1908-12, East Bay, Kings Daughters Home
39th St. and Broadway, Oakland
Julia Morgan
No comment (Gebhard 1985: 299).
By far Morgan's most significant hospital structure was the Kings Daughters Home (1908-12) in Oakland, which covers a whole city block on Broadway. It was built of brick masonry with tile roofs and comprised five major three-story structures around a landscaped courtyard. Ornamental polychrome-tile accents and iron lanterns add Mediterranean touches, while a tile-roof pergola at street level and an ornamental iron gate give dignity to pedestrian and vehicle entry, respectively. The gate had special meaning for Morgan. When her youngest brother, Sam, was killed in 1913, her mother (who was on the board of the Kings Daughters Home) donated the gate as a memorial to him. For some seventy years the hospital served cases not accepted in other hospitals, but it was eventually purchased by the Kaiser Health Plan and partially demolished for parking space (Boutelle 1988: 120, 252).
1909, East Bay, George L. Walker house
1232 Bay St., Alameda
Julia Morgan
Morgan turned to the striking visual effect of the half-timber sytle for some of her most remarkable dwellings, ranging from sumptuously paneled great houses to spare cottages. She generally used half-timbering as geometric ornament rather than essential structural support. One example is the large house that Morgan designed in 1909 for George L. Walker in Alameda, near the East Bay.
A brick first floor supports the building. The second and third floors, under two main gables and two smaller ones, are made of stucco, with decorative half-timbering adding verticality and visual interest. The balcony above the entrance, shaded by a gable, rests on heavy brackets. A twin-peaked gable on each side, which surmounts a three-sectioned opening with side windows parallel to the gable roof and two casements at the center, supplies interest in the roofline. A double string course runs just above protruding brackets between the first and second floors, while the second-floor corner posts are playfully carved in rounded abstract forms that are echoed by the copper drain spouts. The half-timbering was clearly used to carry the eye along the design (Boutelle 1988: 147-48, 253).
1909, East Bay, Cary W. Cook house
San Rafael
Julia Morgan
In the same year, 1909, Morgan built another, quite different Spanish-style house on a hillside in San Rafael overlooking the San Francisco Bay. For the Cary Cook family she designed an essentially one-story concrete house under a low-pitched red-tile roof, with a central courtyard entirely open. The entrance, where horizontality is most marked, has a flattened arch midway between two chimneys that serve as bell towers. Through the hall paved with large square tiles is the high arched entrance to the courtyard, which provides protection from the Bay Area's often chilly weather and makes outdoor living possible for most of the year. The rectangular house is one room deep all around, with an open arcade like a cloister on two sides; glazed arcades shelter an interior hall on the other two sides. Taking advantage of the sloping site, with its sweeping views of the water, the Cook residence is a fine example of the "villa style" that seems perfectly Californian, although it would also be at home along the Mediterranean (Boutelle 1988: 156-57, 252).
1910, North Bay, Ezekiel Denman McNear house
617 C St., Petaluma
Julia Morgan
Miss Morgan's steep-gabled chalet form has a brown-shingled exterior and a broad two-story window bay as the focal element of the facade (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 253).
1909-10, Ezekiel Denman McNear house, George W. McNear, client (Ezekiel Denman was his son), 617 C Street, Petaluma, Job no. 293 (Boutelle 1988: 253).
1910, North Bay, J.E. Allen house
707 D St., Petaluma
Julia Morgan
A less-convincing design of the same type as the house at 100 6th Street, perhaps because of later remodeling (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 254).
1910-11, J. Edgar Allen house, 707 D Street, Petaluma, Job No. 326 (Boutelle 1988: 253).
c. 1910, East Bay, House
2000 Clinton Ave., Alameda
Julia Morgan
A small house showing a sophisticated handling of the common elements of the Shingle style (Gebhard 1985: 316).
1910-11, Santa Clara Valley, Montezuma School for Boys: dormitory and classroom center
Bear Creek Road, Santa Cruz Mountains, near Los Gatos
Julia Morgan
No comment (Boutelle 1988: 253).
1910-11, East Bay, Charles B. Wells house (Red Gate)
6076 Manchester Road, Oakland
Julia Morgan
Some other urban mansions by Julia Morgan (including the Wells house in Oakland, the Rosenberg house in San Francisco, and the Thelen house in Berkeley) deserve attention as examples of her English style. The Charles B. Wells house (1910-11) takes up a whole black on an acre in Oakland. Placed on a hill overlooking the East Bay, the building is massed so that almost every room faces the water. The Wells family is said to have claimed to come from an English estate called Red Gate, which became the name of their new house. Of brick originally red and later painted gray, the gates, walls, and terraces extend the reach of the house. Decorative ironwork at the entrance and four balconies harmonizes with the design of the mullions in the living-room bay, while a Palladian arched doorway with stripped-down columns leads from the dining room to a wide stone terrace. The molded paneling throughout the house (some now unfortunately painted white) has the elegant proportions associated with Georgian English buildings, although there are Mediterranean aspects in the arches and the ironwork balconies show Italian influence (Boutelle 1988: 150, 152, 254).
1911, Presidio Heights, Mrs. Robert Watt house
36 Presidio Terrace, San Francisco
Julia Morgan
No comment (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 102).
1911, East Bay, Allen Chickering house
11 Sierra Ave., Piedmont
Julia Morgan
A house designed in Piedmont for Allen Chickering in 1911 resembles Andrea Palladio's Villa Pisani (1552) at Montagnana, Italy. The columns marking the entrance and the balcony above it follow Palladio's design, but Morgan's balcony is characteristically of delicate ironwork, filtering the light, whereas Palladio used low balustrades. Her broken pediment, smaller and ornamented within, is directly over the entrance, erupting into the balcony to make a geometric effect different from that of the more severe perfect triangle of the Villa Pisani. Morgan's frieze, ornamented only by disks, is a much-restrained version of the original and extends over only the porch third of the house. At the side wings French doors open onto small balconies with curved iron railings. The openness of the downstairs windows, photographed in 1918 with colorful awnings, is Californian in style. Garage added by Morgan, 1915 (Boutelle 1988: 157, 254).
