Woodside Elementary School will soon welcome a new building to its campus, and it’s thanks to three local families who donated $9 million to purchase a nearby century-old Victorian house and its property.
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The house, on 3.4 acres, is next to the school at 3215 Woodside Road. It was owned by Elwood Veliquette and Norma McArthur Veliquette, whose grandparents built it in 1900, according to Elwood Veliquette’s 2006 obituary published by The Almanac.
The house was eventually passed down to their children and put up for sale in March. For years the Woodside School Foundation, a nonprofit that raises money for the Woodside School District, imagined buying the space from the family to expand the school’s grounds, according to Beth Nash, the foundation’s president.
Once the house hit the market, the foundation board members met to discuss how they would fund the purchase. That’s when three local families approached Nash with a donation of $8.9 million, she said. The purchase was finalized in April.
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“It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity we couldn’t pass up,” Nash said.
The families who donated wish to remain anonymous, according to Nash.
The foundation is looking to transfer the property to the school district next year. From there, the school can decide what to do with the space, including turning it into more outdoor or classroom space, Nash said.
Woodside Elementary School is a K-8 school with 420 students this year, an increase of about 13% from the 2024-25 school year. The 16-acre campus includes two preschool classrooms, a public school for transitional kindergarten through fifth grade and a public middle school.
The McArthur family moved to Woodside around 1870 and built an earlier home on the property that was destroyed in a fire. The 3.4-acre property has been kept by the Veliquette family in its original condition, according to the obituary.
“Its unique. It’s a property that people pass by and know very well,” Nash said.
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