Atherton’s Old Depot Becomes a Museum as the State Redraws the Town’s Future

For more than 150 years, trains have passed through the place now called Atherton. On Sunday afternoon, October 18, the town celebrated the old station not as a stop, but as a memory. The Atherton Train Station Museum opened with a ribbon-cutting from 2 to 4 p.m., giving the restored depot a second life six years after Caltrain closed it.

It is a fitting emblem for a town that cherishes continuity. Atherton is among the most exclusive residential communities in the United States, defined by large lots, mature oaks and an almost total absence of commerce. Yet even here, the forces reshaping the Peninsula are at work, and the museum’s opening arrives alongside a quieter story about how the town governs itself and how state law is redrawing what may be built.

A Station’s Long Journey

According to the town, Atherton’s first station began as a simple flag stop called Fair Oaks on the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad, a line built largely by Chinese laborers. As the community grew, the wood-framed structure gave way to an unusual four-sided glass station, and by the 1950s to the enclosed depot generations of commuters knew. The station saw trains evacuate refugees after the 1906 earthquake, served through two world wars and witnessed the transition from steam to diesel.

Changing travel patterns and declining ridership eventually led Caltrain to close the station formally in 2020; the last trains stopped there that December. Rather than let the building disappear, the town chose to restore it. The museum, the town says, will trace more than 150 years of railroad history, “from early wood-burning locomotives to today’s electric trains.”

There is a gentle irony in the timing. The station closed for lack of riders while Caltrain was in the midst of electrifying its line. And it reopens as a museum while voters across the region weigh Measure RTM, a regional sales tax that transit advocates say is needed to keep Caltrain from closing as many as 10 of its stations.

A Council Chosen Without a Vote

Atherton residents will notice something missing from their November ballot: a City Council race. On August 18, at a meeting that lasted five minutes, the council canceled the election and appointed four candidates to the seats that had been due before voters, The Almanac reported. California law allows a municipality to do so when the number of candidates does not exceed the number of seats. The town avoided paying the county an estimated $15,000 to administer the election.

Incumbent Rick DeGolia was appointed to a fifth term, running to December 2030. Incumbent Bill Widmer, on the council since 2010, was appointed to a special two-year term ending in December 2028, filling the remainder of a seat vacated by a resignation in September 2025. Two newcomers, nonprofit executive Christine David and Planning Commissioner Jerry Leugers, will join in December for four-year terms. Mayor Stacy Holland did not seek reelection. In his candidate statement, Leugers said he was running to fight state housing mandates and to maintain the town’s fiscal health.

The arrangement is lawful and not unusual in small California towns. It does say something, though, about the depth of civic participation in a town where the stakes of local decisions have rarely been higher.

The Map the State Is Redrawing

Those stakes are largely about housing. Atherton’s housing plan for 2023 to 2031, which must accommodate 348 new homes, won state certification in 2025 only after revisions. According to the town, state regulators rejected its initial reliance on multifamily housing on private school properties, finding that it did not satisfy California’s mandate to “affirmatively further fair housing.” The town responded with a multifamily overlay that allows owners of eight privately held lots, on Oakwood, Ringwood, Bay Road and Ravenswood, to build at 10 units per acre if they choose.

A newer law reaches further. Senate Bill 79, which took effect July 1, requires cities to allow far denser housing near major transit stops. In Atherton, the town says, it applies to seven properties on Glenwood Avenue, Laurel Street and Victoria Drive. On those sites the town cannot impose a height limit below 75 feet, a density cap below 120 homes per acre or a floor area ratio below 3.5. The council adopted local standards for such projects on March 18, and the state has since found them in substantial compliance.

For a town of single-family estates, those numbers represent a philosophical break. Whether any SB 79 project is actually proposed will depend on property owners and the economics of construction, not on the town. As Atherton’s own website reminds residents, “the Town is not responsible for building housing.”

Governing the Everyday

Much of the council’s recent work has been less dramatic. In September it introduced an ordinance creating a “Do Not Solicit” list for residents and accepted a $200,000 donation toward a police wellness program. It has spent several meetings refining rules for construction management plans, the documents that govern how the town’s many large home-building projects handle traffic, noise and staging. The council’s next regular meeting is Wednesday, October 21, at 6 p.m.

Continuity and Change

Atherton has always defined itself by what it is not: not a city of storefronts, not a place of apartments, not a town in a hurry. The restored depot honors that instinct, preserving a piece of the past with care and civic pride. But the Peninsula around it is changing, and the laws now shaping it were written in Sacramento rather than at 80 Fair Oaks Lane. For Stanford readers, many of whom pass Atherton on the train or the bicycle routes to Menlo Park and Redwood City, the town offers a vivid case study in how even the most settled places are being asked to make room for the region’s future.

Photo: Pi.1415926535 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0