The Weilheimer House
By Nick Perry MVHA Vice President
The City Council will soon be asked to decide the fate of one of our city’ s most notable historic structures, the Weilheimer House, located at 938 Villa Street. Today, the house is known throughout the region as Chez TJ, one of the Bay Area’ s most notable fine-dining establishments. But its history stretches far past the arrival of any Michelin stars in Mountain View.
To understand the significance of the Weilheimer House, we need to go back all the way to the original founding of Mountain View in the 1850s and share the history of the Weilheimer family, one of Mountain View’ s leading pioneer families and one of the few Jewish families to settle in the region during its earliest era of development.
The Weilheimer House as featured on the front page of the Mtn. View Register on March 5, 1905.
In the 1850s, the primary mode of travel on the Peninsula was stagecoach and the most popular route traversed El Camino Real, then known as the San Francisco-San Jose Road. A natural stopping point was where the road forded Stevens Creek and a stagecoach stop was established. Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, a diverse group of enterprising pioneers opened businesses near the stagecoach stop and named their town“ Mountain View.”
Among those original pioneers were brothers Seligman and Samuel Weilheimer. Seligman arrived in the area in 1852 from Dossenheim, Germany. His brother followed three years later and together they opened a general merchandise store in Mountain View. In 1856, Seligman married Sophie Baer. After their wedding in San Francisco they took the stagecoach to their new home in Mountain View, where Sophie helped the brothers run their general store.
When the newly constructed railroad( today’ s Caltrain) bypassed Mountain View in 1864, a“ New Mountain View” emerged near the train depot. Castro Street became the new community’ s downtown. The Weilheimers were among the first merchants to set up shop on Castro Street; they opened a second branch of their general store( Mountain View’ s first“ chain” store!) at 124 Castro Street in 1870. It was originally known as the“ Farmer’ s Store.” The one-story Italianate commercial building is still there today; likely now one of the oldest commercial buildings standing in northern Santa Clara County.
The Weilheimers expanded their businesses in New Mountain View. As noted in Milestones: A History of Mountain View,
The Weilheimers’ Farmer’ s Store( left) and the Weilheimer’ s Hotel( right) were two of the first buildings on Castro Street.
The Weilheimer House as it appears today.
“ A visitor stepping off the train in Mountain View would immediately see Weilheimer’ s Hotel with its adjacent livery and horse corral that faced Front Street [ now Evelyn Avenue ].” In 1882, Samuel and his family moved to San Francisco. Seligman remained and continued to run the family businesses and also became the town’ s Wells Fargo agent.
Seligman and Sophie’ s children were among the very first generation to be born and reared in Mountain View. Their son Julius grew up to become one of the town’ s earliest civic leaders. From 1886 to 1889, he served as the town’ s postmaster. Upon his father’ s death in 1899, Julius took over operation of the general store. During that same year, Julius married Fannie Ickleheimer. The town’ s affection for Julius is evident in the article recounting their wedding in the Mountain View Register:
“ Our popular young merchant Julius Weilheimer and Miss Fannie Ickleheimer married in San Francisco last Sunday. Julius Weilheimer,‘ our Julius’, who has for so many years succeeded in running the gauntlet of brighteyed maidens and disiguiing [ sic ] mamas, capitulated and joined the army of more or less happy benedicts, by leading to the altar Miss Fannie Ickleheimer of San Francisco.”
Julius Weilheimer
The paper went on to note that the Weilheimers would,“… go at once to their new home, which has been furnished and fitted
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