“This year we focused on the east hills of Gilroy. I think it’s not a very well-known part of town,” says Kelly Barbazette, member of Gilroy Assistance League (GALs), a nonprofit organization with 35 active members. This is Kelly’s fifth year working with GALs for their annual “Impressions” Home and Garden Tour.
GALs raises money and awards grants each April to youth groups that apply. “A lot of these little groups couldn’t make it unless they get grants from different organizations,” says member Sherri Kennedy. “With this house tour, it’s supplemented the funds that we can bring in tremendously. So, it’s been fantastic. The members give up their time to get everything organized and we let the homeowners know a year in advance, so they can get ready and prepare and do their thing.”
The annual Home and Garden Tour is GALs largest fundraiser. Last month GALs grants totalling $21,000 were awarded to 13 organizations benefiting local youth.
“GALs has actually transformed,” says Kennedy. “It used to be groups sponsoring the Children’s Home Society, it was adoption services and everything. Then, years ago there were members of the group that said ‘look we’re not doing this much anymore, so let’s turn it just toward Gilroy and Gilroy youth’ and so all of that happened about the late ’80s and then I’ve been a member since early ’90s.”
Three homes were shown in this year’s tour. One was the home of Dolores DeFrancesco. Built by Dolores and her late husband Al, the DeFrancesco’s 7,200-square-foot Mediterranean style home offers panoramic views atop 120 acres in East Gilroy. The home shows beautifully with granite and oak inlaid floors in the foyer, a substantial kitchen, limited edition hand-painted wash basins and toilets by Kohler and a whimsical rooster collection. The home also includes a 1,200-square-foot party room that Vicki Card says is “used for family, entertaining friends, she has a bible study group. She plays bridge—you’ll see her chairs are all covered with cards. Which is really cute.”
“We’ve had many celebrations here,” says Mia Eaton, Delores DeFrancesco’s daughter and GALs volunteer. “We’ve had bridal showers, birthday parties. We love cooking and eating and feeding people.”
Asked how long it took the DeFrancescos to build, Eaton says “we built it from the ground up. [Dolores] did all the floor plans and all the finishes, she didn’t have an interior designer, she did it.”
The DeFrancesco home also features oak and cherry fixtures throughout and includes wood-wrapped beveled windows by Kolbe, which are especially flattering to the outside views, making each window appear like a painting.
One might expect nothing less in the home of an artist, whose in-home studio is on the second floor. The 74-year-old Dolores DeFrancesco is an avid painter and much of her own art is featured throughout the home. On the property, she personally tends to a small vineyard and vegetable garden.
Taking the tour through the home, Barbazette, the GALs member responsible for this year’s home descriptions, says that no home is featured twice. “What’s really unique about this tour is that all of the homes are really different, and what’s different this year is that we are ending at a winery. That’s where we have our home and garden boutique with all local artists.”
The home of Dr. John and Rachel Perez was also featured in this year’s tour. Influenced by Southwest and Mediterranean architectural styles, this three-level home of 7,000 square feet is set on a stunning 10.5-acre property overlooking the South Valley. Decorated with works of Native American communities of the Hopi and Navajo as well as Mexican artisans, the Perez home shows like a museum with eye-catching, well-organized collections throughout. Each collection is as unique and colorful as the indigenous people it represents.
Descending to the first floor of the home, one passes a grouping of Mexican mask folk art. Each mask is collected from a different state in Mexico. Their style and detail reflect the region the mask came from. For instance, masks from northwest Mexico tend toward primitive, plain designs, compared to the more colorful and detailed masks from central or southern parts of Mexico. Each mask is unique and signifies the ancient spiritual beliefs and traditions from where it came. Masks are traditionally used for religious ceremony and ritual dances. When worn, dancers are spiritually and psychologically transformed into deities or supernatural forces.
“I think it’s just lovely to see people’s homes and how they really just put their hearts into them. You could just see so much effort and thought. You could just imagine sitting out on the patios having your morning coffee,” says first-time home tour guest and Gilroy resident Jen Hagen.
The Perezes put their own sweat into the home, says home tour volunteer Mia DeLorenzo “She stained all of the doors herself, and these beams here—she went ahead and routed them and the doctor installed them.”
The Perezes continue to add new features, including a first-floor sauna now under construction, not far from their theater room, where the cornerstone of the property was first laid.
“Everything is very personal and meaningful,” DeLorenzo adds, pointing to the collection of Mexican blue pottery and several lithographs of plains Indians trading with fur trappers. “The things mean so much to her and show their ethnic backgrounds, it just blows me away. She’s a very talented woman.”
The pottery, El Palomar Blue Bird Butterfly, in the Perez collection is by El Palomar in Tonala, Jalisco. The Perezes visited the factory and purchased the set on a trip to Mexico in 1980. It’s the same pattern, but in green, that was gifted to President and Lady Bird Johnson by Mexico’s president in the 1960s.
The tour has a team for each homesite, made up of current GALs members and honorary members—usually former GALs volunteers who return to help during the home tour.
Tiffany Oetinger, chair for this year’s home tour has been with GALs for about five years. She explains how the teams come together. “We typically start actually crunching down and dialing in all of the details of it about January. As far as getting all of your team in place and your home captains and your logistics and your co-chair, that all starts at the end of this tour,” she says. “My co-chair, who’s Margaret Demers, will be chair next year, so she’s probably already reaching out to homeowners.”
Each year, GALs fundraisers, including the Home and Garden Tour, help meet the needs of underserved youth in our community. This year’s tour concluded with a home and garden boutique at Miramar Vineyards, where attendees were invited to sample the vineyard’s wines, taste recipes from GALs cookbook and check out handmade art, jewelry and food items sold by local artisans and specialty food makers.
“What’s good about this event is it’s not just a girl thing, it’s not just a guy thing,” Kennedy says. “This is to get men and women, young people, to come through and you can just see it, people love to go inside other people’s homes.”
Gilroy Assistance League (GALs) supports youth organizations and programs in Gilroy through their annual fundraiser ‘Impressions’ Home and Garden Tour in May and through individual donations. GALs is a registered 501(c)3 organization.
If you would like to know more about the Gilroy Assistance League or make a donation, go to gilroyassistanceleague.org or call (408) 713-1414.
This is to get men and women, young people, to come through and you can just see it, people love to go inside other people’s homes.
