Allied Arts Guild in Menlo Park: Farm Buildings Reimagined as a Place for Craft

By Matthew Martinez, Founder, CEO & Managing Broker, Diamond Real Estate Group. California DRE #01869679.

Allied Arts Guild in Menlo Park was conceived as a place where the surroundings and the work would reinforce each other. Artists would make useful objects in a setting of studios, courtyards and gardens, with architecture shaped partly from the farm buildings already on the land.

Its story is therefore about both craft and adaptive use. The complex did not begin as a uniform set of new buildings; it combined retained structures with new design to create a particular working environment.

The Merners brought an idea to an existing farm site

The Guild’s own account records Delight and Garfield Merner’s 1929 purchase of 3.5 acres from the Jeff Murray farm. Architect Gardner Dailey and artist Pedro de Lemos worked with them on the new arts guild.

The aim connected a workplace with the quality of the objects made there. The setting was intended to support craft rather than merely display finished products. That purpose helps explain why studios, gardens and smaller shared spaces became part of the same composition.

The first workshops helped build the rest

The Guild describes iron and wood shops beginning first because their work was needed to construct the complex. It also records retention of the Murray barn and sheds, and use of the old farmhouse framework in the main building.

This is a particularly direct relationship between production and architecture. The workshops were not only occupants awaiting a finished campus; their skills contributed to making the place itself.

Reusing a frame also creates a different design problem from starting on empty land. Existing proportions and construction become part of what the new work must accommodate. The result can retain traces of an earlier use within a changed architectural identity.

Spanish Colonial design linked the new buildings

The Palo Alto Stanford Heritage account describes the collaboration between Dailey and de Lemos and the development of Spanish Colonial buildings from 1929 to 1932. It places the architecture within the Merners’ vision for a craft workplace.

The shared vocabulary helps several structures read as a related place without requiring identical forms. Courts, passages and garden edges give the spaces between buildings a role as important as the individual façades.

The gardens extend the craft setting

The Guild’s history describes named courts and gardens inspired by the founders’ travels, with decorative work by artists and craftspeople. It also identifies Ansel Adams as the photographer who recorded the early completed buildings.

These details suggest that the setting was composed at several scales. Buildings established the larger framework, while paving, planting, furniture and artwork shaped the experience close at hand.

A courtyard can be understood as an outdoor room: its edges, openings and proportions determine how enclosed or connected it feels. At Allied Arts, such spaces support movement between work areas while also creating places to pause.

The working and public roles continue together

The current Guild description identifies studios used for both creating and retail, with the Auxiliary owning and operating the complex. It connects the organization’s proceeds with support for Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford.

This adds another layer to the site’s history. A building complex can retain an arts identity while its institutional purpose and operating arrangements evolve. The continuity lies in the relationship among craft, place and public engagement rather than an entirely unchanged business model.

Menlo Park’s character includes places beyond its main commercial streets

The Guild provides a different kind of local destination from a conventional shopping center. Its small buildings and landscaped courts make the experience of moving through the site part of the visit.

Explore real estate and home for sale in Menlo Park and our housing-settings comparison. Contact Diamond to compare homes with an appreciation of the local architecture, institutions and everyday destinations around them.

Sources checked October 28, 2026. Confirm current shop, garden and tour arrangements with the Guild before visiting.