LAFAYETTE, CALIFORNIA – At first glance, the enormous redwood outside Diablo Foods might look like an unusually ambitious piece of grocery-store landscaping.
It is anything but.
The tree was already part of Lafayette long before Diablo Foods opened. It has outlived the house whose yard it once shaded, survived a fire that destroyed the grocery store and endured an effort to have it cut down.
During the holidays, thousands of lights transform it into a giant Christmas tree.
Its story begins with a beloved local teacher named Margaret Jennie Bickerstaff.
A Tree With Roots in Old Lafayette
The Bickerstaff family settled in Lafayette during the 1870s. In 1879, Jennie’s father, James Bickerstaff, purchased an acre from Elam Brown, the early settler credited with establishing the community that became Lafayette.
James built the family a small house near what is now the intersection of Mount Diablo Boulevard and Dewing Avenue. At the time, Mount Diablo Boulevard was still a dirt road connecting Oakland and Walnut Creek.
Somewhere on that property, Jennie planted a coast redwood.
Exactly when she planted it has become part of the mystery surrounding the tree. One version of the story says she planted it as a young girl in the late 1870s or early 1880s. A more recent account from the Lafayette Historical Society says she may have been middle-aged and hired a local high school student to dig the hole.
The surviving records may never settle the question. What they make clear, however, is that the redwood belonged to Jennie long before it belonged to the grocery store.
Jennie graduated from what is now San Jose State University in 1892 and spent more than 37 years teaching in Contra Costa County. Her career took her to schools in Lafayette, Orinda, Pacheco, Walnut Creek and Saranap.
At a time when Lafayette was still a small rural community, Jennie reportedly traveled on horseback and taught children across multiple grades. Former students remembered her as a kind teacher who brought music into the classroom.
She later married Stephen Dewing and, after his death, William Rosenberg. Even so, generations of Lafayette residents continued to know her as “Miss Jennie.”
The House Disappeared, but the Tree Stayed
Jennie remained in her family’s Mount Diablo Boulevard home for most of her life. By the time she left for an assisted-living facility shortly before her death in 1966, the quiet dirt road outside had become a busy four-lane thoroughfare.
The surrounding town had changed almost beyond recognition. The little house and the redwood were increasingly surrounded by commercial development.
Developer Percy Whitten acquired the property during the 1960s and demolished the house to construct a grocery-store building. Remarkably, he preserved the redwood.
The building initially housed U-Save and later Lee Brothers. Ed Stokes worked for both grocery businesses before Lee Brothers went bankrupt. Stokes then persuaded Whitten to lease the store to him, despite having little money and difficulty finding a wholesaler willing to supply the new business.
Diablo Foods opened in 1968.
By then, the tree had already survived its first great upheaval: the disappearance of the home it once stood beside.
The next threat would be much more serious.
The Fire That Nearly Killed It
In 1976, a devastating fire destroyed Diablo Foods.
A Lafayette Historical Society account based on contemporary newspaper coverage estimated the losses at $500,000 in merchandise and $200,000 to the building. A neighboring drugstore reportedly suffered another $50,000 in water damage.
The redwood was badly scorched.
Ed Stokes later recalled that the branches remained in place but appeared completely burned. Diablo Foods would be closed for nine months while the store was rebuilt, and it was not immediately apparent whether the tree would recover.
According to an oral history given by Percy Whitten’s son, city officials wanted the damaged redwood removed. Percy resisted. He believed that if any kind of tree could recover from such severe fire damage, it was a redwood.
Redwoods are famously resilient. Their thick bark can insulate living tissue from fire, while dormant buds allow badly burned trees to produce new growth.
Percy watered and tended the tree during the critical period after the fire. Stokes brought in experts and waited.
For months, little happened. Then, after roughly a year, green foliage began to return.
The tree had survived again.
Caring for a Redwood in a Parking Lot
The fire was dramatic, but the tree’s everyday surroundings present a subtler challenge. A coast redwood would ordinarily grow in a moist forest environment. Jennie’s tree instead rises from the middle of a heavily paved commercial property.
Keeping water, oxygen and nutrients flowing to its roots requires deliberate work.
Diablo Foods has employed arborists to maintain the tree, drill openings through the surrounding pavement and deliver nutrients through soil injections. It has also required regular pruning and careful monitoring.
Even the holiday lights have to accommodate a living, expanding tree.
An arborist once explained that the electrical box attached to the trunk periodically had to be moved before the growing redwood effectively swallowed it. Strings of lights also had to be completely removed and replaced after several years rather than being allowed to tighten around the branches.
By 2009, decorating the tree required thousands of lights, approximately a day and a half of work and enough equipment to occupy five parking spaces. The lights were subsequently converted to more energy-efficient LEDs.
The tradition appears to have begun during the 1990s. Over time, the illuminated redwood became an unofficial signal that the holiday season had arrived in Lafayette.
“Jennie’s Heart”
Diablo Foods founder Ed Stokes eventually installed a plaque near the tree honoring Jennie and the Bickerstaff family.
There is an even more personal name for it.
According to the Lafayette Historical Society, Jennie’s second husband, William Rosenberg, continued visiting the redwood after her death. He called it “Jennie’s heart.”
The name feels particularly appropriate today.
Most physical traces of Lafayette in the 1870s have disappeared. Jennie’s house is gone. The dirt road is now one of the busiest commercial corridors in Lamorinda. The first grocery businesses built on the property are also long gone.
But the redwood remains. It’s a rare, living piece of old Lafayette dating back over a century. And despite so many challenges, it’s still thriving.
