1905-6, East Bay, Evelyn Cottage (Mary E. Smith Trust Cottages)
Arbor Villa, 3001 Park Blvd., Oakland
Julia Morgan
No comment (Boutelle 1988: 249).
1905-6, East Bay, Mills College: Margarite Library
The Oval, Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Boulevard, Oakland
Julia Morgan
No comment (Boutelle 1988: 249).
The Mills College library, named in honor of Andrew Carnegie's daughter, is the only California Carnegie designed by noted Bay Area architect Julia Morgan. The Spanish Colonial Revival building now houses administrative offices. The Carnegie's upstairs reading room still contains special collections, provides space for conferences, and offers an example of the Morgan emphasis on craftsmanship with tall square wooden columns supporting intricate braced rafters.
Two years earlier, Julia Morgan had designed the Mills oval and campanile, establishing a Mission style. Her later contributions to Mills included the gymnasium, infirmary, and a nearby Chinese Girls School that was later incorporated into the campus. Earthquakes have figured in the library's history. Its original dedication date was postponed because of the 1906 quake. When the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred, the library collection had just been moved to a large modern addition built adjacent to the Carnegie; this enabled the college's administrative functions to be temporarily relocated in the Carnegie from the damaged Mills building (Kortum 1999).
1954, addition by Milton T. Pfleuger (Gebhard, Winter and Sandweiss 1985: 308).
1905-7, East Bay, Louise (Mrs. C. L.) Goddard houses
2727 and 2731 Etna St., Berkeley
Julia Morgan
Morgan also did a number of modest cottages in the Arts and Crafts style. Early examples can be chosen from those she built on speculation in Berkeley, both before and after the earthquake. A variety of related designs emerged during the following years, when doctors, dentists, professors, and lawyers turned to Morgan for well-designed and inexpensive residences. These include cottages north of the campus in the newly developing area of Marin Avenue and several pairs of houses near the south campus that used a common driveway. All were constructed of redwood-some shingled, some combined with board and batten, the most economical material available at the time-and most followed a simple axial plan around a hall and staircase. Some had bay windows, some had a band of casements, some had corner windows where the view was an attraction; all included simple balconies, pergolas, and sleeping porches.
A pair of cottages on Jetna Street built for Louise Goddard in 1905-7 have corner windows flanking the chimney, reputedly because the architect said that some people enjoy looking at a fire on the hearth and watching what goes on outside without changing position.
Two speculative houses; see also 1905 and 1908 (Boutelle 1988: 131, 249).
1906, East Bay, Edward L. Holmes cottage
2525 Etna St. (in garden of 2523 Etna St.), Berkeley
Julia Morgan
No comment (Boutelle 1988: 250).
1906, East Bay, Orasmus and Susan Cole house
157 Hillcrest Road, Berkeley
Julia Morgan
The Coles bought a bay-view lot in 1905 for $6,000 and hired Morgan to design the house and gardens. Construction was almost completed by April 1906 (at a cost of $8,000) when the San Francisco earthquake delayed matters by making glass for the windows unobtainable. The family was able to move in by October and occupied the house until 1922, when it was sold to close relatives, Albert and Helen Kindt, who lived there until 1946. Mr. Kindt was the owner of the Sartorious Ornamental Bronze and Iron Company in San Francisco, which was a supplier to San Simeon.
Extensively remodeled by another architect after World War II (Boutelle 1988: 132, 250).
1906, East Bay, D. B. Huntley house
1031 Belle Vista Ave., Oakland
Julia Morgan
No comment (Boutelle 1988: 250).
1906, East Bay, Professor Kofoid house
2618 Etna St., Berkeley
Julia Morgan
See 1905 (Boutelle 1988: 250).
1906, East Bay, Mae (Mrs. B. P.) Miller house
830 McKinley St., Oakland
Julia Morgan
No comment (Boutelle 1988: 250).
1906, East Bay, Lewis A. Hicks house
2311 Piedmont Ave., Berkeley
Julia Morgan
During the early period of her professional life Morgan developed what would be a lifelong interest in designing reinforced-concrete buildings, based on her experience on the Berkeley and Mills campuses. The commission to build a residence in that material for Lewis A. Hicks, whose company had supplied the concrete for the Greek Theater, came only about a year after the dedication of the Mills Campanil. Concrete was then a radical material for residential use, for in those pre-earthquake years no one had yet recognized its advantage for seismic stability. Hicks had a site on Piedmont Avenue, a prominent Berkeley street just southeast of the campus. He wanted a house suitable for the family of a business executive who was also a member of the Sierra and Hillside clubs, and he asked for a wood-paneled interior with fireplaces at the heart of the living and dining rooms.
Morgan's plan for the two-story house is symmetrical, with a recessed entrance marked by four concrete columns between two massive square bays. The roof is flat, topped with ornamental openwork in cast stone matching that on the balcony, which extends the width of the columned entry-all features of strong horizontality. The porte cochere at the north side once led to a substantial carriage house, and a circular drive with an island of planting interposed nature between house and street while emphasizing the basic symmetry of the design. There were originally four large bedrooms upstairs. Extensive remodeling of the second floor and of the exterior, with garages dug out of the driveway and garden, has made the house almost unrecognizable today.
Extensively remodeled by another architect after World War II (Boutelle 1988: 155, 250).
1906(after), Financial District, Merchants Exchange Bldg arcade
465 California St., San Francisco
Julia Morgan
An interior, skylit arcade leads to the old Merchants exchange hall, attributed to Julia Morgan. Mimicking a Roman basilica, the hall is lavishly detailed and bathed in a natural light. The seascape paintings are by William Coulter. In the old days, merchants assembled in this hall where news about the ships coming into the harbor was transmitted to them from the lookout tower on the roof (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992:28).
No observer bent on taking in the most glorious buildings in the city should overlook the Merchants' Exchange, at the southeast corner of California and Montgomery Streets. Built in 1902 on the design of Daniel Burnham and Willis Polk, it was one of the tallest buildings in San Francisco, standing out in post-fire photos as a gutted pile above the ruined financial district. Julia Morgan designed a handsome new interior after 1906, and the bulding was splendidly restored in the 1960s. In the bank at the end of the lobby visitors may enjoy the superb maritime murals by William Coulter, a leading artist of his time. The paintings had been plastered over for decades (Alexander and Heig 2002: 371).
By the summer of 1907 Morgan had moved into a suite on the thirteenth floor of the Merchants Exchange Building at 465 California Street in San Francisco.1 This building, a pioneer high-rise of 1903 designed by Daniel H. Burnham of Chicago (with some drawings asined by Willis Polk), had stood firm during the earthquake and still stands today. Here Morgan established a vigorous practice that ranged all over the state of California and from Utah to Hawaii, always with the Merchants Exchange Building at its center. For six years she had as junion partner Ira Wilson Hoover, who had come west from Philadelphia with John Galen Howard and served as his chief draftsman until starting with Morgan late in 1904. For the brief period before he returned to the East Coast, Hoover did his share, especially in domestic work, and he signed the building permit for Saint John's Presbyterian Sunday School and other projects. After his departure in 1910 the Morgan office was always "Julia Morgan, Architect," with no other name on the door during her forty years of practice.2
The heart of the Morgan office was the library. Bookcases lined the walls of the 12-by-14-foot room, at the center of which was a table where Charles Adams Platt's Italian Gardens (1894) or huge leather-bound French volumes on art might be open. At least five hundred books related to architecture were available for study, and everyone in the office was expected to consult them. The larger area of the main drafting room, with long, broad tables around which the designers worked (nine or ten of them in good times), had a massive drawing file topped by a bust of Dante. Here for reference were the drawings for earlier Morgan buildings. A prominent bulletin board featured different architectural photographs from Morgan's collection each week, and every member of her staff had to be familiar with these. Morgan had a high-backed desk in the drafting room, where she made many sketches and conferred at each step with those who drafted the working drawings. There were also at least one separate office for a secretary-bookkeeper and one small room, its door frequently closed, where Morgan met with clients and made her own original sketches (Boutelle 1988: 42).
