The fenced oak grassland on Alpine Road, across from Roberts Market, has been public land since 2011. It has been closed for that whole time. As of this fall, the trails are not what keeps it closed. The trail plan has been agreed for more than a year. What remains open is a lot of 25 to 50 spaces near the road, the driveway that would serve it, and a 2005 easement that two public agencies read differently.
The Hawthorns Area is a 79-acre part of Windy Hill Open Space Preserve, bounded by Alpine Road on the west and Los Trancos Road on the east. It came to the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, known as Midpen, from the Woods Family Trust. At the time it was the largest private land gift Midpen had ever received. Voters wrote "open the Hawthorns Area" into Measure AA, the $300 million bond they approved in 2014, so the question has never been whether it opens. The question is how people will reach it.
The Trails Were Settled in 2025
A 15-member Public Access Working Group spent 2023 and 2024 drafting trail and parking recommendations. Midpen's Board accepted them on March 12, 2025. The draft Action Table, which the Board approved on May 6, 2026 as the basis for environmental review, sets out a small, specific preserve:
- About 66 of the 79 acres open to on-trail use
- About 1.5 miles of new trail: an internal loop plus spur trails to viewpoints with benches and signs
- A connection to the Town's Alpine Trail
- Docent-led naturalist outings and volunteer removal of invasive plants
On the internal trails and the Alpine Trail links, the working group supported use by hikers, equestrians, cyclists and leashed dogs. The scenic outlooks would face San Francisco Bay. Hours would follow every other Midpen preserve, opening half an hour before sunrise and closing half an hour after sunset.
Neighbors in Portola Valley Ranch should know that the plan does not include connections to the Sweet Springs or Valley Oak trails. Midpen says it would look at a Sweet Springs link only after the preserve opens, together with the Town and the Ranch community.
None of the trail plan is in dispute. The rest of this post is about parking.
Two Driveways on Alpine Road
Midpen does not open trails without parking. It serves 770,000 constituents across San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, and most of them drive to its preserves. Without a lot, Midpen expects those visitors would park on nearby streets or in the commercial lots along Alpine Road. Before settling on its own lot, Midpen asked Roberts Market, Alpine Hills Tennis and Swimming Club, and Corte Madera School whether their lots could be shared. None took up the proposal. The two existing driveways on Los Trancos Road were ruled out because the curve there leaves too little sight distance for drivers turning out in either direction.
That left the Alpine Road frontage. In May the Board narrowed ten parking concepts down to two:
Option 9 | Option 10 | |
|---|---|---|
Access point | Existing driveway opposite Roberts Market | New driveway at the Portola Road intersection |
Lot size | 25 spaces at first, 50 at most | 25 spaces at first, 50 at most |
Alpine Road Trail | Rerouted to cross the driveway farther into the site | Rerouted to cross the driveway farther into the site |
The 50-space ceiling comes from a 2024 transportation study that estimated demand at 25 to 68 spaces. Its benchmarks included counts at the Windy Hill and Thornewood lots and at Roberts Market. Midpen chose the midpoint as the maximum and plans to start with 25. By comparison, Thornewood is 167 acres with 1.8 miles of trail, so Hawthorns would be a smaller preserve with a slightly shorter trail network.
The lot would have no horse-trailer spaces. Midpen says the steep, tight site can't fit stalls that need at least 50 feet. Riders would come in from Town trails and find hitching posts inside. The lot would sit inside the Alpine Scenic Corridor. Midpen's design uses berms and keeps existing trees to screen the cars, and it places the vault restroom outside the 75-foot building setback.
What a 2005 Easement Says About Pavement
In April 2005, Frederick N. Woods III granted the Peninsula Open Space Trust, or POST, a conservation easement over the property. It permanently protects the land's natural, historic and scenic values. Midpen points to the clause that allows construction of a limited staging area:
"around the perimeter of the Improved Portion as necessary to facilitate public access to, and use of, the Real Property for hiking and other uses"
Midpen reads this as allowing its design. The easement does not require the staging area to sit inside the Improved Portion. Midpen also proposes permeable concrete instead of gravel, because gravel would need stormwater basins the site has little room for.
The Town's August 26 staff report reads the same easement more strictly. It says the easement does not prohibit a parking lot "but would limit the parking surface to gravel, and potentially require the lot's relocation."
Neither agency gets the final word. POST holds the legal authority to interpret and enforce the easement, and Midpen says POST has no plans to change it. The Town is not a party to the easement, so it has no standing to enforce it unless POST assigns those rights.
Where Town Hall Comes In
That gap in authority explains the Town Council's special meeting on August 26. Planning and Building Director Sarah Cawrse presented four ways the Town could get involved, and none of them has funding yet:
- Take formal part in Midpen's environmental review, including comment letters on the Notice of Preparation and the EIR.
- Update the Open Space Element and zoning. The Town is overdue: Senate Bill 1425 set a January 1, 2026 deadline. New rules could set standards for parking lots, scenic-corridor access and grading.
- Negotiate an agreement with Midpen, modeled on the one the Town reached for Windy Hill in the 1980s.
- Ask POST to enforce the easement.
The third option would allow the widest trade. Staff suggested that parking at Windy Hill and at Hawthorns could be studied together, which might mean more spaces at Windy Hill and fewer at Hawthorns. That idea also came up in public comment. Even without a deal, the Town has one firm lever. Its encroachment ordinances let it limit access points to a lot, though not block access entirely, and it controls any rerouting of Town trails within the right-of-way.
The Council gave staff direction, and staff will bring back an item to form a subcommittee. On September 9 the Council appointed Vice Mayor Mary Hufty and Councilmember Judith Hasko to a joint committee with the Portola Valley School District board. The committee will look at safety on the Alpine Road Trail along the Hawthorns frontage, the stretch that either driveway would cross. The Town calendar lists a 2x2 committee meeting for November 16 at 5 p.m. at the Historic Schoolhouse, 765 Portola Road.
The Buildings Behind the Hedge
The "Improved Portion" named in the easement has a long history. Judge James Monroe Allen and Ida Davis Allen, a San Francisco couple, bought the property in 1885. They planted grapes, olives, apples, prunes, strawberries and peaches, which made it a classic Peninsula gentleman's farm. After the Woods family bought it in 1916, the focus moved to livestock, mainly horses and hogs. The name comes from a hedge of flowering hawthorns, pink or white, that once lined the driveway.
The Hawthorns Historic Complex covers about 13 acres, including an old olive orchard and buildings dating to the late 1800s. A Julia Morgan connection is often mentioned, but only the garage is reportedly her design. Midpen published a correction after a 2024 article attributed the house, cottage and barn to her as well.
On December 10, 2025, Midpen's Board put the Historic Complex project on hold until the Area Plan is adopted and its first phase is built. Earlier searches for a partner to reuse the buildings failed over cost and zoning. Interim repairs have included bracing, carpentry and drainage work. Midpen says reroofing of the main house, cottage and garage starts this fall. The staff residence at 4411 Alpine Road will stay in use.
The Calendar From Here
The published timelines don't fully agree. Midpen's August 2026 FAQ places the project in an "Area Plan / Environmental Review" phase that runs from 2025 to 2028, with final design, permits and construction in 2028 and later. The Town's staff report expects environmental review to finish sometime in 2027. The Town Manager's August summary says that review is not expected to begin until 2027. Our research did not find a Notice of Preparation as of October 10.
When environmental review does begin, the public gets two formal windows. The first is a 30-day comment period on the scope of the review. The second is a 45-day review period after the draft document is published, with public hearings at both stages. Midpen will be the lead agency and will make the final decision. Portola Valley will act as a responsible agency and must adopt its own CEQA findings before it issues permits for the lot. Midpen also plans to refresh the traffic data during that review.
Residents who want updates can subscribe to the Town's eNotices or sign up on Midpen's Hawthorns project page. The next date on the calendar is November 16 at the Historic Schoolhouse.
At Helen & Brad Miller, we follow decisions like this one because what gets built along a scenic corridor shapes how a stretch of Portola Valley feels for decades. If you own near Alpine and Portola roads and would like to talk through what the Hawthorns plan could mean for your property, reach out today.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
