Happy Hollow’s grand transformation

Happy Hollow Park & Zoo’s beloved Danny the Dragon ride has been given a super-glam makeover. The funky Crooked House has sharply improved curb appeal. And the park’s venerable Puppet Castle Theater is rigged with modern electronics and sports a dreamy “magical blue” paint job.

When Happy Hollow reopens Saturday after a $72 million, top-to-bottom renovation, the San Jose park — a throwback to a simpler, pre-Silicon Valley time in Santa Clara County — will be poised to regain its status as the go-to place for the 2- to 10-year-old set — not to mention their parents and grandparents.

“Some of my fondest childhood memories took place within those ivy-covered walls,” wrote Morgan Richardson, one of hundreds of Mercury News readers who shared their recollections of the park and their anticipation about its resurrection as a local treasure.

What generations of longtime fans will discover are four additional acres of animal exhibits, an education center, cool public art, a sit-down restaurant and new rides, including a children’s roller coaster and a whimsical carousel where you can ride a lemur or a hummingbird. A clever trail leads the curious on a cross-park trek from “here” to “there.” Even the entrance of the circa-1961 park has been flipped; visitors now enter from the east, through an expansive new plaza along Coyote Creek that is studded with animal sculptures.

The challenge for the renovation team was how to meld the reassuring old and the high-tech new while maintaining the park’s decidedly retro charm. After nearly 50 years, Happy Hollow had literally been loved to death by its fans, so it was long overdue for a rehab — as long as it was more of a careful reinterpretation than wholesale change.

All it took was one look at “the kids and their big eyes” at last week’s VIP preview party to know that the eight-year journey from planning to ribbon-cutting had met that goal, said Patrick Coleman, a park board member for more than 20 years. Much of the new construction took place while the park remained open; phase two, which required closing the park, began in July 2008.

“People say they miss some of the park’s old features, but then they look around at how well everything’s been done, how cool the artwork is and how it all comes together, and they realize we have retained the park’s essential quaintness,” Coleman said.

Most importantly, Coleman said, the new-old Happy Hollow is primed to fulfill the park’s main mission, which is education. “But not so you’re beat over the head with it,” he said, laughing. “This is fun learning, learning that takes place while play is happening.”

Not only is the new indoor-outdoor Learning Lodge an upgrade from the old double-wide education trailer, but it’s also the greenest structure there, built using hay-bale construction techniques and sporting a living roof. All of the park’s buildings meet or exceed Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification standards.

Heather Lerner, executive director of Happy Hollow Foundation, said the response to the park’s new look has been overwhelmingly positive.

“The feedback I’m getting is that we hit the mark in preserving what we could and simultaneously moving forward to serve a new generation of visitors,” she said. “We’ve retained the parklike feel, the variety of open-ended play experiences, vintage rides and puppet theater that make Happy Hollow a unique destination.”

“I think the whole change thing was less about will there still be a pirate ship than will the park retain its small, human scale,” Lerner said.

People have gotten very excited about some of the new features, she said, particularly the expanded animal exhibits and the veterinary building, where visitors can see animals being treated and even watch surgery.

That excitement is translating into crucial financial support.

“It’s critical that we build an endowment so Happy Hollow will continue to thrive, regardless of the fluctuations in the economy,” Lerner said.

The public’s support is what fueled the multimillion-dollar makeover to the city-owned facility. In 2000, voters approved Proposition P, the Safe Neighborhood Parks and Recreation Bond Act, which would supply $52 million of the overall price tag. But even in 2000, planners knew the bond money would not be enough to achieve the collective vision of Happy Hollow fans.

Helping to guide that process was the Seattle-based design-build firm Portico Group, which helped retain the focus on what 2- to 10-year-olds wanted in “their” park. Public meetings and focus groups were held, but much of the inspiration for the new park came through more informal interactions with the staff, parents and young visitors.

“We spent a lot of time talking with kids and watching kids play,” said Bill Bost, president of Happy Hollow Foundation from 2004 to 2008. “We didn’t want to compete with Great America — that’s not our crowd. We wanted a fun, happy, creative place where the kids could just let their imaginations go crazy. We wanted the same feel but with a dash of the technology we’ve come up with since 1961.”

Aggressive fundraising made it possible to add the Pacific Fruit Express, a kid-size roller coaster, and a spectacular new merry-go-round, the Keep-Around Carousel, with its endangered and make-believe animals.

Still left to open this fall is the “Bent Bridge” over Coyote Creek that will link the entrance plaza with the new parking lot.

Eliminating the iconic Danny the Dragon was never on the table. The tram ride has been far and away its most popular attraction — even during that sad period in the 1980s when the mascot was held together with duct tape. Today, Danny sports an eye-popping paint job and even has his own set of green credentials: He’s powered by batteries.

What the park is calling the “Zoo on the Hill” is a new area that gives kids a chance to meet several varieties of lemurs and then mimic lemur play. A barn houses a donkey, miniature horses, a dwarf zebu and Navajo churro sheep. Take the bamboo-lined path down to the “Lower Zoo” to greet Sophia, the zoo’s 5-year-old jaguar, the popular meerkats and other animal favorites.

Back in 1961, when Happy Hollow opened, there was no zoo, but there were a few animals, including a harbor seal, capuchin monkeys, tortoises, ponies, ducks and pigs.

The new zoo has 128 animals.

Six are endangered species, including the jaguar, black and white ruffed lemurs, red ruffed lemur, ring-tailed lemur, scarlet macaw and fossa.

Despite all the high-tech new stuff, it’s the old-fashioned playground areas that resonate most with young visitors, Lerner said.

“A Brownie troop called and said they wanted to donate their cookie sale proceeds to Happy Hollow Foundation. A few of the girls came by and I gave them a mini-tour,” she said.

“When I saw how much they loved the new Lemur Woods play area and didn’t want to leave, I thought, ‘This is it. The first new memories of Happy Hollow are already starting to take hold.’ “