HISTORY OF OUR CYBERMANOR OFFICE

We have a very unique story to tell about the history of cyberManor’s office building. Today we have clients and builder partners visit our office to learn about the latest products and experiences in home technology. Over a century ago our office building was filled with a classroom of young grammar school students learning about writing, reading, and arithmetic. After several years of detailed research into the history of our office building we have now learned that it was originally located in Campbell, California and served as an 2 Room Schoolhouse for the children of the Campbell Grammar School (our building was located behind the main Campbell Public School building). We also learned that Kenneth Peake, the founder of the Claravale Dairy in Monte Sereno, California (from 1931 to 1998) was one of the students that attended this Campbell schoolhouse in the early 1900s. Then in the early 1920s it was moved to our current location in Los Gatos, Gem City of the Foothills, to become the home of telephone switch board operator Elsie Collonge and her family for the next 50 years. The schoolhouse was moved from its Campbell location at the corner of Winchester Boulevard and East Rincon Avenue to make room for a larger and newer Campbell Grammar school built in the early 1920s.

Today when you walk into our main office building you can still see the memories of this one room schoolhouse. There is a restored wooden desk and classroom books in the main lobby, the original wall of windows on the northern side of our building, and a schoolhouse bell that fills the rooftop cupola. The next time you visit cyberManor please ask about our schoolhouse past – we would love to tell you about the rich and colorful history of our office building!

Campbell Grammar School in the early 1900s

Elsie Collonge’s schoolhouse home in the late 1930s

Our cyberManor office building today

HISTORY OF CYBERMANOR

cyberManor was founded in Los Gatos, California in 1999 by Gordon van Zuiden – one of the first residential custom integrators in the United States focused on installing and supporting networking technologies in the home. cyberManor was originally founded to connect PC and Apple computers on one wired network to share the newly introduced “always on” high speed cable and DSL internet services. This networked computer system for the home was a major improvement over the previous dial up modem experience that was much slower and could only be used by only one person at one computer at a time. In the early years cyberManor focused on providing robust home data network solutions for their residential clients, but over time the company’s expertise extended into providing digitally based audio, video, and control solutions for the entire home.

Over the last 20 years cyberManor’s home technology solutions have been featured in four different Sunset Showcase Homes, HP’s Digital Demonstration Home at their Cupertino campus, Electronic House Magazine’s Home of the Month – America’s Greenest Home, Microsoft’s National Ultimate Installation award, the San Jose Mercury News and in videos produced by Cisco and CNET. cyberManor has worked with many prestigious home builders, architects, and interior designers in the San Francisco Bay Area to best integrate cyberManor’s home technology solutions into the design and aesthetic needs of their clients. Mr. van Zuiden is a recognized columnist and speaker at home technology events around the United States and abroad. His white papers on home technology have been published on TiVo’s custom integration portal, the CEDIA national trade association website, and several industry trade magazines. cyberManor published their first Smart Home Magazine based on their first hand experience as a custom electronics integrator at the end of 2015. In 2022 cyberManor was awarded Consumer Technology Association’s Mark of Excellence Award for their New Home Technology Center showroom. Today cyberManor has installed digital home technology solutions for over 2000 homeowners in the San Francisco Bay Area.