1916-17, Pacific Heights, Abraham Rosenberg house
3630 Jackson St., San Francisco
Julia Morgan
In 1916 Abraham Rosenberg, who had made a fortune in dried fruit in the Fresno area, commissioned a Pacific Heights mansion that is still one of San Francisco's fine houses. The concrete structure timbered with redwood has a side entrance from a brick terrace. The Tudor arched doorway has stone pilasters that continue across the arch as ribbing. The downstairs windows, framed in timber, are mullioned, while on the second story a bank of windows following the corner above the entrance is framed by arches that repeat the line of the doorway. In the reception hall-an exceptionally elegant space paneled and beamed in gumwood that is larger than most living rooms-one can see through the dining room to the garden. The original gleam of hardwood floors complemented by the richness of Oriental rugs has been smothered in contemporary carpeting. The house served at one point as a Nepalese consulate, functioning easily in that semiofficial capacity; it is now a private residence again (Boutelle 1988: 152-53, 257).
1916, East Bay, Fred C. Turner shopping center and Apts.
Piedmont Ave. and 40th St., Oakland
Julia Morgan
See also 1908, 1930s, 1938-41 (Boutelle 1988: 257).
1916-17, East Bay, Carmen Moore (Mrs. Walter A.) Starr house
Fremont
Julia Morgan
Drama emerged eight years later when Morgan built a mountaintop home near Fremont for the Starr family, for whom she also designed two other houses in Piedmont. Approached by a four-mile road winding up to its lofty site through a ranch gate and past tennis court and pool, the house is breathtaking. Two wings embrace the summit of the hill, joined by a stone-pillared loggia-veranda (now glazed but originally open) that looks out over the hills to the San Francisco Bay. Morgan used rough stone quarried from the site as a foundation, shaped into a solid wall and chimney by Italian workmen accustomed to fitting stones without mortar. Shingle was used for the main body of the house, which is essentially on one floor. The plan is more a butterfly than a U, with the veranda linking the public spaces with the pr8ivate. The living room has open trusswork with unusual cutout shields where the roof supports meet, and the walls are of wood with battens of a sculptured thickness. The double doors are decorated with star motifs in honor of the family name.
See also 1908, 1912, 1930s, 1938-41 (Boutelle 1988: 137, 257).
1916-18, North Bay, Sausalito Women's Club
Central Ave. at San Carlos, Sausalito
Julia Morgan
One of a series of Women's Clubs that Morgan designed around the Bay Area, this simple shingle building seems as right for its site and purpose today as when it was built (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 218).
On a crest in Sausalito, the Women's Club (1916-18) takes full advantage of the spectacular views of San Francisco across the bay. The windows in this redwood-shingle clubhouse stretch from floor to ceiling on two sides, with simple balconies and terraces on side and front. A second story at the far end adds interest to the roofline and provides four-way views from the board room. The design as a whole is provocative, almost playful; and details such as the door carving, almost but not quite minimal, exemplify the enrichment that results when details are in harmony with the overall form.
Various stories are told about the design and construction of the Sausalito club. One such comes from Mrs. Edwin G. Klinck of Sausalito: "A Mr. Robbins gave the land and a goodly amount of money for the construction of the Clubhouse. Because the architect chosen by the members was a woman and/or because he thought a redwood building would fall down in a few years, Mr. Robbins left a trust to the Club that can only be used for major reconstruction. Needless to say, the building has endured beautifully and we've never had to touch the trust." (Note 10:Mrs. Edwin G. Klinck, letter to author, June 5, 1975.) The club, dedicated to Grace McGregor Robbins in September 1918, became the first historic landmark designated in Sausalito, in 1976. (Boutelle 1988: 122).
1916, Presidio Heights, S. F. University High School (formerly, Katherine Delmar Burke School
3065 Jackson St., San Francisco
Julia Morgan
The School's original building, designed by the architect Julia Morgan, was constructed in 1917. Its Italianate architecture is compatible with the residential character of its Pacific Heights neighborhood. Completely renovated to strict seismic codes in 1975, the original facility houses classrooms, administrative and faculty offices, and student lounges (S. F. University High School: School History).
The Katherine Delmar Burke School, another college-preparatory school originally for girls, occupies a generous site in the Pacific Heights are of San Francisco, its Mediterranean style blending well with the streetscape. Designed in 1916, it has a plan that follows decidedly Beaux-Arts rules. The glazed interior courtyard (which would have been left open in a more Mediterranean climate) is well suited to the moderate Bay Area weather, and there is a pleasingly rhythmic relationship of inside to outside that is characteristic of Morgan at her best. The courtyard, with fountain and flower bed at the center, is visible from the formal entrance. Wide corridors with vaulted ceilings (squared off, alas, in a recent remodeling) and expansive windows form the sides of the building. Circulation through the library on one side and a hall on the other leads to classrooms at the sides. The second floor has similar halls with loggia classrooms that were originally open but have now been glazed. The axis and cross axis function easily, and it is an impressive structure to walk through. The building now serves as an independent coeducational high school with a program very similar to what has worked well for seventy years (Boutelle 1988: 66, 67, 138).
1916-18, Peninsula, YWCA hostess house, Camp Fremont
27 University Ave., Palo Alto
Julia Morgan
Moved to 27 University Ave., Palo Alto, 1919 (Boutelle 1988: 257).
1917, St. Francis Wood, Dixwell Davenport house
195 San Leandro Way, San Francisco
Julia Morgan
No comment (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 173).
1916-17, Russian Hill, Helen (Mrs. Horatio) Livermore Shingle House
1023 Vallejo St., San Francisco
Julia Morgan
No comment (Gebhard, David, Robert Winter and Eric Sandweiss 1985: 55).
Besides her amazing act as a juggler of artifacts for William Randolph Hearst at San Simeon, there are two Morgan buildings of the teens which provide opportunities to speculate about other directions her work might have taken. In the Livermore house of 1917 it becomes clear that Morgan was aware not only of the anonymous qualities of vernacular design, but also of that awkwardness which sometimes informs vernacular buildings with such forcefulness. The Livermore house could be a building block dropped on a hillside by a careless child. Tucked in behind Willis Polk's house on Russian Hill, it is a small house providing the accommodations of a large apartment.
The main floor originally contained a large living room and a bedroom and bath, the floor below a dining room and kitchen. The house is now somewhat larger than originally; it was altered slightly by Morgan in 1927 and again in 1930. With its casual placement on a steep hillside, its pronounced vertical organization, its hillside-to-house entrance bridge, its exploitation of the forceful clumsiness of some vernacular designs, and its almost total suppression of decorative devices, the Livermore house comes closer to fulfilling the requirements for Keeler's "Simple Home" than the work of Maybeck, Coxhead, or Polk (Beach 1988: 72-73).
An urban house that transformed simple Crafts origins into sophisticated, even daring design was built in San Francisco in 1916-17 for Mrs. Horatio Livermore. The Livermore family, prominent in San Francisco and in the Livermore Valley to the east, had large landholdings, including a family farm at the summit of Russian Hill in the city. Russian Hill Place, between Vallejo and Florence streets, was a private enclave with several notable houses. In the 1890s Willis Polk had built a house for himself there and remodeled the original Livermore house of 1860; in 1916 he built four houses for the Livermore family. Helen Livermore, for whom Morgan had built a house (Montesol) on the family ranch in the Livermore Valley, commissioned her to design a pied-à-terre at the edge of the family compound.
As built in 1916-17, it was a two-story rectangle, with hall, bedroom, bath, and living room on the main floor, and stairs leading down to the dining room and kitchen. In 1927 and 1930 Morgan added an L-shaped addition to the uphill side, with another bedroom, bath, and study space; but it is still a small house (even after a 19081 addition by Livermore's step-grandson, Putnam), immeasurably enlarged by its views. Simple and vertical in plan, designed for a special kind of city living, it seems to be only tenuously connected to the city by a footbridge. Its large circular windows set in great squares are a reminder of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition's YWCA Building, from which Morgan salvaged them (according to family legend). The only decorative touch in an otherwise austere exterior, these windows emphasize the significance of the outlook for which the whole building was planned.
Additions by Morgan, 1927 and 1930; remodeled by Putnam Livermore, 1981 (Boutelle 1988: 140, 257).
1918, Northern California, Asilomar: Crocker Dining Hall
Pacific Grove
Julia Morgan
Crocker Dining Hall recalls the large tent under which meals were originally enjoyed, bringing the outdoors in and making a minimal separation between site and structure. The exposed trusses are like tree branches overhead; the window walls, bentwood chairs, and rustic stone fireplaces establish a joyful link with the landscape (Boutelle 1988: 90, 92, 255).
1919-20, Santa Clara Valley, Clara Huntington Perkins house
Fairview Plaza, Los Gatos
Julia Morgan
A hilltop country place designed by Morgan in 1919-20 for Clara Huntington Perkins at Los Gatos was called "an Italian house" when it was published in California Southland in that year, although it could easily be categorized as Mediterranean. Los Gatos is in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, which are often declared to resemble the landscape of Italy's hill towns near Florence. The site likely suggested an Italianate design to the architect and to her client, who had lived much of her life in Europe. The approach up a long curving driveway gives importance and some mystery to the building at the summit. The editor of California Southland, Mabel Urmy Seares (who had been Morgan's second client, in 1902), wrote of the olive trees and the vineyard and the live oaks all around, with "glimpses of the valley between them. Sleeping porches abound. Stone steps and fascinating places for wall fountains and pools make every foot of the place interesting and unite the house with the hill and to the whole outlook in a way which makes the lover of California happy and gives hope that we shall emerge from the debris of Eastern ideas with which the state has recently been flooded and have on our hills at least, some real California homes." (Note 4:Mabel Urmy Seares, "Gardening Manual," California Southland, January 1921, p. 22.) The caption below the photograph of the Perkins house calls it "an example of what California demands in adapting Italian architecture to its landscape."
This one-story house, comprising 5,000 square feet, cost $90,000 to construct in 1919-20. One enters through an open court with an Italian garden bordered by a columned loggia; a massive paneled front door opens into a long vaulted hall that connects the two windgs. All of the ten rooms have wide-plank teak floors; each major room opens to the outdoors. Leaded glass arched casement windows have handmade copper fixtures. The living room has a 16-foot-high teak ceiling and a huge Carrara marble fireplace, both brought by the client from Italy. Clara Perkins was a sculptor (a high-relief panel by her decorates a garden in the Berkeley City Club) and the adored adopted daughter of the railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington. She was also a friend of Morgan's and considered herself to be a real collaborator on what she pictured as a Renaissance hillside retreat for a former princess (she was divorced from a fortune-hunting German prince) seeking privacy (Boutelle 1988: 157, 160, 258).
