Messina’s son, constructed the second family house, the 1949 Richard and Anita Messina house, as a distinctive and representative example of the Mediterranean Revival style, with Mid-Century Modern interior details. The district also contains two agricultural buildings, an agricultural structure, original farm equipment and orchard trees from when the Messina Orchard employed up to 25 persons in the cultivation and processing of fruit, contributing to the vast fruit production that earned the Santa Clara Valley the name, “Valley of Heart’s Delight.”