Born again

I was born again yesterday -- by accident: I shimmied into a 19th century irrigation tower and discovered some strategically placed “artwork” within.

I photographed Frenchman’s Tower on Friday for a Town Crier article about an effort to update an outdated list of historic Los Altos Hills sites. The list, for example, lays claim to this stately tower, but it’s actually located in Palo Alto along Old Page Mill Road.

Circa 1875, a French refugee named Peter Coutts constructed his two-story brick tower to serve as water storage for cattle. There’s no door, and the gothic windows have long been bricked over, presumably to keep vandals out. The only way inside is by squirming through a tiny hole a particularly obstinate vandal busted into the backside, and doing so requires first lowering onto one’s hands and knees and then “diving in” head first or blindly backing in legs first. I chose the latter.

Looking up inside the tower

The tower’s roof, if there had ever been one, is missing and only rafters remained, so the inside is surprisingly light and airy. While visitors have scratched their initials and names into every brick within reach on the outside, those that ventured inside proved even bolder when obscured from view, and they have graced the interior bricks with spray-painted scrawls of names (“Peasey?”), dates, and yes, depictions of the miracle of life. Broken glass and trash litter the floor. Something unseen smells suspiciously like excrement.

I’ve always been attracted to romantic hideaways. As a kid, I accosted many an unfamiliar wardrobe in the hopes of discovering a portal into a fantasy world of fauns and talking beavers. And 12-year-old me once prided herself on transforming a neighbor’s firewood lean-to into a royal court for King Henry, Queen Jessie, Princess Violet and Prince Benny, titles and names my sister and our friends christened ourselves with. So it was with some satisfaction that I surveyed the interior of Frenchman’s Tower, my personal fortress for the 20 minutes it took me to photograph the sad, spray-painted bricks and stark shadows cast from the sun-lit rafters. Finally, I surrendered my imaginary crown and crawled back out (or in?) to await the bicyclist or casual hiker who would lend some element of action to my exterior shots.

Within 10 minutes, a minivan pulled up and parked beside the tower. A father-like figure and two teen girls alighted. I squeezed my shutter as they rounded my fortress and disappeared from sight, presumably to be born again too.

Additional Reading:

• "The legend of Frenchman's Tower," Union-Democrat newspaper, Sept. 13, 1951
• Frenchman's Tower Wikipedia page
• Los Altos Hills General Plan, Appendix A: Inventory of Historic Sites and Structures