Old Fig Garden the fig orchard that became a neighborhood

Fig Garden today

Where people go nearby

• Fig Garden Village

  Shaw and Palm, across Shaw

  Fresno's first regional shopping center, opened in 1956: an open-air village of about 300,000 square feet with Whole Foods, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Anthropologie and lululemon, plus La Boulangerie, the Elbow Room and a post office.

• Local restaurants

  Shaw and Blackstone avenues

  Long-running local spots within a couple of miles include The Annex Kitchen, Mochuelo, The Lime Lite and Rocket Dog on Shaw, and Yosemite Falls Cafe on Blackstone.

• Fig Garden Woman's Clubhouse

  4550 N. Van Ness Blvd.

  The club, founded in 1921, opens its clubhouse to the public for sales, including a spring vintage and antique sale and a fall "Trash to Treasure" sale. Members also bake cookies for Christmas Tree Lane donations.

• Fig Garden Swim & Racquet Club

  4722 N. Maroa Ave.

  A private club, member-owned since 1963, with a heated lap pool, hard and clay tennis courts and pickleball courts. The homeowners association holds its meetings there.

• Oso de Oro Lake Park

  5550 N. Forkner Ave.

  A park about a mile northwest of the neighborhood.

What the homes are like

Lots

Many lots trace back to the 1919 one-acre and half-acre subdivision, so large lots are common. Sizes still vary street to street, so check each listing.

Age and style

Mostly custom homes, many built between about 1920 and 1948, in Spanish, Craftsman, mid-century and adobe styles, along with the 1930s modernist homes on Wilson Avenue. With no builders active, homes come up only as resales.

Setbacks

On Van Ness Boulevard, property lines sit 60 feet from the center of the road, compared with about 35 feet on other streets. County rules add a front setback of 20 to 35 feet, where fences are limited to 3 feet tall.

County, not city

Permits and planning go through Fresno County. Part of the neighborhood also pays a parcel tax to the Fig Garden Police Protection District for extra Sheriff's patrols.

HOA and taxes

The homeowners association is voluntary, at $90 a year. No Mello-Roos district is documented here, but check the tax bill on any home you're considering.

Getting around, and schools

Freeways

Highway 99 is to the west, with exits at Ashlan and Shaw. Highway 41 is to the east, with exits at Shields, Ashlan and Shaw.

Distances

About 4 miles to downtown Fresno, 5 to Fresno Yosemite International Airport and 6 to Clovis, measured in a straight line from the middle of the neighborhood.

Shopping

Fig Garden Village is just across Shaw at Palm, inside Fresno city limits.

Schools

Old Fig Garden is in Fresno Unified School District. Most of it is zoned to Powers-Ginsburg Elementary, Wawona K-8 and Bullard High School. A small area south of Ashlan and east of Maroa is zoned to Del Mar Elementary, Fort Miller Middle and Fresno High. Boundaries change, so confirm any address with the district.

Old Fig Garden Shaw Ave Ashlan Ave Shields Ave Palm Ave Blackstone Ave Fruit Ave Christmas Tree Lane 1Fig Garden Village 2First Tree (Van Ness & Pontiac) 3Van Ness underpass (1927)

1. 1Fig Garden Village
2. 2First Tree (Van Ness & Pontiac)
3. 3Van Ness underpass (1927)

From hardpan to fig gardens

In 1912, a developer from Kansas named Jesse Clayton "J.C." Forkner took a one-year option on 6,000 acres of hardpan between central Fresno and the San Joaquin River. To plant it, his crews blasted holes through the hardpan with dynamite. About 600,000 fig trees went in, mostly Calimyrna with large blocks of Kadota, and his holdings eventually reached 12,000 acres.

The scale was enormous for its day: more than 120 miles of streets, a 25-mile main canal and about 135 miles of side ditches, built with horse-drawn Fresno scrapers and more than 100 Ford tractors. Forkner's tractor order was big enough that Henry Ford came west to see the operation.

In 1919, Forkner and his partner Wylie Giffen subdivided the section nearest town into one-acre and half-acre lots, sold as a "Garden Home Acre that equals 10 city lots." Each came with 50 Kadota fig trees cared for free for three years and piped water to every acre. A 28-year-old landscape architect, Horace Cotton, planned the street trees, and more than 20,000 were in the ground by the end of 1919. That subdivision is today's Old Fig Garden.

The Depression ended the fig empire, and Forkner went bankrupt. The trees he and Cotton planted stayed, and they became the canopy the neighborhood is known for.

1. 1912J.C. Forkner takes an option on 6,000 acres north of Fresno and begins planting fig trees.
2. 1914The streetcar line is extended north through the fig gardens to the river, about 11 miles from downtown, ending at Forkner's River View Park and "Fresno Beach."
3. 1919Forkner and Wylie Giffen subdivide the land nearest town into one-acre and half-acre lots.
4. 1920The first tree on what becomes Christmas Tree Lane is decorated.
5. 1921Thirteen women found the Fig Garden Woman's Club. Its clubhouse on Van Ness follows later in the decade.
6. 1927The Van Ness Boulevard underpass replaces a dangerous railroad grade crossing.
7. 1938Record rain sends the Herndon Canal over its banks and floods the neighborhood.
8. 1942The Fig Garden Fire Protection District is formed.
9. 1947Neighbors start the homeowners association that runs Christmas Tree Lane today.
10. 1956Fig Garden Village opens at Shaw and Palm, Fresno's first regional shopping center.
11. 2010Old Fig Garden first appears as its own place in the U.S. Census.
12. 2025CenterCal and DRA Advisors buy Fig Garden Village, and Christmas Tree Lane marks its 103rd season.

The project, by the numbers

Stories from the neighborhood

• Fresno once had a beach out here

  Forkner's 1914 streetcar line ended at a sandy river beach he promoted as "Fresno Beach." The site later became a Boy Scout camp and is now Scout Island, an outdoor-education center of about 85 acres that the Fresno County Office of Education bought in 2000.

• Figs never grew at Fig Garden Village

  Nearly everything around it was orchard, but the land under the 1956 shopping center never had fig trees on it.

• A lake almost came to the river bluffs

  In the 1960s, federal planners proposed a 65-foot "Fig Garden Dam" on the San Joaquin River near Highway 99. Its reservoir would have backed up about 10 miles. The plan was dead by the 1980s.

• A street of modernist homes

  On North Wilson Avenue between Lansing and Rialto, the firm Franklin & Kump designed eight homes between 1936 and 1942, ranging from California adobe ranch to early International Style. Historic Fresno publishes a walking tour of them.

• Henry Ford came to see the tractors

  Forkner bought Fordson tractors in such numbers that Henry Ford traveled west to see the fig gardens for himself.

• A clubhouse older than most of the homes

  The Fig Garden Woman's Club still meets in its 1920s clubhouse on Van Ness, a Fresno County historic landmark that is also listed with the California Office of Historic Preservation.