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Frontier Village
History
Frontier Village's new owners were ready to expand the park onto another 60 acres on the Hayes estate and Hollings was all ready to design the new park attractions for the new expansion. The problem was that the land surrounding the Hayes estate had, in the mean time, become a quiet suburb full of family homes. Those families fought against Frontier Village's ambitious expansion project. In an interview for the San Jose Mercury News in 1988, Zukin said "We got to the point where the planning commission was ready to grant us permission to expand, but the homeowners protested and Rio Grande decided it wasn't worth the hassle."
The new Frontier Village owners quickly capitalized on the rapidly rising San Jose property values and they built condominiums on the 60 acres that were originally planned for the park's first expansion. More condominiums were built where Frontier Village's parking lot and its main entrance gate were located. The new housing development was insultingly named "Frontier Village." The land that the park occupied was eventually made into a city park called Edenvale Garden Park, where some remains of Frontier Village still exist, if you know where to look. The Hayes Mansion is a state, local, and national historic landmark and was completely restored. It now can be rented for conventions and weddings.
After Frontier Village closed,
Joe Zukin lived in Los Altos, California and owned a broadcasting
and outdoor advertising business called Meadowland Pacific Company.
Laurie Hollings continued to live within walking distance of
Frontier Village for many years. He lived near the park that
in his own words he designed as "a labor of love."
Just before Frontier Village closed in 1980, Lillyan Brannon
said "We seem to be uprooting anything that has to do with Pictured: Joe Zukin and Allen Weitzel, 11/2004. |
In 1973, Zukin wanted to expand
Frontier Village, but the 2300 shareholders that had a stake
in the park couldn't finance such a large and ambitious project.
As a result, Frontier Village was sold to Rio Grande Industries
(who incidentally also eventually owned 
Development
In a San Francisco Chronicle article
from 1980, a spokesman for Rio Grande Industries named Marq Lipton
said that Frontier Village "...wasn't bringing the return
on investment it should have. In the end, it didn't make good
business sense to keep it open as an amusement park." He
later said "We didn't want to see Frontier Village close.
We're not happy either, but business is business." The legal
hassles with the nearby homeowners, the skyrocketing San Jose
land value, plus increasing competition from the new Marriott's
Great America in nearby Santa Clara, California that opened in
1976 all put the squeeze on little Frontier Village. Rio Grande
sold Frontier Village to a real estate developer in Los Angeles
named Bren Company in 1980. A public auction for all the rides
and buildings had been held and all the rides were sold, as was
the lumber used in the buildings. Frontier Village closed forever
on September 28, 1980, almost twenty years after it opened.
Frontier Village did not close
without a fight from concerned San Jose citizens. Lillyan Brannon,
president of United New Conservationists, led a petition drive
to save Frontier Village. By September 19, 1980, the group had
collected half of the 20,000 signatures needed by October 1,
1980 to require San Jose's City Council to declare the park's
site a historical landmark or place a measure on the Frontier
Village issue before the city voters. In the San Francisco Chronicle,
Brannon said "It's too bad children can't sign our petition
because this would be a cinch." If the petition passed,
the ordinance would also have preserved the Hayes Mansion.
our heritage and replacing old, historically important buildings
with modern tract homes." Mrs. Brannon could have not been
more correct.