Monterey Cypress Allée at RCA Point Reyes Receiving Station

RCA Receiving Building framed by an allée of Monterey cypress tree, c. 2010. Constructed in 1929 along the open, windswept shrub-grassland of the Point Reyes peninsula, the RCA Receiving Station helped make wireless communications across the Pacific Ocean possible.

(NPS/PWRO)

A windswept allée of mature Monterey cypress trees at Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS) line a remote road to what is now a park operations facility. While this highly formalized entry appears out of place in the pastoral landscape, the double row of trees reflects a time when international corporations sought the Pacific Ocean’s coastlines to deploy emergent communications technology.

Aerial view of Point Reyes Receiving Station, looking north, 1944. The majority of the land around the building cluster appears to have been grazed. Several cattle trails appear to extend into the antenna fields.

(NPS/Point Reyes National Seashore Museum, Collection #PORE 9755)

The Agricultural Landscape of Point Reyes Peninsula and the Communications Industry

As part of the cultural landscape at RCA Point Reyes Receiving Station, the allée reflects the convergence of agricultural and industrial land use on the peninsula. In 1913, the British-owned Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America began purchasing grazing lands on the southern tip of the Point Reyes peninsula. The proximity to the coast, open character of the landscape, and relative lack of atmospheric interference to radio signals provided an ideal place to invest in the expansion of wireless communication operations in America.

After WWI, support for the Americanization of wireless communications in the United States was strong. The Marconi Company was dissolved and sold its American holdings to the newly created Radio Corporation of America (RCA). With advancements in short-wave radio technology of the 1920s, RCA added a new receiving station on the northern end of Point Reyes peninsula by taking the 1,472-acre ranch of James McClure (G-Ranch) through condemnation, which RCA leased back later to various ranchers for continued grazing.

In 1929, RCA constructed a receiving station far enough away—20 miles—from its sister transmission facility at Bolinas to avoid any signal interference. Similar to the RCA buildings at the Bolinas transmission station, the receiving station exhibited the Art Deco style in its buildings and a formal, symmetrical arrangement of designed landscape features near the RCA Receiving Building. Extending from the designed landscape, RCA installed a quarter mile long, tree-lined gravel road.

Undated (c. 1930s) planting plan from Point Reyes Receiving Station site. The cypress allée (not pictured) begins at the bottom of the sheet, beyond the posts.

(NPS/Point Reyes National Seashore Museum, Collection #PORE 9755)

Vernacular windbreaks existed on the peninsula prior to RCA’s cypress plantings. While many earlier inhabitants—including the Coast Miwok Indians, Spanish Franciscans, and Mexican ranchers—shaped the peninsula’s agricultural heritage, it was most likely nineteenth-century European-American ranchers that first experimented with different plant species to create windbreaks in the landscape. One of them was the Monterey cypress, a hardy, evergreen plant able to resist not only strong winds, salt air, and sandy soils, but also damage from wildlife.

Unlike the designed plantings surrounding the circular drive at the RCA Receiving Building, the cypress allée at the receiving station was installed without a formal plan. Designers of the receiving station may have been influenced by the agricultural windbreaks they saw on the Point Reyes peninsula and combined this element with the aesthetic qualities of a double row allée to complement the Art Deco complex.

Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa) is a conifer with dark green, uniform, scale-like leaves, about 2 mm long, in 4 tightly appressed rows. The plant is drought tolerant and does well in full sun environments with well-drained, sandy soils. It also has a high tolerance for salty marine air.

(Oregon State University)

A Narrow Range Broadens

The Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa) is endemic to two small forest locations on the central coast of California where it thrives in windy, humid conditions, one at Cypress Point in Pebble Beach and the other at Point Lobos near Carmel. Its contorted form is a response to the windswept coastal environment. Though not native to the Point Reyes peninsula, the cypress allée at the RCA Receiving Station has adapted well. When planted circa 1930, each row of trees in the allée was offset about 15 feet from the road’s edge and spaced approximately 40 feet apart, numbering over 60 trees in all. By the 1980s the allée matured into its current iconic “tunnel” form, with the upper limbs meeting over the roadway.

Today, the historic mature cypress allée supports a number of bird species including raptors and owls. Like the Monterey cypress on the Point Reyes peninsula, which can now be found dotting the landscape as ornamental plantings and windbreaks, this species has been widely cultivated throughout the world and become naturalized in places as far away as New Zealand.

By 1971, when this aerial photo was taken, the allée approached its mature form. The canopies of each row began overlapping to form a "tunnel." A few trees planted outside of, and parallel to, the allée are visible. These plants do not contribute to the cultural landscape's period of significance.

(Pacific Aerial Surveys, #AV1013-03-12)

NPS Stewardship

In 1978 the NPS acquired the outlying fields at the receiving station with the 23-acre core complex remaining in commercial use. In 1999, the NPS purchased the remaining core area for inclusion in PRNS. In 2018, the allée was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing resource of the RCA Point Reyes Receiving Station Historic District and is considered in fair condition, though in decline. Since 2010, the NPS performed preservation maintenance work to remove hazardous, damaged, and dead material from the allée’s canopy. A few weakened trees were also removed.

Because the allée’s historical significance depends on the integrity of the whole, the recommended treatment for preservation is to replace the entire two rows with new plantings when the trees no longer retain integrity as an allée. Until then, NPS resource managers plan to extend the life of the allée and retain its historic character by cleaning the canopy and removing volunteer saplings.

One notable threat to the health of the resource includes visitor impacts. Recently, social media has contributed to the popularity of the allée and attracted additional visitation. Parked vehicles and increased foot traffic within the critical root zone have the potential to contribute to soil compaction and reduced plant health. As a solution, NPS has closed the road of the cypress tree allée to vehicular traffic to eliminate this risk and allow for an improved visitor experience.

Monterey cypress allée flanking the entrance road with the RCA Receiving Building at the terminus, 2016.

(NPS)

Today’s visitors continue to enjoy the iconic allée as they journey to the Point Reyes Lighthouse Visitor Center or stop at one of the last remaining Morse code radio stations along the Pacific Coast. Though many of the antennas that once dominated the use of this area have been removed, the allée remains as a vestige of the peninsula's combined agricultural and industrial heritage.

Discover More

Learn about the Marconi/RCA Bolinas Transmitting Station and RCA Point Reyes Receiving Station Historic District at Point Reyes National Seashore

Cultural Landscape Report