Inside a Bay Area tech founder’s clandestine 360-acre park

It all started with an X-rated photo circulating the trenches of Reddit. Or, that’s what it seemed. 

The symbol, which appears to be a cross adjoined with an upside down heart, was discovered on a barren hillside in Milpitas, and nobody seemed to know where it came from, or what it actually represented. Dozens of users were quick to make locker room jokes about its shape, but one suggested that it actually points to something much more fascinating and complex: namely, a tech founder’s clandestine spiritual site, which once drew thousands of visitors before it was shut down by authorities in 2019.  

Dragon Mountain, or Thiên Long Sơn, was an enchanting 360-acre park where people from all over the world could hike, meditate and read amid vibrant altars and religious statues. Though it’s technically private land, the property owner had allowed the public to visit at no cost. There, they would trek to the mountain’s 1,800-foot-tall peak, which offered resplendent views of the South Bay’s rolling hillsides, or relax in one of the park’s many makeshift pavilions. Though it’s just 15 minutes away from “the heart of the Silicon Valley,” a 2020 project description from Dragon Mountain representatives reads, it “seems a world apart” from the bustling city below. 

However, despite receiving high praise from the public, county documents show that Dragon Mountain has also earned dozens of building, zoning and wastewater violations, and it’s unclear whether it will officially reopen. All that’s known for certain is that it’s owned by a man who has been embroiled in an ongoing battle with local authorities for years now. 

Currently, the property is owned by Thien Tam, an LLC that lists Keith, or Kiet, Ngo, as its CEO and Dragon Mountain as its primary address, county assessor’s office representatives confirmed to SFGATE. Documents published by Dragon Mountain — and structures on the property — are emblazoned with the same unique cross symbol found in Milpitas. 

According to his biography, Ngo — who also goes by Thien Tuan Kiet — settled in Silicon Valley in 1981, where he worked in the tech industry for a number of years and founded KNT Manufacturing, a tech component manufacturing company in Newark. Afterward, Ngo invested millions of dollars in Dragon Mountain when he bought it in 2014, the San Jose Spotlight reported — and government documents indicate that he modified multiple prayer spaces in the area long before getting the green light from local authorities. The 2020 project description sent by the group, though, insists the site is “not a place of religious congregation.” It also states that “there will be no overnight sleeping quarters for monks,” though photos appear to show them gathering at the mountain en masse.  

Santa Clara County press representatives told SFGATE that they received complaints as far back as 2015, when massive grading violations flooded the neighboring properties. “The property owner ignored and worked through several stop work orders before the County began to take more rigorous enforcement action,” they wrote. 

A series of code violations show that Dragon Mountain’s meditation space, for instance, its 120-square-foot tree house and its library structure were allegedly built without permits. County staff then reportedly discovered that an outdoor sink discharged dirty water as well as “other offensive, injurious, or dangerous substances directly onto the land.” 

County documents from that same year show that there were lofty plans to build a chapel where a barn structure previously burned down, along with assembly rooms, monuments and statues, as well as a house for a caretaker, among other facilities. Over the phone, Kevin Weiss, CEO of real estate development company JMH Weiss, told SFGATE that Ngo, who’s deeply religious, has a following who believes he “isn’t human.” His page describes him as a “messenger” of a belief system called Tien Tam, and some of his YouTube videos, which he posts semi-regularly, have hundreds of thousands of views. 

But aside from operating a religious site, at one point, it appears that Ngo offered to open up his sprawling private property for public use.   

“We are pleased to present to the Santa Clara County Parks Department an extraordinary proposal to expand the recreational opportunity for the citizens of Santa Clara County at no cost,” wrote Weiss in a 2021 letter to local officials, reviewed by SFGATE. “We are proposing open access to vast open space and vistas on the only remaining, privately owned, adjoining lands to the Santa Clara County Ed Levin Park.” 

According to the letter, Ngo owns 360 acres to the north and west of Dragon Mountain that border Ed Levin Park, as well as an area known as Chaparral Ranch at the end of Old Calaveras Road. 

Per Weiss, the proposed trail would begin at the lower parking lot and connect to a “contemplation” area where visitors could read and meditate. It would then lead to a winding staircase that would snake along the mountain and connect hikers to a 1.5-mile-long ridge before finally taking them to the Ed Levin Park boundary.

Santa Clara County officials told SFGATE that even though he originally tried to obtain a permit to legalize public use of the property, in March 2023, Dragon Mountain representatives informed them that Ngo is now setting this aside to make the land compliant for residential use instead.

“This means that there is currently no proposal on the table for public use of the property,” county representatives told SFGATE. 

Regardless, supporters of Ngo have been strongly pushing for the ethereal park to reopen, and officials said that they’re still awaiting revised proposals from him. 

“This mountain, it’s something special,” Phan Nghe, 86, told the Spotlight in 2022. “I get the issue with permits and such, but the county needs to let them fix it and reopen this place. Our community is yearning for this to happen.”

County representatives declined to provide further information to SFGATE regarding the symbol, citing the ongoing investigation. Despite multiple attempts, Ngo did not respond to SFGATE’s request for comment. For now, it’s unclear when his sacred mountain will reopen — all that remains, it seems, is a stark, if misunderstood, symbol of what it once was.