Town-Gown Interstices

A Berkeley Path Wanderers walking tour
of Daley’s Scenic Park

Jim Sharp
Photographs by Jay Cross

Saturday, 26 January 2002

Daley’s Scenic Park was the first residential subdivision in the North Berkeley Hills. Bounded by Hearst Avenue on the south, Arch Street on the west, Cedar Street on the north, and La Vereda Street and Highland Place on the east, the tract initially comprised 26 city blocks immediately to the north of the U.C. Berkeley campus. It was subdivided by owner Thomas Daley in 1889. Two years later, the entire tract plus an adjacent tract to the east were purchased by Frank M. Wilson, who began selling lots for houses.

Our walk begins on the steps linking the divided cross-streets of Virginia St. and La Loma Ave.

Listed below are some of the sites we have seen. Items in italics are maps and photos shared with the group.

They are keyed to the numbers in bold below, with A being the front (yellow sticker) side of the handout and B being the back. Structures with strikethroughs have been demolished. NRHP means that the building is on the National Register of Historic Places and CoBL indicates a City of Berkeley Landmark.

1A Map: Daley’s Scenic Park & University of California, 1914

1B Hillside Club Street Improvements in the Daley’s Scenic Park tract (Hillside Club & City Engineer, 1909) CoBL

2A Map: Daley’s Scenic Park & the Berkeley Fire of 1923

2B Map: U.C. Berkeley’s proposed Northeast Quadrant Science and Safety (NEQSS) projects

2701 Virginia St., James & Lizzie Mix house, 1894

1700 La Loma Ave., Burtt Davy-Bolton house (William Knowles, 1900)

1705 La Loma Ave., William Rees house (A.E. Hargraves; attributed to Maybeck & White, 1906)

1709 La Loma Ave., Elsa L. Jockers house (Maybeck & White, 1911)

1709 La Loma Ave. (1983) “off-street parking wars”

3A, B 1715 La Loma Ave., Lilian Bridgman house (Lilian Bridgman and William Knowles, with Maybeck’s help, 1899)

1715 La Loma Ave. (1990) “off-street parking wars”

4A 2695 Le Conte Ave., Henry Rand Hatfield house (Julia Morgan & Ira Hoover, 1908)

2683 Le Conte Ave. (1997) “off-street parking wars”

NW corner, La Loma & Le Conte Aves.; redwood grove planted by Arthur Bolton Sr.

North fork of Strawberry Creek (aka Blackberry Creek), undaylighted portion

Oaktops condominium complex (c. 1950 & later); steps leading to Highland Place

5A, B 1770 Highland Place, Charles A. Keeler house (Bernard Maybeck, 1895) CoBL

2701 Ridge Rd., Mary McHenry Keith house, new parking pad, July 2000

6A NW corner, Hearst & La Loma Aves., College Hall, 1909–1935 (Newman Hall behind)

College Hall (Newman Hall in rear); current site of the Upper Hearst Parking Structure (courtesy of the Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley)

7A SW corner, Hearst & La Loma Aves., Founders’ Rock NRHP

Founders’ Rock is just another silica carbonate among many distributed along the front of the East Bay Hills. It is related to the alteration of serpentine and not related to the volcanic Northbrae (Indian Rock) except they have been brought together by faulting and ocean/continent collision processes that occurred 100+ million years ago.

Bryophytes, Polypodium ferns

Moss growing on Founders’ Rock

Gayley Road, blooming ceanothus

8A, B Gayley Rd., Stanley Hall (67k gsf) and future Stanley Hall Replacement Building (285k gsf)

Stanley Hall: to be replaced with a much larger Stanley Hall

9A Hearst Memorial Mining Building (John Galen Howard, 1902–07) NRHP

Unilaterally pruned redwoods along Evans Hall north wall

10A, B 2607 Hearst Ave., Beta Theta Pi chapter house (Ernest Coxhead, 1893) CoBL

Le Roy Ave., Goldman School of Public Policy expansion building, 2002� (13k gsf)

Soda Hall, phase I, 1992

11A 2601 Ridge Rd., Cloyne Court (John Galen Howard, 1904) NRHP

“Where beauty and hospitality are mated”

12A, B 1777 Le Roy Ave., Allanoke (Coxhead & Coxhead, 1903) CoBL

Ridge Road, old brick sidewalk in front of Allanoke

Allanoke (r) & the original Annie’s Oak, 1915

13A, B Mid-block Le Roy Ave., Annie’s Oak CoBL (designated as part of the Hillside Club Street Improvements in the Daley’s Scenic Park tract)

SW corner, Le Roy Ave. & Ridge Rd., site for Soda Hall phase II (35k gsf)

14A, B Hearst & Le Roy Aves., old Davis Hall (38k gsf) and future Davis Hall North Replacement Building (145k gsf)

Gap between Naval Architecture Building (formerly Drawing Building) & Davis Hall North (George Kelham, 1931)

15A Hearst Ave., Drawing Building (John Galen Howard, 1913–14) NRHP

16A Hearst Ave., North Gate Hall, formerly the “Ark” (John Galen Howard, 1906) NRHP

17A NE corner, Euclid & Hearst Aves., Euclid Apartments (John Galen Howard, 1912) CoBL

18A Observatory Hill, remains of the Students’ Observatory, 1885

Observatory Hill, Manzanita in bloom

19A University House, UC President’s—now Chancellor’s—residence (Albert Pissis, 1900) CoBL

Tuscan pines in front of University House

1781–1839 Spruce St., Thornburg Village, aka Normandy Village (William Raymond Yelland, 1926–1927) CoBL

2311 Le Conte Ave. (Julia Morgan, 1923)

2300 Le Conte Ave., Joseph W. Harris house (John B. Anthony, 1936) CoBL

2357 Le Conte Ave., Orrin Kip McMurray house (Bernard Maybeck, 1924)

Holy Hill, GTU buildings

20A Scenic Ave. & Ridge Rd., GTU Library on site of Frank M. Wilson house

Frank Wilson’s house, seen from Scenic Avenue

20B Hearst & Scenic Ave. steps with ivy geranium

View of Lower Hearst Parking Structure recreation area

Euclid Ave., Church Divinity School of the Pacific Parking lot expansion, August 2000

21A, B 1755 Le Roy Ave., Weltevreden, Volney D. Moody house (A.C. Schweinfurth, 1896) CoBL now Cal Band’s Tellefsen Hall

Map of Berkeley 1923 fire area
(courtesy of Susan Cerny)

Large (68 KB)
Small (23 KB)

This map was published in Northside: Historic Survey of a North Berkeley Neighborhood Before and After the 1923 Wildfire by Susan D. Stern Cerny (Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, 1990).

Map of U.C. Berkeley Capital Projects

Large (157 KB)
Small (45 KB)

Interactive Campus Map

This gate on the NW corner of Ridge Rd. and Highland Place used to usher the way to Charles Keeler’s house. It may have been designed by Maybeck.

Charles Keeler’s house, originally shingled but stuccoed after the 1923 fire

Commemorative tablet and polypody fern on Founders’ Rock

Wild lilac (ceanothus) blooms on Gayley Road

Beta Theta Pi chapter house, now Goldman School of Public Policy

Going up Ridge Rd., along Cloyne Court

The new Annie’s Oak; the original tree died in 1983

Naval Architecture Bldg., cheek-by-jowl
with Davis Hall North (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2004)

Manzanita in bloom on Observatory Hill

Thornburg Village, aka Normandy Village

These ramshackle steps leading from Hilgard Ave. to La Loma Ave. are part of the Hillside Club Street Improvements in the Daley’s Scenic Park Tract. End of walk.

Based on a Web page mounted by Jay Cross for the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association, utilizing guide notes by tour leader Jim Sharp and illustrated with Cross’s photographs. Daniella Thompson inserted corrections, additions, and historic photos & maps in November 2004, with further amendments in January 2009.