For more than 100 years, the Duino name has been woven into the history of East San Jose. Before Google campuses, before the freeways, and long before the valley became Silicon Valley, the Duino family was already shaping the landscape—literally—one fairway at a time. Their story began with a generation of immigrants armed with little more than determination, a work ethic forged through lean years, and a belief that community starts with creating spaces where people belong.
What started with caddying for twenty-five cents a bag eventually transformed hillsides and orchards into some of the region’s most beloved public golf courses. For decades, Pleasant Hills wasn’t just a place to play. It was a gathering spot, a local business, and a piece of civic identity. And at every step, the Duino family was there.
A Family Built on Hard Work and Community
Francesco and Florence Duino moved their family from Ohio to San Jose in 1912 with plans to start a wine- and cheese-making business. But their 13 children found their future on the golf course instead of the farm. Many of the boys learned the game at San Jose Country Club, where caddying introduced them to the sport that would define the family for generations.
Their achievements were impressive. Louis won championships and became the Mercury News’ first full-time golf writer. Eddie Sr. became a legendary golf professional at San Jose Country Club, where he served as a mentor to young players and a community leader who brought the game to veterans and students. Each sibling contributed something different, but together they built a reputation rooted in accessibility, generosity and service.
Henry, the youngest son, became the visionary. He didn’t just love golf—he reshaped land to create it. He grew trees by hand, sculpted fairways on tractors, and built four courses that provided millions of rounds of affordable golf to generations of residents. Pleasant Hills Golf Course, which opened in 1959, became his signature achievement and an East San Jose landmark.
Passing the Torch
After Henry’s passing in 1996, Pleasant Hills fell to his son, Francis. He had grown up on tractors with his father, learning the business from the ground up. For years he fought rising costs to keep Pleasant Hills open to the public. But it was the City of San Jose’s massive investment into new municipal courses that hastened the end for Pleasant Hills Golf Course. By 2004, with the additional competition at a time of declining participation in the sport, the economics no longer worked. The course closed and the land—fenced, quiet, and unchanged—has sat untouched for more than twenty years.
For Francis, that closure wasn’t an ending. It was a responsibility. From the moment his father entrusted Francis with the property, his responsibility has been to protect the family’s legacy by navigating the burdens of estate taxes, while trying to discover a viable use for their former golf course property. Over the years, Francis has worked diligently to actively maintain the property while trying to somehow replace the family’s income for this very large piece of land. Surrounded on three sides by houses and a large regional park on the fourth side, a multitude of developers have approached Francis and the City with many development plans; however, it became abundantly clear that in past city administrations there was no interest in entertaining a vision for a more constructive use of the property.
Francis has spent more than four decades trying to determine the right future for the land his father shaped, yet previous city administrations erected obstacles to development at every opportunity. In 1976, San Jose passed the Evergreen Development Policy, which designated that no development could occur on the Pleasant Hills site. Despite amendments to the policy in 1995, 1998 and 2008 to allow for more residential development in the Evergreen Development Policy area, the Pleasant Hills site was always left out, prevented from converting the underutilized site for new housing as real estate prices soared and more and more families were priced out of the area. In 2018, San Jose adopted a new transportation analysis policy that made residential development impossible in much of the city, and ultimately rendered the PHGC property undevelopable.
But things have changed for the positive. Now, working with Lakeside Community and a new City administration, a vision for Pleasant Hills’ future is finally taking shape. After amending the transportation analysis policy to allow a pathway for development at Pleasant Hills, the City funded a yearlong community visioning process resulting in a set of guiding principles for the development of the former golf course. Lakeside Community drew from that development framework in forming their redevelopment proposal, which includes 2,000 homes, parks, open space, a community center and neighborhood-serving retail—a modern community that reflects the same values of accessibility and public benefit that guided the Duino family for a century.
Honoring the Past While Building the Future
The redevelopment of Pleasant Hills is more than a project. It is a closing chapter in San Jose’s golf history and a new chapter in the Duino family’s legacy of civic contribution.
Where fairways once stretched across the East Side, new families will plant roots of their own. Parks, trails, and gathering spaces will echo the same community-first philosophy that Henry championed when he kept greens fees low so anyone could play.
And for Francis, this isn’t just business. It’s deeply personal.
He sees this redevelopment as the ultimate tribute to his father, uncles, and aunt—a way to continue the family’s tradition of service to the community. He often points out that San Jose’s needs have changed. Today, providing homes, parks, and places for families to gather is just as important as providing public golf once was.
A Legacy That Lives On
The Duino legacy isn’t measured only in yards of fairway or rounds played. It is measured in opportunity; in welcoming people in rather than keeping them out; in creating local amenities that serve everyday families; and in giving back through leadership, public service, and decades of community involvement.
With the Pleasant Hills entitlement process momentum, the fences that have long surrounded the site will eventually come down. The city recently kicked off the environmental review process with a public scoping meeting held in October. The developer, Lakeside Community, continues to make progress on bringing the community’s long-awaited vision for the site to fruition, refining its proposal in collaboration with various city departments.
Once approved, a neighborhood will rise on the Pleasant Hills site that captures the same spirit Francis’ father Henry planted when he grew his first seedlings for El Rancho Verde: a belief that land should serve the community.
For Francis, this has been his mission. He sees the project not only as a long-awaited resolution to decades of uncertainty, but as a living tribute to the values his father and uncles championed: hard work, inclusivity, and service to others.
The Duino family’s imprint on East San Jose is unmistakable. With this next chapter, their legacy will continue not as a memory, but as a place where the next hundred years of East San Jose families can call home.