That quaint, barn-like building on the hillock above Fairfax Town Hall has a long history, and it’s still making it. For 90 years and counting, it’s been well-loved and well-used.Built by the Fairfax Volunteer Fire Department in 1921 for the town’s residents, the Pavilion has hosted countless basketball games, concerts, festivals and more, and it’s showing its wear like a child’s favorite stuffed animal. Fortunately it’s undergoing major improvements, though at a pace that could take most of the remaining decade before its 100th birthday. “It’s always been a vital part of Fairfax, but until …

Every so often, someone wanders into the San Anselmo Historical Museum, after a walk along nearby residential streets, with a question about the narrow terraced yard below a hidden house. With its stone markers and tombstones, slender wooden crosses, and a lovely carved angel watching over it all, it appears to be a tiny, aged cemetery. Judy Coy, who's a docent at the museum and chairperson of the San Anselmo Historical Commission, says that most people are disappointed to learn that it’s not. The tipoff, I would think, is the historic sign over one of the three small garages—“Chrysler …

Yes, downtown Fairfax comes alive on weekend nights, with seven nightspots in just a few blocks. At the same time that Fairfax is pulsating, San Anselmo is sleepier than Sleepy Hollow. A big night in San Anselmo is a dinner reservation at six followed by a PBS special.It’s always been that way, as this newspaper item from a while back confirms: “An occurrence took place at the barroom at Fairfax on Sunday, in which bottles, clubs and all handy missiles took a part.” The date: Sept. 30, 1875.That was also the year that the weekend picnics began. At the first one, a crowd of 3,000, who had come…

Street sweeping is one of those civilized amenities we've come to expect, like trash pickup and flood control—things you don't think about until you do. Yet we all like those nice clean streets, don't we? San Anselmo-Fairfax Patch About Town columnist Sarah Shideler even waxed eloquent on the topic in her first column of the new year. She must have been really happy seeing the sun and the bright blue sky after all the rain we've had. After writing about that, her next comment was, "If all that isn't wonderful enough, the sound of the street sweeper is singing its song along our quiet road …

The story of that sign on attorney Ford Greene's Victorian home/office on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard is as long as the line of cars that routinely back up behind the Hub—in clear view of the sign. The story began eight years ago, but nowadays the news is not that the sign expresses another controversial position or that someone wants it removed. It's that it's missing."It hasn't been up for most of the last three years," said Greene. "The main thing people say about it now is, 'Where is it?'"During a Patch interview in his office, Greene appeared relaxed and contented. And why not? Eight …

When the great jazzman Mose Allison comes to the Bay Area, he sings at Yoshi's in San Francisco and/or Oakland. You wouldn't expect to see someone of his stature in a small neighborhood nightclub across a bridge and miles away. But, he's been known to perform at 19 Broadway. (In fact, there's a good chance he'll be back next year). No doubt he, like anyone else who's come to the club for the first time, had no trouble finding the place, what with the prominent sign and all. But if he'd been looking for a street address, he might have been out of luck. According the U.S. Postal Service, 19 …

It may sound like a good idea. The paved bike and pedestrian path that winds over Mission Pass, between Sleepy Hollow's Fawn Drive and Terra Linda's Freitas Parkway is only about a quarter-mile long. It's also wide enough to easily be converted to a two-lane road, which would cut up to 20 minutes of driving time for Fairfax and Sleepy Hollow residents headed to Kaiser Hospital, Northgate Mall or anywhere north of Terra Linda on Highway 101. All that battling traffic through the Hub and downtown San Rafael—poof! Sure, why not?The short answer is that Mission Pass is on open-space land and you …

There's a timely reason to be asking where exactly the seminary ends and the town begins. A couple of years ago, the seminary asked Novato real estate developers HartMarin to look at the number of students versus the number of properties the seminary owned. Over time, as enrollment grew, the campus has spread into surrounding neighborhoods; now, however, the supply of buildings exceeds the demand for them. HartMarin came up with a plan to consolidate all housing on the historic site, in the process selling the 18 homes and 39 apartments off campus—which will, according to its Campus Plan 2010…

The stockings are being hung by the chimney with care and the halls are being decked with boughs of holly, but where, oh where, is the centerpiece to these festivities? Sure, you could travel to San Rafael or Bon Air Shopping Center to get your Christmas tree and have to lug it all the way back home, giving your money to other towns in the process, but why would you want to do that when we have all the evergreen you need right here. O'Donnell's Nursery operates the only Christmas tree lot in Fairfax at the corner of Willow Avenue and Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, starting the day after …

Who let the dogs out? Better not be you in San Anselmo or Fairfax, unless they're under voice control or in a designated dog park.  Dogs can run off-leash in three San Anselmo parks: the new Red Hill Dog Park (behind Safeway), Robson-Harrington Park and Sorich Ranch Park. It's also permissible in Memorial Park, but only before 8 a.m. Dogs cannot be off-leash anywhere in Fairfax. As Scout would say, that's "ruff," especially this time of year, when dogs are itching to run around after being cooped up on rainy days. Fortunately the three dog-friendly parks, especially Red Hill Dog Park, are …

That 16th-Century ship captain gets a lot of exposure in San Anselmo and Fairfax, doesn't he? Not only is Sir Francis Drake's name plastered all over the busiest street through both towns, but the high school too. It's speculated that Drake and his crew did land at a cove in Point Reyes National Seashore's Drakes Bay (thus the name), which is at the western end of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard (thus the name). It's also speculated that his crew explored Marin County by land, possibly venturing as far as Novato. That's a lot of speculation, but there's a reason why the fog of doubt concerning …

How to get your streets repaved and potholes fixed are really two separate issues, but we'll start with potholes -- the easier of the two. In San Anselmo, any resident can report a pothole to Public Works Director Steve Myrter at smyrter@townofsananselmo.org. In Fairfax, it takes two minutes to type your contact info and pothole location onto the Public Works Maintenance Request form at here on the town website. Exactly when potholes are fixed, if ever, depends on the hole. You might say that both towns take a "hole-istic" approach. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)In the case of a one- or two-inch …

Sleepy Hollow may be a sleepy bedroom community of homes with backyard pools and horse stables, but residents perk up anytime they hear incorporation mentioned. And they've been hearing it now for generations. Sleepy Hollow parents may drive into San Anselmo every day, dropping off their kids at San Anselmo schools, and shopping at San Anselmo stores, but don't call them San Anselmans. "With our one-acre lots and horses, we are apples to their oranges," said Frank Berto, a Sleepy Hollow resident with wife Connie since 1958 and a longtime Sleepy Hollow Fire Protection District board member. …

True, you're not supposed to park overnight on any street in San Anselmo. But the odds of seeing a ticket on your windshield are pretty slim. And it's easy to reduce that small risk to zero if you get permission from the San Anselmo Police Department. It's also true that just across the street you can legally park overnight on most Fairfax roads. Why? It's complicated. The San Anselmo overnight parking ordinance has been in effect since sometime before 1983. It's always been a local hot potato. "Public-safety access on our narrow streets is the main reason for the ordinance," said San Anselmo…

The odd collision of streets in the middle of downtown Fairfax begs the question, "Why so complicated?" Or, more to the point: "Why am I stuck in traffic on Broadway [or Bolinas] waiting to snake my way up to the stoplight on Drake that I can't even see from back here?"Fairfax Town Manager Michael Rock admits, "Cars, bicyclists and pedestrians all converge in the center of town, and the configuration of streets adds to the congestion. It's a traffic engineering and a safety issue that's been talked about for years and we're exploring solutions." Within the next year or so, it's expected that …

That deer on the San Anselmo Town Hall lawn is a centenarian who's survived a quake, a fire, two floods and old age. And he's still going strong. Lift your child or grandchild onto Sugarfoot and you may notice that his cast-iron back is as smooth as a polished brass rail. This may be because so many other youngsters have saddled up. Other than Bambi, it's unlikely that any other deer has raised so many smiles on the faces of children, simply because he's been at it for so long. Sugarfoot is older than any creature, four legs or two, in San Anselmo. The exact year of his birth is clouded in …

What is the deal with the deer in front of town hall? Why doesn't Bolinas Road go straight through to Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, instead of making us drive around the Parkade? Why is everything named after Sir Francis Drake? How come Sleepy Hollow is unincorporated, even though you can only get to it through San Anselmo? These are all good questions, ones that we've been wondering about as well. So, we're going to do something about it. We're going to find answers! But we need your help.  You Ask, Patch Answers is a new weekly column for residents looking for solutions to community issues, …