On the day the scaffolding was being taken down after four weeks of painting the El Camino facing wall of the Stanford Terrace Inn, I stood watching at the entrance of Starbucks.(Ed: Here’s a video of the mural right here: http://www.vipepower.com/Company/3CNO2X04X3WK)

The Stanford Terrace Inn is located on Stanford Avenue just off the corner of El Camino Real. The corner lot was occupied for many years by Mountain Mikes Pizza, but also deserted for many years with only the abandoned Mountain Mikes building whose dilapidation did nothing positive for the hotel, or that block of El Camino.

About 10 years ago Starbucks took over corner lot, constructing a new building, bringing legitimacy to this particular area of El Camino and now when directing people to the Stanford Terrace Inn we reference Starbucks, which is, my best guess, a landmark because of the loving addiction we have to caffeine.

Besides being very interested in finding a tenant for the corner lot we had had many conversations about painting a mural on the sidewall of the hotel. During the Mountain Mike era there had been an abstract mural on this wall, which was also part of the original hotel logo. This had been painted many years earlier leaving the wall a huge unattractive plainly painted stack of cinder blocks.

On the day I stood outside of (we love you) Starbucks I asked those entering their thoughts about the mural. I was standing beside the artist, Florence Goguely of bille et plume, and although I loved what we had done I was also acutely aware that not everyone would feel the same. The first person I asked said ”It looks like a party napkin.” I felt a bit tense. I bravely asked each person as they came up and turned to see what we were looking at the same question, “What do you think of the mural?” I felt assured with comments like, great, fantastic, arresting and thought, “well at least it didn’t look like a napkin for a funeral” . . .

In the wake of the removal of 63 mature trees from California Ave, and the obvious relocation of our beloved Great Blue Heron, from the field across from the hotel, as a result of more housing being built on Stanford University land, I am proud to say we have positively added to the Palo Alto landscape with our beautiful wall. I invite you to come by and let me know what you think. You can contact us by leaving a comment here, on twitter @stanfordtinn, or on facebook!

Shanti,

Barbara