Architecture Wednesday: Julia Morgan Designed 1911 Berkeley Home

At the top of Rose Walk in Berkeley’s North Hills stands 1400 Le Roy Avenue, a 1911 Arts & Crafts residence designed by pioneering architect Julia Morgan, commissioned by independent professional woman Jessie Wallace, and carefully reconstructed after surviving the 1923 Berkeley Fire.

The home dates to the first decade of Morgan’s practice, when her architectural philosophy was taking shape through residential commissions primarily in Berkeley. Morgan, California’s first licensed female architect and the first woman admitted to Paris’s École des Beaux-Arts, would go on to an illustrious career and she was posthumously awarded the AIA Gold Medal in 2014, the profession’s highest honor.

The home’s original client adds remarkable depth to its story. Jessie Wallace was a professional stenographer who enrolled at UC Berkeley at age 42, graduating in 1914. Her decision to commission Julia Morgan reflected broader patterns in Morgan’s early practice: many clients were women—educators, professionals, civic leaders—seeking homes that reflected new ideas about women’s roles in society.

Just three years after Wallace died, on September 17, 1923, a grass fire in Wildcat Canyon swept over the Berkeley Hills destroying more than 600 homes in a matter of hours. Rose Walk was heavily affected, with many original houses lost entirely and later rebuilt, but this home suffered minor damage though a thoughtful reconstruction preserved the home’s original footprint and architectural character.

The home features wood-framed construction with gambrel roof and clapboard siding. On the front façade, paired and tripartite dormer windows capture morning sun, while French doors and casement windows on the rear of the home toward porches and garden spaces. There are also original Morgan details including multi-pane wood windows, built-in elements, and a living room fireplace; the proportions, the light, and the way the rooms flow into each other are all deliberate, yet the home never feels fussy or formal which is pure Julia Morgan: elegant without being ornamental, spacious without being grand, connected to landscape without sacrificing privacy.

The main floor features a large front-to-back living area, family room, dining room and kitchen with stairs to the basement level where there is a bedroom, laundry and recreation room. On the second floor in a primary suite with attached bathroom, two secondary bedrooms one with access to a sleeping porch, a study and second bathroom.

The property’s location at the top of Rose Walk is integral to its significance. Rose Walk was designed in 1913 by Bernard Maybeck, Julia Morgan’s mentor, in the Beaux-Arts tradition. This spacious pedestrian stairway has connected Euclid and Le Roy avenues for more than a century and the walk and the houses surrounding it reflect a period when Berkeley’s hills were becoming a laboratory for new architectural ideas rooted in craftsmanship, landscape, and belief that the built environment could shape daily life for the better.

Rose Walk is one of those Berkeley secrets that locals treasure: a public space that feels intimate. Being at the top of it, with unobstructed Bay views extending to San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, makes this Julia Morgan home a cut above others in the neighborhood.

This is a home for someone who values design, who appreciates Berkeley’s history, and who wants to live in a place that feels connected to something larger than just the four walls. It’s not for everyone, but for the right person, it’s everything. And that may explain why the home sold for $800K over its asking price.

As always, click to emBIGGERate …

A few years after this home was completed Julia Morgan took on a slightly larger, nearly thirty year long project along the California Coast and designed Hearst Castle.

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Architecture Wednesday: Japanese-Inspired Berkeley Midcentury

Tucked into a steep hillside in Berkeley, California, is a 3,449-square-foot home was designed by noted architect Robert Klemmedson in 1959. The modernist architect—who spent 10 years in Japan and often incorporated traditional Japanese elements into his Bay Area designs—loosely modeled the midcentury residence after the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto, Japan.

The home sits on a private Berkeley road developed by another famed architect, Bernard Maybeck, who was also known for his many prized works in the Bay Area. On the way to the property at 14 Maybeck Twin Drive, you’ll pass by Maybeck’s personal studio, as well as other residences the architect designed for his family.

Situated on a 15,133-square-foot lot with panoramic views of the San Francisco Bay Area, the hillside home includes four bedrooms and three-and-a-half bathrooms spread across two levels. In addition to a kitchen, living room, and dining area, there is also a media room, a detached two-car garage, and even a wine cellar … oh, I do love a wine cellar.

In the spacious living room, a wood-burning fireplace sits near sliding glass doors that open to a partially covered deck with Bay views. Traditional wood paneling and an earthy palette are accentuated by high ceilings and wide picture windows. And that’s the one thing I love about the house; the hints of Japanese design and architecture which is sadly missing from the dining room, kitchen and bedrooms; those rooms could be in any house.

And while the property also includes a private patio and a wraparound deck, as well as a peaceful, Japanese-inspired garden filled with greenery, it’s the treatment of the exterior, giving me 1940’s convict vibes … or Beetlejuice … that also bother me.

Perhaps a few tweaks because of its proximity to The City and Berkeley and those views?

As always, click to emBIGGERate ...

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Architecture Wednesday: Panoramic Hill House

Out in Berkeley, California you’ll find Panoramic Hill, the site of four residences designed and built by the late Berton Garey—who built a total of 11 homes during his lifetime—with this, 3333 Dwight Way, his fourth home there, completed in 1981. And while the house appears deceptively simple from the street, its design, and Garey’s story of the house, are quite wonderful.

It all began when Garey rode his motorcycle up Panoramic Hill—a neighborhood notable for homes built by Bernard Maybeck, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Julia Morgan, among others—while attending Berkeley. He drove past a house built by architect Judd Boynton, met the man and went on to become his apprentice; ten years later, in the early 1970s, after working as a carpenter, Garey began designing and building how own homes. With just one assistant per project, Berton Garey built each of his houses by hand, from hoisting beams into place to plumbing and electrical; he also lived in each of his builds while working on the next, and it was while completing this house he met and became lifelong friends with the home’s current owner, artist Bob Joyce. 

From their nearby apartment, Joyce and his then-partner had watched Garey’s homes appear one after another in the neighborhood, and when they found an available lot up the road, they asked Garey if he’d build them a home; he wasn’t interested, but he was willing to sell them this home. Sadly, the home was out of their price range, but  the three men became such good friends that they worked out a deal: Gary would finance half the house with no cash down, just a monthly payment, and the deal was struck and 3333 Dwight Way was sold to Joyce and his partner.

Inspired by the hillside it occupies, Garey designed the house to face the San Francisco Bay, with special attention to maintaining privacy for residents. As such, there are no windows on the street side but the rear of the home opens up to a panoramic expanse with floor-to-ceiling glazed doors opened to the trees and The Bay beyond.

The home embodies Garey’s appreciation for Northern California as translated through his use of redwood, which he called "forest gold." The home features exposed redwood beams, rough sawn redwood board and batten siding, and intricate redwood and mahogany detailing. Every window and every door, every beam, were custom-made by Garey, reflecting the woodworking artistry he developed earlier in his career. 

The main level features the living area, kitchen and dining room, and has soaring ceilings and a wall of glazed sliding doors that offers direct access to the expansive deck, which spans both levels. While the rooms are spacious, the wood details—such as the red-oak flooring and wood-burning fireplace—instill the interior with a cozy, cabin-like feel—though multiple skylights bring the outdoors into the home.

The home also includes Frank Lloyd Wright–influenced elements, such as the low-slung, horizontal roofline with timber-clad ceilings; exposed beams that cantilever out to create deep eaves along the site’s contour; and intricate joinery. On the facade, timber siding with varying patterns connects the residence to the landscape. 

The lower level of the home holds all three bedrooms, two of which open to the lower deck; both decks, with built-in benches, descend onto a stone patio and hot tub deck; along one side of the home is another large deck perfect for watching sunsets over the bay.

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