Darned if it didn't work.

The process went something like this: I got to thinking of the various incarnations this building had gone through from the time it was built as a drugstore around 1905 until it was moved to this location in 1975. The use that stuck in my mind was when it was the Renn's Candy store, from the early 1920s until Levi Renn built the structure now housing the Village Rendezvous restaurant—I think around 1932.

In both the locations, the store sold groceries as well as operating as a confectionery, and in my mind's eye, I could see the "Groceteria" sign that was once on the rear wall. Groceteria—what a concept! It meant that you didn't have to ask the clerk for your purchase—you simply looked on the shelves and picked out what you wanted, like choosing your meal in a cafeteria. Somewhere along the line, Safeway got the idea—or was it Piggly-Wiggly? Remember that outfit?—and look what we have today. I'm kind of sorry the term didn't survive. "Groceteria" somehow seems to have more class than "supermarket."

While thinking about Renn's store, I was reminded of the time—it must have been around 1928 or so—when a car crashed through the front, all the way into the building, killing the driver. That was when north-south traffic through town had to negotiate two virtually 90-degree turns around the plaza. In this instance, the car came barreling down Saratoga­Los Gatos Road and simply didn't make the right-hand turn around the plaza. As to the fatality, I thought that if ever a building was ripe for haunting, the museum is it. What a way to go!

After that episode, there were a half-dozen 4-foot pillars installed on the edge of the sidewalk in front of the store. These were steel railroad rails encased in concrete, and it would have taken at least a World War II medium tank to have knocked one down. Not that automobile drivers didn't try. On at least one of the pillars all the concrete was knocked away, exposing the steel rail. But the cars didn't get into the store.

On one of the museum walls, where I remember the "Groceteria" sign having been in Renn's store, is a large advertising sign for the Saratoga Inn. I don't know where it had been displayed originally, but I have an idea it was out of town, since "Near Electric Railway Station" appears in large letters. In equally large letters is the line "Modern—Home Like."

Occupying most of the space on the sign is a hand-painted view that looks through the street-side arbor, heavy with growth, and down the path to the inn entrance. As much as any feature, the Saratoga Inn set the tone for the town as a refined, genteel destination for city dwellers seeking a quiet atmosphere in a matchless scenic setting.

There were other places, too, contributing to this ambience: Lundblad's Lodge on Oak Street; Toyon Lodge at the end of Vickery Lane; The Terrace, at a Julia Morgan­designed house on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road; The Lodge on Congress Springs Road; and, for a few years after 1939, the Orchard Guest House at the old Neil Carmichael house on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road.

Needless to say, this roster of hostelries predated the present bed-and-breakfast phobia and attendant zoning concerns. I think of the Saratoga Inn as the bellwether in all this. Built in 1912, the same year James D. Phelan created Villa Montalvo, the inn was brought into being by community leaders who saw the need for a hostelry, what with the arrival of the interurban trolley line in 1904 and the destruction by fire in 1903 of Congress Hall, which had served visitors to Congress Springs.

The inn was closed in the early 1960s. Today the name is preserved by the Saratoga Inn Place condominiums, which occupy the site. It's been a few years since I've done so, but I don't think it will be out of place to recount some of its lore in future columns. If this smacks of redundancy, blame the historical museum and osmosis.