{"nrhp_refnum":"83001240","name":"Yung See San Fong House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"16660 Cypress Way","address_restricted":false,"city":"Los Gatos","county":"Santa Clara County","state":"CA","lat":37.215969363000056,"lon":-121.96102660399998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1983-09-08","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Entertainment/Recreation","Literature","Politics/Government","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A four-story, 7,560-square-foot hillside house at 16660 Cypress Way in Los Gatos, California, completed in 1917 by playwright Ruth Comfort Mitchell and her husband Sanborn Young. It is built in a Chinese-inspired style on wooded land overlooking the Santa Clara Valley.","why_significant":"The house is an unusual blend of Chinese decorative motifs and pagoda-style roofs with Western massing and plan. Its design was inspired by Mitchell's Chinese play The Sweetmeat Game (1916). It served as a gathering place for local and international celebrities in the early twentieth century, and its original fabric has been carefully maintained.","narrative":"Yung See San Fong, meaning \"in the heart of the hills,\" is a hillside house on wooded acreage in Los Gatos, California. Playwright Ruth Comfort Mitchell and her husband, Sanborn Young, completed it in 1917, drawing inspiration from Mitchell's Chinese play The Sweetmeat Game. The narrow, four-story house follows the slope and combines Western massing and floor plan with Chinese roof forms, including flared eaves, decorative ridge beams and pagoda-like upper roofs. Walls are stucco, board and batten, and wood shingle. Inside, carved screens, columns, plaques and a elaborately detailed living room fireplace carry Chinese motifs. A bedroom wing and an added top story date from 1922, and large living room windows were installed in 1965. The property also includes a garage with matching Chinese styling and a hillside cave once used for storing milk. The house was a gathering place for notable visitors in the early twentieth century, and its original character has been well preserved. It was documented by a Historic American Buildings Survey team in 1979.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Builder possibly Leo L. Nichols of Oakland (research ongoing); non-union labor used; carved interior woodwork supplied by craftsmen from San Francisco's Chinatown or China","architectural_style":"Chinese-inspired (Oriental) eclectic, combining pagoda roofs and Eastern motifs with Western massing and plan","criteria":[],"status_note":"Occupied as a private residence; condition described as excellent, with original site and some alterations.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:27.733652-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/83001240.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83001240/7c6dd05398-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83001240/7c6dd05398-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Jane Lidz","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yung_See_San_Fong_House.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Jane Lidz</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yung_See_San_Fong_House.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123861832","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yung_See_San_Fong_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8061260"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/santa-clara-county/yung-see-san-fong-house-83001240/"}