Weichert Realtors, Rainbow Properties

09/18/2026

There's a farm in Fremont with its own railroad station in the front yard.

Our broker, Moe, didn't know Ardenwood was there until high school, when he and his best friend jumped the fence one night and found a Victorian house and people in period dress. For thirty seconds they thought they'd found a time machine. Security disagreed. He still has the barbed-wire scar.

205 acres, open to anyone. No fence-jumping required.

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09/16/2026

09/16/2026

George Washington came to Newark and built the largest ranch in the county. Not that George Washington.

Who was George Washington Patterson? A Pennsylvanian who came west in 1849 for gold, failed at mining, and by 1851 had drifted into Alameda County with no plan. He started farming instead. By the time he died in 1895 he owned about 3,000 acres here and about 3,000 more near Livermore.

Why is it called Ardenwood? In 1857 Patterson built a redwood farmhouse and named the estate Ardenwood, after the Forest of Arden in Shakespeare's As You Like It. His widow Clara later had the railroad put a depot right on the property: Arden Station. That narrow-gauge line still runs at Ardenwood Historic Farm in Fremont, California, on original track, with cars over a hundred years old.

Our broker, Moe, didn't know it was there until high school. He and his best friend jumped a fence one night, and on the other side was a Victorian house and people in period dress. For thirty seconds they thought they'd found a time machine. Security disagreed. He still has the barbed-wire scar on his hand.

Is Ardenwood worth visiting? Yes. The 205-acre property is on the National Register of Historic Places, with a working blacksmith shop, hay barn, granary, farm animals, and living-history days with docents in full period dress. You don't have to jump the fence.

Did you know the Ardenwood district of Newark benefits from being this close to Ardenwood Farm? Want to know how? Let's talk.

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Adam "Moe" Modzeleski — Broker/Owner, Weichert Realtors Rainbow Properties, Newark CA · 40+ year Newark resident
DRE # 01918384 · NMLS # 1829567 · weichertrainbow.com

09/12/2026

Coyote Hills in Fremont, California — the trails everybody hikes on a Saturday — sits on top of a Cold War missile base. A real one.

And out near the shell mound site there is a mound roughly the size of a football field and about ten feet tall. It was built by the Native American tribes who lived on this shoreline, not all at once but generation after generation over centuries, each burial adding another layer of shell and earth.
Almost 500 people are laid to rest in it. Nearly every mound like it around San Francisco Bay was paved over, developed, or erased a long time ago. This is one of the only ones left.

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Adam "Moe" Modzeleski — Broker/Owner, Weichert Realtors Rainbow Properties, Newark CA
DRE # 00865482 · NMLS # 1829567 · weichertrainbow.com

09/09/2026

Coyote Hills in Fremont, CA is a park built on a Cold War missile base — and a shellmound with nearly 500 burials in it.

Nike missiles, aimed at Soviet bombers. When the Army walked away, Stanford's research arm moved into the marsh next door and ran sonar experiments on live dolphins for years. Nobody dedicated any of that land for hiking until 1967.

But the oldest thing out there is the mound near the shellmound site — roughly the size of a football field, about ten feet tall, built up layer by layer over centuries, each burial adding another layer of shell and earth. Nearly every mound like it around this Bay was paved over a long time ago. This is one of the only ones left.

Here's why that isn't just old news. The water here could rise seven feet by 2100, and wetlands like this one are one of the few places left where that water has room to go instead of into a neighborhood. In December 2025 Newark's city council approved 226 homes on part of that same shoreline — an old auto junkyard with wetlands on three sides — over a 750-resident petition and the objections of more than forty scientists who study this Bay for a living. Two environmental groups sued in January.

A missile base, a mound older than the mission next door, and an argument nobody's finished having a few miles from wherever you're standing.

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Adam "Moe" Modzeleski — Broker/Owner, Weichert Realtors Rainbow Properties, Newark CA · DRE # 00865482 · NMLS # 1829567 · weichertrainbow.com

09/03/2026

Before the railroad. Before the farm. Before anyone called this place Newark — the Tuibun band of the Ohlone lived at Alameda Creek and Coyote Hills for 2,000+ years. At Coyote Hills, the Ryan Mound holds nearly 500 burials. Mission San Jose was founded nearby in 1797. The Muwekma Ohlone are still here — in Newark, Fremont, and Union City today. I'm Adam Moe, broker/owner at Weichert Rainbow, licensed loan officer, and a 40+ year Newark resident.

08/21/2026

Watkins Hall in Newark, California hid a barbershop that ran liquor out the back through all of Prohibition. It still stands at 37013 Ash Street in Old Town Newark.

John Silva cut hair up front and bootlegged out the back. The money bought a mink coat that hit his wife's ankles and a boxing gym upstairs where he trained local fighters. Deputies raided him in 1929 and found two bottles stashed in a rat hole. A 1931 sweep through Washington Township arrested 13 men in a single night, and John Silva was one of them. He kept going, and the shop took a new name on the door: the Knotty Pine Tavern. He ran it until he died in 1965, and his son-in-law took it from there.

When was Watkins Hall built? Manuel Soares completed it in March 1895 for William Wither Watkins, a blacksmith. The 1889 date marker on the front of the building is ornamental - the City of Newark's own research says it does not mark the year the hall was built.

Worth knowing what a place has actually been, before you ever put your name on the deed.

I'm Moe with Rainbow Funding and Realty in Newark - broker, loan officer, and I teach this stuff. Follow me to learn more about your town's history.

04/30/2026

Good drive