Step inside ‘Palace of Dreams’ in Fresno. Where relics from Valley’s past find sanctuary

Jim and Marsha Williams’ Palazzo del Sogni sits atop the hill at Palm and Princeton avenues, a museum of treasures from Fresno’s past.

The Palazzo, Italian for Palace of Dreams, is crowned by a windmill from a demolished home in Shaver Lake and bordered by bricks from a long-gone Madera High School campus.

A large handcrafted sign proudly proclaims the property to be the home of “Jimmy the Junker.”

City of Fresno officials call the Williams’ home “a living sculpture.”

Jim Williams, the longtime operator of Williams Excavation company, has another description.

“A scrapbook of my travels”

That phrase came from a Santa Barbara professor who happened by chance on the palazzo one day, and mistook it for a bed-and-breakfast.

Knocking on the door, she learned her mistake, but was charmed at what she found.

She likened Williams’ never-ending collection of Valley mementos to the work of Antoni Gaudí, the Barcelona architect known for undertaking construction on a Barcelona cathedral in 1882.

Gaudí is long departed, and the church is still being built.

Her comparison seems to fit. Williams at age 79 continues to add to his own cathedral, despite a broken neck recently suffered in a fall while working on brickwork in front of the Palazzo.

“I find something (I like) and I put it up,” said Williams, when asked what drives him to continue adding to his living museum.

Building a garden of art with history

Among the other treasures to be found there:

• A large clock on a column that once marked time at a home on Van Ness Avenue.

• An arbor from the formerly bustling farmers market at Divisadero Street and Highway 41 in downtown Fresno, torn down several decades ago.
  
  

• A water tank that once served a Madera winery.
  
  

• Gates that once stood in Fresno’s China Alley, and one from the nearby Chinatown hospital built in the early 1900s on E Street. There, Doctor Buntaro Okonogi treated newly arrived Japanese immigrants.
  
  

• Old metal street lights that illuminated cities from Los Angeles to Stockton.
  
  

• Dozens and dozens of palm trees that Williams used to build multiple sitting areas around his yard. They make him feel as if he is on vacation in another part of the world.

“You can tell I like palm trees,” joked Williams, as he sat at a table in one of those retreats recently on a brisk Spring day.

Like everything else, Williams collected his prize palms in the course of his excavation work, from places like Borba Farms on the Valley’s west side and Estrada’s restaurant in Visalia.

And he carefully sketches out exactly the way he wants then to look in his yard, as he does with everything he collects.

Favorite pieces

Where to start to name the treasures Williams has saved over the years? It isn’t easy to decide.

Of course, some have more value than others to him.

Take the Castle from the former Colonial Green miniature golf course at Maple and Shields avenues that can be seen by cars passing by on busy Palm.

About 40 years ago, Williams set it up for his son Jimmy’s second birthday. Channel 47 came to put the party on the evening news.

“It was one of the nicest days I’ve had in my life,” said Williams, reflecting back.

The castle, like everything else, is there because of Williams’ love of local history and respect for how things were once carefully crafted and made to last. That drives him to save them from a landfill.

In a city notorious for eradicating its past, as in the destruction of the Fresno County Courthouse in 1966, a demolition man has become a one-man guardian of yesterday.

Williams credits the late Fresno businessman Frank Caglia as a source of inspiration for saving old, irreplaceable items.

He admits to a special fondness for the stained glass windows he has come across when tearing down old churches, including one in Taft, and several in Fresno.

“I hope God doesn’t get after me for all these churches I’ve torn down,” he said.

God would likely be magnanimous, but authority is sometimes perplexed.

President Clinton impact during 1996 Fresno visit

In September 1996, days before President Bill Clinton was to speak at nearby Dailey Elementary School, the Williams family heard a knock on their door.

A U.S. Secret Service agent told them a rooftop water tank had to come down. Too easy for a sniper to lie in wait inside, the agent said.

Williams dutifully had the tank lowered, but Clinton’s motorcade ended up bypassing the home, approaching Dailey from Shields Avenue.

On another occasion, Williams sought approval from Fresno City Hall to put a walled structure with a window in his yard.

No way, said officials. It was deemed to be past the roof line and a code violation, he was told.

Not to be denied, Williams walked halls at Fresno City Hall and found an official who pondered the issue and determined there was no violation. It was not a wall, simply an “architectural projection.”

It’s not easy to stop a man relentless in his vision. And Williams, who started work at 5, riding in dad Clarence’s truck, said he has no plans to end his creation.

“I’ve been doing this all my life,” he said.

“People ask why I never retired, but I’m on vacation every day I work.”