Greenbrae resident Cathy Taylor comes from a long line of accomplished, civic-minded family members who have publicly shared their love of art, design and gardens over the decades.
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There was L.M. Newsom, an early Bay Area nurseryman; Walter Plunkett, an Academy Award-winning costume designer known for his gorgeous costumes in films such as “Gone With the Wind” and “Singin’ in the Rain”; and Samuel Newsom, a one-time resident of Mill Valley who owned the Greenwood Tree art store in the El Paseo building and is recognized for writing the first modern book in English on Japanese gardens. He also designed the Carson Mansion in Eureka, the Old City Hall in Gilroy and the waterfall area in San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden.
And then there was her great-grandfather, James H. Cobbledick, who founded — and for 25 years served as president of — the Oakland Businessmen’s Garden Club, which was instrumental in creating Oakland’s 10-acre Children’s Fairyland amusement park in 1950.
While Taylor knew of her family’s public contributions, it wasn’t until this weekend that she was able to celebrate one of them in real time.
On the closing night of the Autumn Lights Festival at the Gardens at Lake Merritt, she was present to witness her 84-year-old uncle, Bruce Cobbledick, be publicly lauded and awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Friends of the Gardens at Lake Merritt for his dedication to the Gardens of Lake Merritt.
Earlier that evening, as Cobbledick, his son, Kevin, and Taylor strolled the gardens with other festivalgoers, the elder Cobbledick was continuously met with hugs by his friends who still volunteer there.
The Gardens at Lake Merritt is a 7-acre city-owned oasis set in Lakeside Park facing Lake Merritt, the nation’s first wildlife refuge.
Its various themed gardens — bay-friendly, edible, Japanese, Mediterranean, bonsai, palm, rhododendron, sensory, pollinator, succulent and bee — are supported by the volunteer group Friends of the Gardens at Lake Merritt.
This group organizes the sellout Autumn Lights fundraiser, where more than 100 volunteer artists, some of them Burning Man participants, dazzle the crowds with their artful, eye-catching interpretations in a three-night colorful show. Around every corner is a new lit-up installation to discover and new displays of illuminated costumes worn by guests.
The Gardens at Lake Merritt started when a few garden clubs started raising money — and working with the city of Oakland — to build a garden center in the 1950s.
The early gardens consisted of lily, rose, dahlia, palm, rhododendron and bonsai areas, where both a 1,500-year-old tree and a specimen sent from Japan during President Abraham Lincoln’s term still grow.
Greenbrae resident Cathy Taylor stands with her cousin, Kevin Cobbledick, and her uncle, Bruce Cobbledick, under gates dedicated to him. (Photo by PJ Bremier)
Cobbledick, now retired from VISA and living in San Diego near his son, Kevin, was the breeder of the Bruce Cobbledick orchid, a member of the American Rhododendron Society, past president of the San Francisco Orchid Society and the Oakland East Bay Garden Center and the first president of the Friends of the Gardens at Lake Merritt, a group of garden lovers who “were tired of watching the gardens getting run down under city care and wanted more volunteer interest in the garden management,” he says.
When Oakland passed a bond to renovate the area around Lake Merritt, he secured funds to replace the existing chain-link gates with a stately set of new gates to welcome garden visitors.
Taylor had only visited the Gardens at Lake Merritt once before, in 2004, when the renovated sensory garden was unveiled.
This weekend, during the Autumn Lights Festival, she marked her second and third visits to her uncle’s labor of love, first with her son, Aiden, after learning that the gates had been dedicated to Cobbledick, and then again last weekend, when he received the Lifetime Achievement Award.
“I always knew Bruce was deeply involved with the Gardens, but I never realized the full extent of his work because he’s so modest,” Taylor said. “It was special to walk through each section with Bruce and see his quiet smile as he watched children and adults enjoying the gardens.
“He would never boast about any of this; he’s simply doing what he loves. His passion for plants runs deep.”
Her uncle hadn’t boasted about the Autumn Lights Festival, either, but he could have.
“There were so many cheerful people from all walks of life exploring the gardens,” she said. “You could see genuine delight in their faces as they moved from one glowing section to another.
“One woman told me she had grown up near the lake but had never been inside the Gardens until that night. She was astonished by the beauty of the setting and the creativity of the artists.”
Cobbledick has since returned home to San Diego and was greeted not only by his wife, Myra, but also by his beloved dog, Tashi. The dog was found abandoned as a puppy with a broken leg in the Gardens at Lake Merritt and is now a loving full-time reminder of Cobbledick’s time there.
PJ Bremier writes on home, garden, design and entertaining topics every Saturday. She may be contacted at P.O. Box 412, Kentfield 94914, or at [email protected].
