Deep in the golden hot countryside of Morgan Hill, the old white farmhouse languished for months with a For Sale sign planted in front. The knoll on which it was perched was bone dry and, but for the pomegranate tree, practically barren. Inside, the wooden floors were sloping, the wallpaper peeling. When the last member of the family that had owned the house for more than a century passed away, it was as though the house died, too.

But over the last two years, new life has been breathed back into the old place, first by an artist and her husband who had always wanted a vintage farmhouse to call their own, then by a local filmmaker and his crew making a low-budget independent short.

Filmmaking at the farmhouse

In extraordinary ways, both have celebrated the farmhouse’s humble history. And in return, the house has given back everything it has. Call it serendipity. Call it fate. But the house gave the artist and the filmmaker exactly what they needed, and more than they could have imagined.

The farmhouse brought Kerstin Schipper and Shawn Flanagan together on a late summer day in July. But it first beckoned Schipper two years ago. She and her husband, Peter, both came from Dutch dairy farmer stock and wanted a simple place with a sense of history. He was in the landscape materials business. She painted murals.

The couple had raised their nine children in a 1930s house in what had once been Los Gatos countryside. But the Mediterranean villas and modern mansions started crowding in and when their children were grown, the Schippers’ search began. Hidden behind eucalyptus and oaks west of Morgan Hill, the Schippers found the farmhouse. It sat on a rise, overlooking a pasture and creek.

Except for electricity and plumbing, Schipper said, “they had done nothing to the house since it was built. It was untouched.”

Double wash basins remained on the back laundry porch and the blackened Wedgewood stove in the kitchen still fired up. A narrow staircase led to the attic. When they noticed a calendar hanging in the garage dated 1948 — the year both Schippers were born — the whole place just felt right. They bought the house and, maintaining its tradition, cleaned it up but barely changed a thing.

“You want to respect who built it and lived in it,” she said. “We both like history — to touch the past in a way.”

They furnished it with second-hand pieces, many in the simple farmhouse style popular at the last turn of the century. On the front porch she hung one of her favorite paintings, a portrait of her daughter surrounded by sunflowers and hollyhocks. Most of her work contained at least one sunflower; it was her favorite and had become her signature symbol.

But the view from the porch of the barren landscape needed some tending. Instead of heading to the nursery, though, she simply grabbed the hose. “I just thought I’d water,” she said, and gave the property around the house a good, deep soak. And that’s when “they all came up.”

Sunflowers. Fields of them. Bright yellow and nearly 18-feet tall. And hollyhocks, pink, just like in her portrait. This was no simple cutting garden out back or a little patch of color here and there. The wildflowers surrounded the entire place and raced down the front hillside in an exuberant burst. The roots were so deep, she could barely pull one out if she tried.

“I thought it had to be an old garden,” Schipper said. “The only thing I know is that it felt like home right away.”

Director Shawn Flanagan with Actors

It was during this peak of summer bloom that Shawn Flanagan discovered it. A San Jose resident, he named his company Almaden Films after the neighborhood where he grew up. He had a number of independent short and feature films to his credit and was scouting locations for his latest Depression-era movie, “Whiskey Slide.” It is about Henry Percy (played by local actor Geordie Prodis) an artist who is down on his luck and in danger of losing his house, and his pregnant wife, Louise Percy (played by Kate Melia).

“It was supposed to be a no-budget short film where a bunch of friends get together and do whatever they can to get a movie done,” said Flanagan, 46. “Then great things started happening.”

Cameras rolling for Whiskey Slide

The first was finding the farmhouse, which had been recommended to him by a mutual friend, Maggie Wilhelm. “When I got there, I just freaked out,” he said. “I loved every part of it. The outside with the flowers all around; the house being period-right. It was just a great setting.”

And for a director on a budget, he didn’t have to pay for set design. “We had the old stove, the old kitchen, several old rooms that were just right,” Flanagan said.

The story called for a painting room for Henry, and the attic just happened to be filled with Schipper’s paintings. The script called for a chicken coop, and there it was in the side yard. One scene had the pregnant wife washing clothes and, running along the sideyard, a clothes line was already hung.

“That stuff was there when I got there,” Flanagan said.

The only props he needed were the historic cars provided by San Jose collectors Don Skow and Shaughnessy McGehee.

“It’s unbelievable the way things came together,” Flanagan said. Parts of the movie have also been filmed at San Jose History Park and the Radonich and Adams ranches in the Santa Cruz Mountains. But, he said, “the heart of the movie comes from that house.”

He plans to wrap up production shortly and have the movie ready to submit to San Jose’s Cinequest and other international film festivals. The only shame, he said, is that the movie is shot in black-and-white and won’t capture the brilliance of the sunflowers. But when he edits the scenes, “I will go out of my way to make sure I use some of the wider angles with the sunflowers.”

Schipper was thrilled to lend the farmhouse to the movie crew and loved that they embraced the house, just as it was.

Schipper likes to call it a “happy house.” But a friend who visited recently told her it was more than that.

“It’s a magical place,” her friend said.

“Thank you,” Schipper replied. “Yes.”

“She called it a magical place,” Schipper said. “I said thank you. Yes.”

(To watch an advance clip of Whiskey Slide, go to www.almadenfilms.com.)

Story by Julia Prodis Sulek, Lookiloos.

Photos of film crew by Mike Gendimenico, Faultline Digital

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