Street Talk
Satake
CT
100
By Nick Perry
MVHA Vice President
If you turn off of Miramonte Avenue on to
Marilyn Drive and make your way to the end of the street, you’ll
ind yourself on Satake Court. But not too long ago, this same
route would have taken you straight into a hidden remnant of
Mountain View’s agricultural past.
Satake Court is named after the Satake Family, a Japanese
American family with deep roots in Mountain View. The land
now occupied by Satake Court was purchased by the family in
1941, when it was part of a 40-acre orchard. Family plans to
pull out the orchard and plant row crops were shelved after
the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the onset of war between the
United States and Japan. The family decided to relocate to Utah
before they were placed in an internment camp. A neighbor in
Mountain View maintained their orchard during the war years.
After the war, the Satake family returned to Mountain View and
resumed their agricultural business. The post-World War II
growth boom prompted the family to sell most of their 40-acres
for residential development, but they held on to 6.5-acres to
operate their family nursery. As residential development quickly
replaced the surrounding agricultural land the Satake Nursery
quickly became an isolated agricultural island. Marilyn Drive
was constructed right to the edge of the nursery’s eastern and
western borders, but the nursery served as a lower- illed
View of the Satake Nursery from the end of Marilyn Drive c. 2000
barrier for anyone expecting to use Marilyn Drive to travel
between Springer Road and Miramonte Avenue.
In 2006, the Satake family decided to close the nursery and
sell their land. By then, it was one of the last productive
agricultural properties in the area. The property was
purchased by Summerhill Homes and developed as a single-
family home subdivision named “Satake Estates.” Original
development plans called for inally connecting the western
and eastern ends of Marilyn Drive, but concerns about
commuter traf ic using the street as a cut-through prompted
the developers to take a different approach.
Instead, the eastern half of Marilyn Drive turns into a cul-de-
sac named Satake Court. The western half of Marilyn Drive
turns into a cul-de-sac named Marigold Court, in honor of
one of the popular lowers that the Satakes cultivated on
the site for six decades. A pathway allows pedestrians and
bikes to travel between the two disconnected segments of
Marilyn. Both the street names and the conspicuous gap
in Marilyn Drive will serve as a reminder of the Satake
Nursery’s longtime presence.
MARILYN DR.
MARILYN DR.
Aerial View Today
Aerial View c. 2006
MARILYN DR.
Satake Nursery
MARILYN DR.
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