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Building History

The State of California rebuilt the Agnews Residential Facility after the first hospital's destruction in the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. In its rebuilding, the State chose to test new methods of housing the mentally ill, selecting a decentralized model, whereby patients were housed in detached cottages. A National Park Service (NPS) web site described the new Agnews campus: "The Institution was then redesigned in, what was then, a revolutionary cottage plan spreading the low-rise buildings along tree-lined streets in a manner that resembled a college campus. The Mediterranean Revival style buildings were constructed of concrete with tile roofs, decorative tile patterns, rustic wooden balconies, porch columns and bannisters [sic]. Bands of decorative tile patterns reflect the Hispanic influence on the buildings. It embodied the distinctive characteristics of a progressive mental hospital in the early 20th century as it was intended to be a 'cheerful' place with its decentralized specialized buildings for different treatment purposes and different types of patients. Its small, low-scale buildings were designed to bring light and air to patients." (See "Santa Clara County, California's Historic Silicon Valley: Agnews Insane Asylum,"accessed 08/29/2011.) In case of another massive earthquake, single, smaller cottages provided better odds for inhabitants than monolithic blocks; additionally, single cottages afforded increased privacy and individuality for residents, it was thought. By the mid-1960s, a number of factors converged to result in the closure of large, state-run mental health "asylums." The rise of psychiatric drugs in the 1950s suggested to psychiatrists that the mentally ill could be treated more effectively in community-based, out-patient clinics rather than poorly-funded, antiquated and inhumane central facilities. The introduction of Medicare and Medicaid also specifically excluded funding for patients in central state hospitals, causing precipitating mass-discharges. Additionally, case law of the 1960s held that patients had the right to refuse treatment, unless they posed "a clear and present danger to themselves or others." The result was greater reliance on community clinics, jails and hospital emergency rooms to care for many formerly institutionalized people. The Agnews facility made the transition to housing its first developmentally-disabled patients in 1965, a different category to the "mentally ill," including those with severe mental retardation. By 1972, Agnews had discharged its last mentally-ill patient and became completely geared to assisting the developmentally disabled.

By the mid-1990s, the State of California began the process of selling to private bidders surplus state property, including the Agnews Development Center. Real estate developers and businessmen competed with one another to get the inside track on the purchase of Agnews land; the rapid expansion of Silicon Valley around Agnews made its property outrageously valuable. In 2003-2004, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (b. 1947) continued the process of selling Agnews acreage. This concluded in 2009, when the last Agnews residence was closed. Since that time, all care provided at the site was on an out-patient basis. Sun Microsystems purchased an 82.5-acre portion of the hospital property in 04/1997, consolidating personnel from offices in Menlo Park, CA, Palo Alto, CA, and its headquarters in Mountain View, CA. Another 152 acres was sold to private developers who built the Rivermark master planned community. Sun, during its tenure, maintained the property and its historic buildings, carefully repurposing the former Treatment Center, Auditorium and Executive Mansion. Oracle Corporation bought the ailing Sun in 2010, and has owned a large chunk of the Agnews Mental Asylum since that time.

Building Notes

The new Agnews Asylum had a campus much like a college, containing at its peak 46 buildings and occupying 671,000 square feet. Following the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, reconstruction occurred on college campuses nearby to the Agnews facility and may have had some influence on its design. The State Normal School in San Jose, CA, built much of its new campus during 1908-1914, including its Tower Hall, comparable to the Treatment Building at Agnews.

In 1952, the Agnews State Hospital property flooded as a result of heavy rains.