Books on books

After my offer was accepted, I was able to gladly focus my obsessive energy towards research. I got down to business with the three main books about Maybeck and looked for any clues linking the house to Maybeck.

Bernard Maybeck: Artisan, Architect, Artist. Kenneth H. Caldwell, 1977:

“In 1947 I had the good fortune to acquire an old Berkeley house reputed to have been designed by Maybeck although it lacked any obvious design signatures such as large fireplace, a venturi chimney cap, colorfully stained timbers, or beam ends carved as dragon heads. For several years I was uncertain of its authenticity; it was on no list of Maybeck work that I knew. I later invited Bernard and Annie Maybeck to tea… Much to my delight Mr. Maybeck assured me he had designed the house.”

Bernard Maybeck - Visionary Architect by Sally B. Woodbridge:

"This chronology of Maybeck’s work is based on the list compiled by Kenneth H. Cardwell for his monograph, Bernard Maybeck: Artisan, Architect, Artist, published in 1977... the possibility remains strong that he designed more buildings… than are listed here. Some of the houses for which drawings and other records exist have not been located…”

The Reid House, Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. Daniella Thompson

“Intrigue surrounds this beautiful Mediterranean-style house. Was it designed by Bernard Maybeck? The building permit of 1926 lists both the architect and the contractor as the father-and-son team of Rowland and Rowland. The firm is the documented builder of other Maybeck houses. The house displays the essential characteristics that identify Maybeck’s buildings: innovative planning, beautiful spatial relationships, and the creative use of structure and materials. Other clues are… industrial sash in the windows, and Maybeck’s signature Venturi chimney. If these observations are not convincing, a former neighbor, whose early 1950s paper route included this house and who is now vice president of the Berkeley Historical Society, said that way back before the 1950s, his father knew 24 Northampton was a Maybeck."

“The house is approached up a wide stairway to the sheltered side entry, past the twin-chambered chimney, invented by an 18th-century Italian physicist to increase the upward draft…. The low tiled porch roof. The wide, heavy, plank front door was sandblasted for texture, and the grilll over the centered window…

“Beyond the door is… an arched door inviting entry into the light-filled living room…

“The massive fireplace anchors the north end of the living room, and a room-width balcony, reached from upstairs, crosses just above the fireplace. The great… windows of industrial sash fill the room with light and look out on mature trees that partially hide the stunning views beyond. The… living room floor… continues into a small former dining room with low, beamed ceiling and built-in corner cabinet. This room opens to the central patio, which is surrounded on three sides by dining room, kitchen…

“Tucked behind a door near the entry is a… shower. A right turn at the top of the stairs leads to a compact half bath. The bedroom’s cast-iron curtain rods and their rings… are original to the house, as are the electric candle sconces. At the bottom of the stairs… floor-to-ceiling windows looks out to the patio… Just down the hall is an original bathroom, including fixtures and four walls of blue and tan flower tiles. On the right is the third original bedroom, with beautiful beamed ceiling; it faces the patio.

“Leaving the house by the dutch door, which opens to the rear garden…

“Enjoy the lovely garden and the classic tile roof.”

Inset: The Rowland-Maybeck Connection

“For a few years in the mid-1920s, Maybeck collaborated with the contractors Volney Hart Rowland (1874-1958) and his son Hermon (1900-1975). Originally based in Visalia, the Rowlands arrived in Berkeley c. 1923 from Bakersfield where Volney was a rancher. Indeed, throughout his working life, Volney alternated between farming and building.

It appears the Rowlands met Maybeck as soon as they arrived in Berkeley, for all their early Berkeley houses were constructed in Maybeck’s neighborhood. These included the Maybeck-designed Giesler House (1924) at 2577 Buena Vista Way. In 1926, the Rowlands worked on Maybeck’s home (the “Sack” house) and his “Cubby” house.

In its unsolved mystery”

A love letter

I submitted the very best offer I could afford, 650K cash, AS-IS, with no inspections, bank approvals or holdups. The agent told me they liked my offer but wanted to make sure I was buying it as-is and that I wasn’t going to flip it because the trustees grew up there and were sentimental about the place. My agent suggested I write them a love letter. I wrote them a letter about how I’m going to lovingly restore their childhood home and not flip it and I got the house. A week after my offer was accepted, it still hasn’t fully sunk in.

The love letter:

To the Sellers of Mountain Blvd., Oakland, 

Hello my name is Evan Hart. I am an Oakland native and grew up in a wonderful craftsman house with dark wood trim in Rockridge.  It was a very idyllic place to grow up. This charming, sunny neighborhood of historic houses has left with me an indelible appreciation of 100 year old houses with hardwood floors, mahogany trim, dentil moulding and the like.

My father moved to the bay area in the early '70s and has been remodeling houses here ever since. I started working for him as a teenager where I began to build skills and knowledge. After I graduated from UC Davis 5 years ago, I came back to the bay area and began remodeling short sales and foreclosures.  People tend to think I flip houses, but that implies I do a fast, cheap job and make quick money.  None of those are characteristic of the work that I have done.  I have carefully restored 3 houses in that time and I have gone to great lengths and expense to restore the original character of the house.  Typically this involves re-imagining what used to be, as the houses I could afford were in such terrible condition that no one else wanted to deal with them.  Feeling a strong connection to the historic heritage of my home town, I felt that I was the one who had to restore them, whether I made money or not.

 The first house I did was a cute 1915 A frame craftsman house in the East of Lake Merritt area. This was a basic craftsman restoration.  I did the foundation, copper plumbing, period appropriate bathrooms with hexagon and subway tiles, and put new wood windows in the front with my best guess of what the originals looked like.  I made very little money.

The second house was a tiny 1921 hillside bungalow craftsman house near the Grand Lake Theater.  It was a similar restoration as the first, but needed very difficult foundation and structural work, much like the Mountain house, though on a smaller scale.  For that house I also had to replace the large single pane window in the front (a fad from the '50s/'60s) with a wood window that matched the style of the house, an XOX casement window with 6 over 1 lights.  I did not make much money on this house either.  The third house, my current house, is a large 1954 mid-century modern home in Redwood Heights in Oakland.  It was fun to play around with the style of the '50s and '60s - I incorporated new slab cabinets and daltile 4&1/4" square tiles into the design that pays tribute to the mid-century modern movement while connecting the house to contemporary-modern features like new insulated windows and LED lights.

As I hope I have made clear, I love Oakland's architectural heritage and I do everything I can to preserve the original style of the house while rebuilding the systems that allow the house to live on well into the future. 

But after 3 houses, I need to restore a house for myself.  What really excited me about the house on Mountain is how much of the stunning original style is intact.  It's really a thrill for me to see a house that needs to be nursed back to health rather than the absolute train-wrecks I have been working on.  Sure it needs serious work, but not needing to reinvent the house makes it very appealing.  The original style is priceless and beats my effort at re-imagining what isn't there any day.

 If you let me buy your house, I will carefully and lovingly restore and maintain the house inside and out so that it will be around for another hundred years and beyond.  I will not flip it.  I intend to do such tedious acts as removing the upstairs Tunisian tile in the upper bath, repairing the framing and moisture barriers, and re-setting the original tiles! It is this kind of tedium that I find rewarding and that will preserve the house in the long term.  What is missing from the house I will research and replace with what I determine best matches the original intent of the designer.

I hope that I have assured you that with me, your house will be in the best possible hands.  In a way it feels as though my career thus far has been preparing me for this very exciting project.

Thank you very much,

Evan Hart 

Research time

I went down to the Berkeley library of Environmental Design to see if I could find any mention in any of the many Maybeck books about Mrs. Kingsley, V. Rowland or the Mountain Blvd house. I came up with nothing but saw a lot of cool stuff. My favorite was the book containing only the microfilm prints of Maybeck’s drawings for the First Church of Christ, Scientist. It was about a hundred pages detailing every embellishment and detail on the entire building, down to the landscaping, stone angel details and the light fixtures which he simply drew, described the finish, and sent away to a lampmaker named Otar in Santa Cruz to bring his creations to life. I was blown away someone could draw an entire large church, with as much detail as a Gothic church, but with no one to give him guidance. I guess that’s why many called him a visionary architect. He has such a unique and refined sense of style, it’s baffling trying to figure out where this all comes from.

I went to the archives and had to make an appointment for the next week, after the offers were due. “Oh well,” I thought. I liked the house and wanted it whether or not I could prove it was a real Maybeck. I was already pretty convinced myself so I decided to simply try to put in a good as-is offer and hope for the best. I was starting to feel silly at this point spending all this time thinking about the house when I was also thinking I had no chance. I tried briefly to send in my offer early and think of other things but that didn’t work. I was obsessed.

It may be a Maybeck

The disclosures I got contained a lot of information. Quotes for hundreds of thousands of dollars of work that needed to be done. Great! Maybe that will weed some people out. I also read some interesting letters. One letter was about the builder of the house, Volney Rowland, and his relationship to Maybeck. Apparently they had met in 1924 in Berkeley and worked together closely for about 5 years. They even built Maybeck’s famous sack house, built of burlap sacks dipped in concrete. One of his weirdest experiments! It seems they were very close for a while. Another thing I found was a type-written letter from 1951 about a visit from the builder and architect of record V. Rowland to the current owners of the house. After reading through the disclosures a couple of times, I realized the PDF I had received was out of order. When a one page hand-written letter is taken out, the type written letter is three pages and clearly says, “[Mrs. Kingsley, original owner] selected her own architect - a Mr.Maybeck, a very famous artisan and her own builder, this Mr.Rowland.”

A REAL MAYBECK?! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! OK now there’s no way I’m getting this house. People read these disclosures, right?

As I looked through the disclosures, I noted the old copies of building permits explaining several additions. I began working on a theory. The original house is Maybeck. It says in the letter and is so cool and unique that I believe it. (Convincing someone else for a sale is another story but I didn’t plan on selling it any time soon.) Two additions were done in the ‘30s, also under the name Rowland and Rowland (son), and were less mind blowing. Under this theory - Maybeck designed the original house in 1926 or so (it’s listed as built 1927). In the ‘30s Rowland built the additions - the breakfast nook and the music room. Both were clad in tons of boards of this wood that looked like it had been eaten lengthwise by carpenter bees. Big black tough looking things capable of boring about a ½” hole through wood, about the size of my pinky. I called it bug board. Has a nice ring to it, eh?

Anyway, a logical progression seemed that Rowland had built the Mountain house to Maybeck’s drawings and then designed his own additions, somewhat Maybeck-like, later using this weird wood he seemed to be REALLY INTO. The back two bedrooms seemed to have no relation to the first design or Rowland’s design. These were done with a permit in ‘41. One room inside was clad in redwood 6” clap-board siding, which was a common material in the ‘40s but usually used for the outside of the house. The ceiling had exposed room framing but it was painted and used much smaller beams. The other bedroom had dark wood board and batten wall board on the inside and another similar painted ceiling and a slab door closet, characteristic of the 50’s 60’s mainly. These were similar to the doors in the master closet which was very odd and seemed to have a poorly made clerestory type windows in it like an Eichler.

The house was kind of a mess in terms of design so I began to dig deeper as the offer date approached. What do you do, in terms of remodeling and design, with a house that is 3/5ths a very famous architect with the back 2/5ths some random crap from the ‘40s and some unpermitted, poorly built stuff from the ‘50s or ‘60s? Do you carefully restore the original house, and do whatever the hell you want with the rest? Do you try, though destined to fail, at making the rear parts look like they are Maybeck? I had to get to the bottom of this to know what I was getting myself into.