2901 benvenue avenue landmark application application ... the hicks house retains integrity of...

CITY OF BERKELEY Ordinance #4694 N.S.

LANDMARK APPLICATION

Thomas & Louise Hicks House 2901 Benvenue Avenue

Berkeley, CA 94705

Figure 1. Hicks House (photo by owner, December 2008)

ITEM 5.B, ATTACHMENT 2 LPC 03-01-18 of 77

2901 Benvenue Avenue Landmark Application, of 77

1. Street Address: 2901 Benvenue AvenueCounty: Alameda City: Berkeley ZIP: 94705

2. Assessor’s Parcel Number: 58-1568-1 (Berry-Bangs Tract Map No. 3, Block K,Lot 19)Dimensions: 105 feet x 55 feetCross Streets: Russell Street, College Avenue & Ashby Avenue

3. Is property on the State Historic Resource Inventory? NoIs property on the Berkeley Urban Conservation Survey? Yes

Form #: 11929

4. Application for Landmark Includes:a. Building(s): Yes Garden: Yes Other Feature(s):b. Landscape or Open Space: Yesc. Historic Site: Nod. District: Noe. Other: Entire Property

5. Historic Names: Hicks House, St. John’s Presbyterian Church ManseCommonly Known Name: N/A

6. Date of Construction: 1904Factual: YesSource of Information: Berkeley Daily Gazette, 5 July 1904; 1905 propertyassessment record

7. Designer: Unknown

8. Builder: Chapin Alva Martin

9. Style: Arts & Crafts

10. Original Owners: Thomas E. & Louise P. HicksOriginal Use: Single-family residence

11. Present Owner:Shmuel L. Weissman2901 Benvenue AvenueBerkeley, CA 94705

Present Occupant: Owner

12. Present Use: Single-family residenceCurrent Zoning: R-2 Adjacent Property Zoning: R-2

13. Present Condition of Property:Exterior: Excellent Interior: Excellent Grounds: GoodHas the property’s exterior been altered? Minimally, in its early years.

ITEM 5.B, ATTACHMENT 2 LPC 03-01-18 Page 2 of 77


Figure 2. The northern portion of Block 1568 in the Assessor’s Map.

The subject property is shaded. Executive Summary

The Thomas & Louise Hicks House, a 1904 Arts & Crafts residence built by

Chapin A. Martin, is one of the most distinctive and best-preserved houses in the Elmwood district. It was among the earliest houses constructed in the Berry-Bangs Tract, and the first house on its block.

The Hicks House is distinguished by a five-gabled roof with flaring eaves and upturned bargeboards; a symmetrical façade marked by large twin gables; a shingled second story overhanging a first story clad in heavily textured stucco; decorative rafter-tails in the eaves under the second story; an abundance of original wood-sash windows with latticed lights set in wooden muntins; clinker-brick base skirt, porch columns, porch parapets, and chimneys; and a central recessed portico with a heavy timber beam, exposed ceiling joists, and clinker-brick pilasters flanking the front door.

In its early days, the Hicks House was the home of a lumber dealer, followed in rapid succession by two executives of the Sherwin Williams paint company. For 37 years between 1919 and 1956, the Hicks House served as the manse of St. John’s Presbyterian Church and was the home of its pastors, notably Rev. Francis Wayland Russell, D.D., and Rev. Stanley Armstrong Hunter, D.D., both of whom were nationally known religious leaders. When St. John’s sold the Hicks House in 1956, it became the home and working studio of Mynard and Mary Groom Jones, two well-known concert singers and voice teachers who trained generations of classical singers.

The Hicks House retains integrity of location, design, materials, setting, feeling, and association.



14. Description

The Thomas & Louise Hicks House is located in Block K, the southeastern block of the Berry-Bangs Tract in the Elmwood district. It stands prominently at the southeast corner of Benvenue Avenue and Russell Street, in a well-to-do neighborhood of predominantly single-family homes. The houses along the 2900 block of Benvenue Avenue share Block K with the row of commercial establishments lining College and Ashby avenues. The houses are separated from the row of shops by the City-owned Elmwood Parking Lot (Fig. 3).

Figure 3. Block K, Berry-Bangs Tract (Google Earth)

Figure 4. Zoning map of the area (City of Berkeley)



General Description The Hicks House is a two-story, wood-frame single-family residence,

constructed in 1904 by Chapin A. Martin in the Arts & Crafts Style. The house is clad in rough stucco on the ground floor and cedar shingles on the second floor.

Massing & Roof

Figure 5. Hicks House roof (Google Earth)

The principal mass of the Hicks House is roughly rectangular, with a main

gable roof extending east and west, and two steep cross-gable roofs flanking the main gable at either end, extending north and south. The east cross-gable extends 2.64 feet farther north than the west cross-gable.

The roof is clad in composition shingles.1 The gables flare out at a shallow angle and feature closed eaves with upturned bargeboards. Two rectangular clinker-brick chimneys rise above the roof—one at the junction of the main gable and the eastern cross-gable, the other at the southern end of the western cross-gable.

A two-story wing at the southeastern corner of the house extends the roof of the eastern cross-gable laterally at a shallower angle. The 1911 Sanborn map shows this wing as a one-story structure with composition-shingle roof, as do the 1929 and 1950 Sanborn maps (Figs. 31, 32, page 19), although it’s been confirmed by a former resident that the second story had already existed in the 1930s, and possibly earlier.2

1 Converted from the original wood shingles in 1935. 2 Letter from Converse P. Hunter to current owner, 18 September 2000.



Setting & Approach The house is set back from the street, standing in the midst of a garden with

lawn, shrubbery, and brick paving, all surrounded by a hedge. It is approached from Russell Street through a wooden gate3 (Fig. 28), via a brick path that curves to the left, leading to the front-porch stairs (see description under North Façade).

North (Main) Façade The north façade is symmetrical. Two projecting wings under steep-gabled

roofs flank a recessed central section. Each of the three sections is 15 feet wide. The shingled upper story overhangs the stucco-clad lower story, ending with

a flare over a molded wooden eave decorated with evenly spaced wooden rafter-tails. Centrally located under each gable is a small, wood-sash attic awning window. Below the attic window, the east wing features a centrally placed, triple wood-sash window with a fixed central sash flanked by two casements. On the west wing, there are three evenly spaced single casements of the same type and materials. The central recessed section contains a triple window similar to the one on the east wing. All the windows have latticed lights set in wooden muntins and are framed in wooden hood molding.

Figure 6. North façade (photo by owner, December 2008)

On the ground floor, rough stucco walls end with a slight flare over a five-

foot-high clinker-brick base skirt that rises to the level of the porch floor (Fig. 8). The two wings feature identical 6-foot-wide, wood-sash triple windows in hood

3 The main gate and driveway gate on the Russell Street frontage were constructed in 2014.



moldings. Unlike the windows on the second floor, these windows feature latticed lights only in their upper parts, their fixed central sash is twice as wide as their side casements, and the central lattice is tighter, with smaller diamond panes (Fig. 7).

Figure 7. First-floor window, north façade (photo by owner)

The main entrance is recessed and fronted by a porch defined by a clinker-

brick parapet along its east and north edges. At the porch’s western end, a flight of eight brick stairs hugs the skirt base on the right and is contained by a three-step parapet on the left (Fig. 8).

Figure 8. Approach to entrance (photo by owner)



A shed roof overhangs the porch. Supporting the roof is a wooden beam resting on two clinker-brick columns that rise from the parapet.4 Under the roof, eight ceiling joists with decorative rafter-tails visually link the porch to the side wings. The porch ceiling is clad in beadboard.

Figure 9. Entrance porch (photo by owner)

The portico is unevenly recessed, its west wall being three-feet long to

accommodate the flight of steps, while the east wall is six-feet long. The inner wall is symmetrically arranged. At its center, the entrance door incorporates a full-length, rectangular glass panel within a wide wooden frame. The door is encased in a pediment-topped trim. Clinker-brick pilasters are positioned on either side of the door. Beyond the pilasters are two narrow, fixed wood-sash windows with latticed lights set in wooden muntins and hood moldings (Fig. 9). The Oriental iron pendant lantern in front of the door is said to have been a gift to Dr. Stanley Armstrong Hunter from one of his East Asian visitors.

West Façade The west façade looks over Benvenue Avenue. A single large gable defines

the second floor, in which three wood-sash, single-casement windows are symmetrically arranged—a small window at the center, flanked by two larger windows. All three are glazed with latticed lights set in wooden muntins and are encased in wooden hood moldings. Here, too, the shingled second story overhangs the stucco-clad lower story, ending with a flare over a molded wood eave punctuated with rafter-tails.

At the southern end of the lower story, a large quadruple boxed window is overhung by a flared hip roof. It features a fixed central double sash, flanked by 4 In 2003, owing to stability issues, the porch columns and the parapet section between them were dismantled, reinforced with steel, and rebuilt with the original bricks.



twin outer casements. To its left is a triple window with a central fixed sash and side casements of the same type seen on the north façade. As is the case on the north side, the west windows feature latticed lights only in their upper parts. They, too, are encased in hood moldings (Fig. 10).

The clinker-brick skirt turns the corner and continues its run along the base of the west wall (Fig. 11).

Figure 10. West façade (photo by owner)

Figure 11. The Hicks House in the 1970s (Donogh files, BAHA archives)



East Façade

Figure 12. East façade (photo by owner, 2008)

Figure 13. Trim detail, east façade (photo by owner)



The east façade is divided into two sections. The northern part is original to the 1904 house and follows its design scheme. The second-floor wall is clad in shingles and features a double-casement wood-sash window with latticed lights set in wooden muntins and encased in a wooden hood molding. The first-floor wall is clad in rough stucco, ending with a slight flare over a clinker-brick base skirt. The quadruple boxed window serving the dining room is overhung by a flared hip roof with molded eaves decorated with rafter-tails (Figs. 13, 14). This window echoes the boxed window on the west façade, but here the window is positioned higher and is fully glazed with latticed lights set in wooden muntins. To the left of the boxed window is a small diamond-paned casement window abutting the shingled extension wing (Figs. 12, 15).

Figure 14. Corner detail, east façade (photo by owner)

The southern (rear) portion of the east façade consists of the aforementioned

two-story extension wing, whose second story was added on as a sleeping porch at an unknown date and used as such by the Hunter family.5 This wing shelters under a shed roof and is entirely clad in shingles. On the second floor, the former sleeping porch (now a study) is illuminated on three sides by four wood-sash, triple sliding windows with single lights (Fig. 17).

A narrow roof with molded eaves overhangs the extension wing’s first story, which contains a kitchen expansion, part of a 2008 remodel designed by Jerri Holan + Associates.6 The kitchen is illuminated on three sides by new, single-light, wood-sash casements and fixed windows, and a semi-glazed wooden door, all encased in hood moldings that match the original. The door, which features latticed lights, opens onto a wooden deck, built in 1978 and accessed via two

5 Letter from Converse P. Hunter to current owner, 18 September 2000. 6 The 2008 remodel project received a BAHA Preservation Award in 2009.



wooden staircases, located at the north and southwest ends. Two pergolas border the deck along its eastern and southern ends (Fig. 17).

Figure 15. Kitchen wing, east façade (photo by owner)

Figure 16. New fenestrations, kitchen wing, east façade (Holan Architects)



Figure 17. Sleeping porch addition, upper east façade (photo by owner)

South (Rear) Façade The south façade is hidden from

public view, facing the neighboring house at 2905 Benvenue Avenue, with a narrow access between the two.

Like the north façade, this side comprises three vertical sections: a recessed central area flanked by two projecting wings under twin gables.

With the exception of the shingled wing at the southeast corner, the south façade follows the pattern of shingled upper story and stucco-clad lower story. However, the clinker-brick skirt base on this side is present only on the west wing’s wall, on either side of the chimney. The rafter-tails are present only on the left side of the chimney (Fig. 24).

Figure 18. South side of extension wing (photo by owner)



Figure 19. Southwest aspect (Google Street View)

Figure 20. South façade looking west (photo: Daniella Thompson) & east (photo by owner)



The western end of the south façade is dominated by a clinker-brick chimney with a broad base that narrows in steps as it rises, assuming a rectangular shape as it reaches the second story, and penetrating the roof eave to emerge just below the crest of the gable (Figs. 21, 22).

Figure 21. Chimney detail, south façade (photo by owner

)

Figure 22. South chimney top (photo by owner)

Figure 23. Basement window, south façade (photo by owner)

Flanking the chimney are two single-light, vertical casement windows on the

second story, and two high, horizontal windows with latticed lights on the first story. All four windows have wood sashes and hood moldings. On the east side of the chimney, at the basement level, a wood-sash, double-hung window with latticed lights in its upper sash is set in a molded wood case, embedded in the clinker-brick skirt base (Fig. 23).



Figure 24. West gable, south façade (photo by owner)

The recessed central section features a large, horizontal, single-light fixed

wood-sash window set in a wooden hood molding (Fig. 25). At the west end of this section, two single wood-sash casements with latticed lights and hood moldings are positioned one above the other (Fig. 25).

Figure 25. Central section, south façade (photo by owner)

The lower part of the recessed central section is defined by an enclosed

stairway (originally open) leading from the kitchen to the basement. Flush with



the outer wall, this enclosure is protected by a shallow, steep-sloping shed roof. A wood-sash, single-light casement window in a molded wood case is embedded near the top of the stair enclosure’s wall (Fig. 26), and a plain wood door leading into the basement is positioned at the bottom left of the enclosure (Fig. 20).

Figure 26. Stair enclosure, south façade (photo by owner)

On the eastern wing of the south façade, a small, single-light, wood-sash attic

awning window is centrally positioned directly under the gable eaves. On the second floor below it are a single (fixed) and double (casement) wood-sash windows glazed with ribbed glass. All three are framed in hood moldings (Fig. 27). On the first floor, three identical single-casement wood-sash windows with latticed lights and hood moldings are arranged as a pair and a single, the latter further east (Fig. 26). The outer windows are replicas made in 2008 as part of the kitchen remodel. The central window is an original that was relocated from further east on the same wall.

Figure 27. East gable, south façade (photo by owner)



Figure 28. Main gate, Russell Street frontage (photo by owner)

Accessory Structures A detached garage is located at the eastern end of the property (Fig. 29). The

garage was constructed in 1910 and enlarged in 1956, gaining six feet toward the north.

Figure 29. Garage & kitchen deck (photo by owner)



Figure 30. Brick patio & service gates (photo by owner)

Figure 31. The Hicks House as shown in the 1911 Sanborn map

Figure 32. The Hicks House as shown in the 1950 Sanborn map



Features to Be Preserved The distinguishing features of the Hicks House include the following: • Street setback of 15 feet on the north and 25 feet on the west • Roughly rectangular mass with main gable roof, two steep cross-gables,

and shed-roofed extension wing • Flared roof eaves with upturned bargeboards • Two rectangular clinker-brick chimneys, one external on the south wall • Overhanging shingle-clad upper story with a flared skirt and rafter-tails • Rough stucco-clad first story with slight flare over 5-foot-high clinker-

brick skirt base • A variety of wood-sash windows—including single and multiple

casements, fixed, sliding, and double-hung windows—wholly or partially glazed with latticed lights set in wooden muntins, and/or plain or ribbed glass, framed in wooden hood moldings or other wood moldings

• Symmetrical main façade with recessed portico • Front porch with clinker-brick columns, parapet walls, and stairs • Front porch shed roof on a heavy timber beam, with beadboard ceiling,

exposed ceiling joists, and rafter-tails • Glazed front door with pediment trim, flanked by clinker-brick pilasters

and narrow diamond-paned windows • Two boxed windows with hip roofs, on west and east façades • Shingle-clad two-story extension wing on southeast side • Landscaping, including brick paths and patio



15. History Antecedents of the Berry-Bangs Tract The Berry-Bangs Tract, in which the Hicks House is located, was part of

Rancho San Antonio, a 44,800-acre Spanish land grant given to Sergeant Luís María Peralta (1759–1851) in 1820 by the last Spanish governor, Don Pablo Vicente de Sol, in recognition of Peralta’s forty years of military service to the Spanish king. The rancho included lands that form Oakland, Alameda, Piedmont, Emeryville, Berkeley, and parts of San Leandro and Albany.

In 1842, Luís Peralta divided the rancho among his four sons. Domingo and José Vicente were given the land that now comprises Oakland and Berkeley.

Within less than a decade, squatters overran the Peraltas’ properties, stole their cattle, and sold it in San Francisco. Worse, parcels of rancho land were sold without legal title. Domingo and Vicente Peralta fought the appropriations in the courts. In 1856, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed their title, but by then the brothers had been forced to sell most of their lands to cover legal costs and taxes. The various buyers engaged cartographer Julius Kellersberger7 to map the Peralta Ranchos for subdivision purposes.

Figure 33. Location of the Berry-Bangs Tract

(shaded) on Kellersberger’s Map The Berry-Bangs Tract was carved out of the southern portion of Plot No. 71

and the northeastern corner of Plot No. 51 in Kellersberger’s Map. Plot No. 71—

7 Map of the Ranchos of Vincente & Domingo Peralta. Containing 16970.68 Acres. Surveyed by Julius Kellersberger. Surveyed 1853. Partitioned 1854. Filed Jan. 21st 1857. Courtesy of Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps, Inc. http://www.raremaps.com/gallery/enlarge/39956



bounded by Addison Street (were it to run through the UC campus), College Avenue, Russell Street, and a line running NE to SW between Telegraph Avenue and Regent Street—was acquired by the Berkeley pioneer William Hillegass (1826–1876) in 1857. In the same year, another local pioneer, Mark Terry Ashby (1826–1912), purchased the trapezoid Plot No. 51, located directly to the south of Plot No. 71 and the adjacent plots 68, 69, and 70, which became the properties of Francis K. Shattuck, George Blake, and James Leonard, respectively. Berkeley Gazette columnist Hal Johnson wrote that the Ashby land “originally extended to about what is now Derby Street northerly and almost to the present Alcatraz Avenue. And it ran east and west from above what is now College Avenue to below the present Adeline Street.”8

When Mark and his elder brother, William Ashby (1820–1896), divided their joint South Berkeley properties in 1865, William ended up with the easternmost portion of Plot No. 51, west of College Avenue and south of Russell Street. That land would eventually include the three southern blocks of the Berry-Bangs Tract.

Figure 34. The Hillegass & William Ashby estates in Map No. 16 of Thompson &

West’s Atlas of Alameda County, 1878 (David Rumsey Historical Map Collection). The arrow points to the future location of the Hicks House.

8 Hal Johnson. “The Aloof Ashbys.” Berkeley Daily Gazette, 5 August 1942.



Figure 35. The unsubdivided Hillegass property in

Carnall & Eyre’s Map of Berkeley, 1880

Figure 36. In 1888, only the northern portion of the Hillegass estate was subdivided.

Detail from Woodward & Gamble’s Map of Oakland and Surroundings, 1888. The arrow points to the future location of the Hicks House



While the surrounding tracts were largely subdivided in the 19th century, the future Berry-Bangs Tract remained agricultural land until the early years of the 20th century. William Hillegass died in 1876, and his estate was tied up in litigation for a decade. During those ten years, the Hillegass land was farmed by tenant farmers, principally Andrew Poirier, William Poinsett, and George Stutt. While the main crop grown was wheat, some plots were sublet to market farmers who raised vegetables.9

Figure 37. Cultivated fields on Hillegass land (west of College Avenue)

in the late 1880s. (Berkeley Historical Society) In early 1886, William Hillegass’s widow Marie had the tract mapped, but the

initial auction sale of lots in the four northern blocks along Dwight Way was disappointing.

In 1889, the Hillegass family filed Map No. 3 of the Hillegass Tract, which included for the first time the subdivided 37½ acres south of Derby Street. Possibly in recognition of the difficulty they encountered in selling their lots at auction, the family sold the southern 37½ acres that very same year to two capitalists from San Francisco, Samuel Jones (1831–1915) and Charles H. Givens (1846–1913). The new owners had many business interests, including mining, and were in no hurry to develop their new Berkeley acquisition. Givens also served as a Yosemite Commissioner from 1895 to 1905.

Jones and Givens were members of the venerable Pacific-Union Club, as were the San Francisco real estate operators Tiernan B. Berry and Benjamin Bangs. Perhaps it was this connection that brought Berkeley to the attention of Berry and Bangs.

9 Jerry Sulliger. “William Hillegass: The Story of the Hillegass Land.” Beautiful Benvenue, Elegant Hillegass. Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, 2008.



Benjamin Bangs & Tiernan Brien Berry

Benjamin Bangs (1863–1934) was

born in Fenton, Michigan, the third of four children. His father was a well-to-do retired farmer. Little is known about Bangs’s early life except that he was educated in public schools and married Elizabeth Birdsall (1864–1925), also of Fenton, in 1884.10

According to his obituary in the Berkeley Daily Gazette, Bangs came to San Francisco in 1888. 11 Before long, he became the business agent of his wife’s aunt, the millionaire and art patron Kate Birdsall Johnson (1833–1893), best known today for having commissioned the greatest cat painting ever made, Carl Kahler’s My Wife’s Lovers.

Figure 38. Benjamin Bangs

(San Francisco Water, January 1930)

Mrs. Johnson’s late husband, Robert C. Johnson, died in 1889. His estate was managed by Tiernan Brien Berry (1859–1912), a Maryland native.

Since the childless Mrs. Johnson inherited a large part of her husband’s fortune, The Johnson estate business brought Berry and Bangs together. As reported in Berry’s biography, “In this connection he started a real estate brokerage business in partnership with Benjamin Bangs, business agent of R. C. Johnson’s widow, under the style of Berry & Bangs. For a number of years the firm was engaged in buying and dividing into building lots considerable property in the city of Berkeley, Calif.”12 Figure 39. Tiernan Brien Berry (The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. 31)

10 Justice Brown Detwiler. Who’s Who in California: A Biographical Directory, 1928–29. San Francisco: Who’s Who Publishing Co., 1929. 11 “Pioneer Developer of Berkeley Dies.” Berkeley Daily Gazette, 29 December 1934. 12 James Terry White. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. 31. New York: James T. White Company, 1944.



Berry & Bangs embarked on their first Berkeley venture in 1893, when they purchased from Warren Cheney13 a tract of land located above Piedmont Way and below Panoramic Hill. It had been the property of the Rev. Joseph Augustine Benton (1818–1892), who had willed it to the Pacific Theological Seminary.

Figure 40. The Benton Property (1893) was Berry & Bangs’s first Berkeley

subdivision. The Bangs family home was located on the shaded lots. Twenty-seven “choice lots facing on Bancroft Way, Channing Way, Piedmont

Way, and Warring Street”14 were offered at an auction sale on 15 April 1893, the Benton Property being touted as “one of the choicest and most beautiful portions of that suburb, commanding a fine marine view and having adjacent to it many of Berkeley’s finest residences.”15

Benjamin Bangs moved to Berkeley c. 1895 and was registered to vote here in 1896. Having claimed to himself two choice lots on the corner of Warring Street and Bancroft Way, he built a house designed by the Cunningham Bros. at 2300 Warring, which the Bangs family occupied until the early 1920s, when the residence was taken over by the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity.

Berry & Bangs’s second land acquisition in Berkeley was made in 1896, when they purchased Blocks G and H in the Hillegass Tract from the Hillegass family and subdivided them as the Hillegass Property. The boundaries were Parker Street, College Avenue, Derby Street, and Hillegass Avenue.

13 “Warren Cheney has sold the Theological Seminary tract…to Berry and Bangs” The (San Francisco) Morning Call, 5 February 1893, page 7. 14 Ad in The (San Francisco) Morning Call, 2 April 1893, page 6. 15 “Real Estate.” The (San Francisco) Morning Call, 9 April 1893, page 3.



Figure 41. Hillegass Property, subdivided by Berry & Bangs in 1896.

Berry & Bangs offered 60 lots “in the well-known Hillegass Tract, the choicest

location for family residences in this city of grand views” at an auction sale on 16 May 1896. The advertising was effusive:

Surrounded by residences of the first-class business men of San Francisco,

the professors of the State University and the best citizens of Berkeley; but 1 block from Dwight Way, 1 block from Telegraph avenue and 4 blocks from Dwight Way steam station; commands the finest view obtainable of the Golden Gate, Marin County hills, the bay and the City of San Francisco.16

16 Ad in the San Francisco Call, 8 May 1896, page 8.



Figure 42. Detail from auctioneer William J. Dingee’s Map of Oakland & Vicinity, 1899. The

shaded blocks are the Hillegass Property, subdivided by Berry & Bangs in 1896. The arrow points to the future location of the Hicks House. (David Rumsey Historical Map Collection)

As the blocks south of the university campus filled up, and as new urban rail

networks improved commuter transport options, opportunity beckoned in the undeveloped land farther to the south. The 37½ acres that Jones and Givens had owned since 1889 were still being used as farmland. Mary Edith McGrew (1882–1978), who lived as a child in the Gifford McGrew House, built in 1900 on the corner of Derby Street and Hillegass Avenue, at the southern edge of the Hillegass Tract, recalled the ten-foot fence that surrounded Chinese market gardens extending from Derby Street to Russell Street between College Avenue and Telegraph Avenue.17

On 30 March 1901, the Oakland Transit Consolidated Co. extended its Alcatraz Avenue streetcar line from Telegraph Avenue to College Avenue, a nine-minute walk from the future Berry-Bangs Tract. On 1 October 1901, Berry and Bangs incorporated the Berry-Bangs Land Company, headquartered in San Francisco, with capital stock valued at $150,000.18 Benjamin Bangs was the new corporation’s president, and Tiernan B. Berry, its secretary. Less than three weeks following incorporation, the Berkeley Daily Gazette carried the following item:

Big Land Deal Involving the Expenditure of $100,000. One of the largest real estate deals of the month is that by which 37½

acres of land in Berkeley bounded by Derby street, Russell street, College 17 Oral history related by Mary Edith McGrew to Anthony Bruce, BAHA, 1977. 18 “State Corporations.” Biennial Report of the Secretary of State of the State of California, 1902, p. 28.



avenue and running to within 300 feet on Telegraph avenue on the west has been purchased by the Berry-Bangs Land Company, of which A.H. Breed of Oakland,19 T.B. Berry and Benjamin Bangs are members.

The property is to be subdivided into lots 50x148 feet in size and placed on the market. Street work contracts amounting to $30,000 have been let and grading already commenced. It is estimated that the valuation of the entire property is about $100,000. This property includes the southern portion of the old Hillegass tract and is the largest piece of unimproved land in East Berkeley.20

Figure 43. Berkeley Daily Gazette, 19 October 1901

According to Jerry Sulliger, the sale was not consummated until July 1902,

when the Berry-Bangs Land Company paid Jones and Givens $75,000 for the land.21 However, the Berry-Bangs Tract map was filed two months earlier.

19 Prominent real estate agent and future state senator Arthur H. Breed had represented Berry & Bangs in the sale of Benton Property and Hillegass Property lots. 20 “Contracts Have Been Awarded for Many New Residences.” Berkeley Daily Gazette, 19 October 1901. 21 Sulliger. Hillegass.



The first Berry-Bangs Tract map was filed on 15 May 1902. Its southern boundary was Russell Street, and it comprised the southern portion of Plot No. 71 in Kellersberger’s Map.

Less than a year later, the Berry-Bangs Land Company had acquired vacant lots in three additional blocks lying between Russell Street and Ashby Avenue, comprising a small portion of Plot No. 51 in Kellersberger’s Map that had been subdivided in 1886 by Mark Ashby as the Claremont Tract.

Map No. 2 of the Berry-Bangs Tract (Fig. 45) was filed on 3 April 1903. It included the previously unmapped Block K, in which the Hicks House was built.

Figure 44. The first Berry-Bangs Tract map, 1902

Figure 45. Map No. 2 of the Berry-Bangs Tract, 1903.

The Hicks House lot is shaded.



Just as they had done while selling lots in the Benton and Hillegass Properties, Berry and Bangs advertised their new tract as “The Choicest Residence Tract in Berkeley—Not One Objectionable Feature.” They emphasized the desirable location of their new tract; touted the ease of transportation (“Electric lines surround the tract”) and the fine views; listed the names of prominent residents and their occupations; and imposed restrictions on buyers:

Residences only

No stores or wood-yards We do not want to sell a lot to any person who will erect a residence to cost

less than $2500.22 The message was clear, if couched in veiled terms: No working-class people

or minorities need apply. The first owners of the Hicks House fit the bill admirably.

Early owner-residents of the Hicks House

Thomas E. & Louise P.L. Hicks On 14 May 1904, The Berry-Bangs Land Company sold Lot 19 in Block K of

the Berry-Bangs Tract, Map No. 2., located on the southeast corner of Benvenue Avenue and Russell Street and measuring 148.53 feet x 50 feet, to Louise P.L. Hicks.23

Later that month, the San Francisco Call reported:

BERKELEY SITUATION Berkeley, May 29.— A number of lots in the Berry-Bangs Tract have been sold recently by F.

H. Lawton. This tract is in the neighborhood of a lot of handsome residences and is very desirable. One of these lots was sold to T. E. Hicks, an Eastern lumber merchant, who will build a $5000 residence at the corner on Russell street and Benvenue avenue.24 Thomas Ernest Hicks (1863–1913) was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin. His

father, John Fullerton Hicks, M.D., was born in Canada and graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1865. The Hicks family settled in Menominee, Michigan, where Thomas was recorded in the 1880 U.S. Census as a clerk in a store. His obituary included the following résumé of his career:

Hicks was cashier of the Sam Stephenson Bank at Menominee, Mich., and

afterward engaged in the lumber business there with M. A. Burns, as Burns & Hicks, and together they came to the Pacific Coast in 1902, and engaged in the manufacture of redwood lumber in Humboldt County as the Eastern Redwood Lumber Company. Mr. Hicks disposed of his interest in the

22 Promotional map of the Berry-Bangs Tract from the Louis L. Stein collection. BAHA archives. 23 “Official Records.” Oakland Tribune, 20 May 1904. 24 “Berkeley Situation.” San Francisco Call, 30 May 1904, page 4.



concern several years ago and had made his home at Berkeley until last spring, when he moved to Pasadena for his health.25 In 1894, Thomas Hicks married Louise Pearce Lloyd (1869–1952) a native of

Covington, Kentucky, and the daughter of a wholesale liquor dealer. Their first son, James Ernest Hicks (1899–1966) was born in Menominee and moved with his parents to Berkeley.

Figure 46. Louise P.L. Hicks and her son, James E. Hicks, 1922

On 5 July 1904, the Berkeley Daily Gazette reported under the subhead “South

End Booming”:

At the southeast corner of Russell and Benvenue Contractor C. A. Martin is building a $3000 dwelling for T. E. Hicks.

Figure 47. Berkeley Daily Gazette, 5 July 1904

The Hicks House was the first building constructed on Block K of the Berry-

Bangs Tract, and it’s possible that Hicks had it built as a speculative investment. (This might explain the care taken in designing and constructing an exceptionally handsome house, as opposed to the family’s considerably plainer second house, completed two years later.)

The Berkeley city directory listed Thomas E. Hicks at 2901 Benvenue Avenue in 1905 and 1906, and Louise Hicks was assessed for this property only in 1905. 25 Obituary of Thomas Ernest Hicks. American Lumberman, 3 January 1914, page 72.



In 1906, the Hickses built a new residence at 2935 Cambridge (now Piedmont) Avenue, in the newly opened Elmwood Park tract. Why did they move? One possible explanation would be that Hicks had recently acquired the Oakland Lumber Company and wanted to invest the profits from the sale of the first house in his new business. Regardless of their motive, the Hickses remained on Piedmont Avenue until the spring of 1913, when they moved to Pasadena in an effort to shore up Thomas’s failing health. He died in Pasadena in December of that year.

Figure 48. The Oakland Lumber Company, 1894 (Oakland Public Library)

Figure 49. Ad in the “Oakland Souvenir Cook-book,” 1905



Alexander & Ethel Sclater In 1906, following several

speculative transactions and deed transfers, the Hicks House became the home of the Sclater family, who also acquired the adjacent Lot 18, now 2905 Benvenue Avenue.

Alexander Sclater (1864–1930) was born in Canada to Scottish parents. In 1891, he married the English-born Ethel Trigge (1870–1949), and their first four children were born in Canada.

In 1900, the Sclater family was renting a house in Oakland.26 At the time, Alexander was the manager of the Sherwin-Williams Company’s Pacific Coast District.27 The Sclaters’ fifth and sixth children were born in 1905 and 1906, respectively.

Figure 50. Source: The S.W.P., June 1906 The June 1906 issue of The S.W.P.—the monthly publication of the Sherwin-

Williams Company—carried a long, illustrated article titled “The Sherwin-Williams Company in the San Francisco Fire,” based on Alexander Sclater’s reports of the post-earthquake situation. The following passage is an excerpt from that article:

As soon as it was definitely known at Cleveland that the offices and

warehouse at San Francisco had been destroyed, stock supplies were made up and rushed forward to the Company at Oakland, where Mr. Sclater had commenced the work of re-organization.

A temporary office was opened in the store of our agents, A. Rittigstein & Co. at Oakland, as soon as arrangements could be made, and here the great task of creating order out of confusion was taken up by Mr. Sclater, with the aid of those of the staff he could gather around him.28 Alexander Sclater’s revival of Sherwin-Williams’s West Coast operations in

the aftermath of the 1906 Earthquake and Fire resulted in his being transferred the following year to the company’s head office in Cleveland. He sold his home to another Sherwin-Williams executive, Lee W. Wolcott, who until then had served as manager of the company’s Southern Pacific Division, based in Los Angeles.

Sclater’s sojourn in Cleveland was brief. He soon accepted an executive position with the Union Oil Company of California and returned to the Bay Area. In 1909, he was living at 2904 Piedmont Avenue, and the 1910 U.S. Census 26 1900 U.S. Census. 27 San Francisco City Directory, 1900. 28 “The Sherwin-Williams Company in the San Francisco Fire.” The S.W.P., June 1906.



enumerated the Sclaters with their six children back in the Hicks House, which they were renting from Lee Wolcott, who had just built a new house, designed by Louis Christian Mullgardt, next door, at 2638 Russell Street, and moved there temporarily with his wife and son.

Following Wolcott’s example, the Sclaters engaged Mullgardt to design a new house for them at 26 Alvarado Road. In 1914, Alexander Sclater was elected vice-president and director of Union Oil Co., but four years later he returned to the paint business, this time as vice-president of the Glidden Company and general manager of its California subsidiary. By then, the Sclaters had moved to San Francisco, and the 1920 U.S. Census found them in Beverly Hills. In the mid-1920s, Alexander and Ethel relocated to Pasadena, where they lived the remainder of their days.

Lee W. & Mertie J. Wolcott Lee (baptized Levi) Wheeler Wolcott (1872–1970) was born in Wauseon, Ohio,

and raised in Lenawee County, Michigan, the son of a farmer. At the age of 20, he married Mertie (baptized Mercy) Jane Reasoner (1874–1930), also an Ohio native. Their first son was born the following year. The Wolcotts settled in Hudson, Michigan, where Lee went into partnership with H.R. Letcher in a retail business selling drugs, paints and oils, cigars and tobacco, sundries, and soda.

The 1900 U.S. Census enumerated the Wolcotts in Hudson, and Lee was now a salesman, presumably working for a paint company. This remained his employment pattern for the rest of his career.

It is not known when the Wolcotts moved to California, but in 1905, Lee was already managing the Southern Pacific Division of the Sherwin-Williams Company and working in Los Angeles, as evidenced from the endorsement below, one of thousands published in a special 13-page section of the Oakland Tribune that urged awarding a municipal franchise to the Home Telephone Company instead of the incumbent Sunset Company.29

Figure 51. Endorsement of the Home Telephone Company in the City of Los Angeles

(Oakland Tribune, 20 September 1905) When Alexander Sclater, then Sherwin-Williams’s West Coast manager, left

Berkeley in 1907, Lee Wolcott replaced him in that position, as well as purchasing Sclater’s two parcels, lots 18 and 19, with the Sclater home.

29 “Shall Oakland Forever Remain a Slave to Telephone Monopoly?” Oakland Tribune, 20 September 1905.



In 1909, the Wolcotts repartitioned the two lots to create a third, perpendicular parcel on the east side of their land, facing Russell Street. On this new parcel, they built the house designed by Louis Christian Mullgardt in which they lived briefly while renting 2901 Benvenue Ave. to the Sclaters. Still in 1910, the Wolcotts sold the new house to a mining engineer.

Shortly after repartitioning their parcels, the Wolcotts sold the truncated Lot 18 to the vice-president of a hardware company, who commissioned the architectural firm of Plowman & Thomas to build a speculative house on that site.

Figure 52. The repartitioned lots 18 and 19

Lee Wolcott continued as the West Coast manager of Sherwin-Williams for

the rest of his working life, eventually becoming a vice-president of the company.

On 23 December 1919, the Wolcotts sold their house to St. John’s Presbyterian Church and moved to 14 The Uplands. Following Mertie’s death in 1930, Lee remarried and moved to 1 Bowling Drive, Oakland. Lee outlived his second wife and was buried next to Mertie in Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland.

The St. John’s Presbyterian Church years St. John’s Presbyterian Church acquired the Hicks House to serve as its

manse. The congregation’s longtime pastor, Rev. George Granville Eldredge, lived in his own house, at 2735 Benvenue Avenue. Rev. Eldredge died in October 1918, a victim of the post–World War I influenza epidemic. An interim pastor—the octogenarian Rev. Ervin S. Chapman, a famous orator—was brought out of retirement. During his brief tenure, Rev. Chapman and his wife stayed at the home of their wealthy son-in-law, Frank J. Woodward, at 2302 Piedmont Way.



In the fall of 1919, the congregation received its new permanent pastor, Rev. Francis W. Russell, D.D. (1865–1962). Having previously practiced in St. Louis, Missouri, Rev. Russell required a Berkeley residence, hence the purchase of the Hicks House.

Rev. Dr. Francis W. & Lucille

C. Russell Francis Wayland Russell, D.D.

(1865–1962) served as the pastor of St. John’s Presbyterian Church of Berkeley from September 1919 to June 1923.

The following text is a biography of Dr. Russell, published in the semicentennial history of the Mount Hermon Conference, the first Christian camp west of the Mississippi, founded in 1905 and located in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Figure 53. Dr. Francis W. Russell (Oakland Tribune, 12 July 1924)

Dr. Francis W. Russell was born in Fairport, New York on September 21st, 1865, as the son of Rev. Byron T. Russell, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Fairport. He was named after Francis Wayland, the president of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, where his father had been a student. After a move to Niles, Michigan, the family settled down in Newton, Indiana, where young Francis grew up, went through grammar and high school and then on to Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. In 1882 when he was seventeen, the family moved to Nebraska, where Francis continued his education in the Baptist Academy of Gibbon, which was later absorbed by the Baptist College of Grand Island. Later, he entered the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, specializing in Geology, which had been a favorite subject of his father’s, and in Paleontology. He had planned to become a geologist, but his father had long prayed that he would enter the ministry. The death of his father in 1890 caused him to reconsider his life plan, and in 1891 he entered the McCormick Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Chicago, where he graduated in 1894 and accepted a call to the Presbyterian Church in Fairbury, Nebraska. It was there that he met Miss Lucille Cross, whom he married in 1897, shortly after he had been called to the First Presbyterian Church of Marshalltown, Iowa. Following this, he served as pastor of a church in Boulder, Colorado.

In 1904, he was called to the West Presbyterian Church of St. Louis, Missouri, where for sixteen years he enjoyed a remarkable ministry and where he made the acquaintance of an outstanding group of laymen who continued their interest in him down through the years. In the summer of 1919, he supplied the pulpit of St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, living in a rented cottage at Mount Hermon for six weeks in July and August



of that year. He was later called to serve that church as pastor, during which time he was invited to take part in the Mount Hermon Conference program of 1921.

In October of 1922, Dr. F.W. Russell was appointed Director of Extension Work. In this capacity he arranged a series of Bible conferences during the fall, winter, and spring months throughout the State of California. Outstanding among these was a series of conferences with Dr. G. Campbell Morgan of Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, as speaker in Calvary Presbyterian Church, San Francisco, in February of 1923, followed by similar meetings in First Baptist Church, Oakland, and First Presbyterian Church, San Jose. Dr. A.Z. Conrad of Park Street Congregational Church of Boston and many others also came to the coast for Bible conferences under the auspices of Mount Hermon.

On June 1st of 1923, Dr. Russell was engaged as the full-time Religious Work Director, leaving a very fine pastorate to do so. This was really a step of faith on the part of both Mount Hermon and Dr. Russell, for at the time, Mount Hermon’s treasury was sadly depleted. Subsequent events have proved that this step was surely of the Lord’s doing.30 Upon leaving Berkeley, the Russells moved to Palo Alto, where they spent the

rest of their lives. Rev. Dr. Stanley Armstrong & Elizabeth Peirce Hunter

Figure 54. The Hunters with sons Converse (l) and W. Armstrong at home, c. 1930

(Hunter family collection)

30 Biographical Sketch of Dr. Francis Wayland Russell, D.D. In Harry R. Smith, Apart With Him: Fifty Years of the Mount Hermon Conference. Oakland: Western Book & Tract Company, 1956.



Rev. Stanley Armstrong Hunter (1888–1959) became the pastor of St. John’s Presbyterian Church in 1924. He was born in Orangeville, Ontario, the son of Rev. William Armstrong Hunter, M.A., a distinguished scholar and pastor of the Erskine Presbyterian Church of Toronto.31

Figure 55. Erskine Presbyterian Church, Toronto, 1900 (Toronto Public Library)

Figure 56. Rev. William Armstrong Hunter (Men of Canada)

Stanley was the third child of Rev. Hunter and his wife, Elizabeth Chambers

Hunter. He was preceded by Graham Chambers Hunter (1882–1964) and Irene Louise Hunter (1885–1924), and followed by Allan Armstrong Hunter (1893–1982). Another son, named Cecil, was born in 1890 and died in 1893. All four surviving children would grow up to follow in their father’s footsteps—the boys as scholars, ministers, and humanitarians; the girl as church activist, humanitarian, and writer.

Denver, Colorado When Stanley was five years old, his mother died of influenza, and the family

was dispersed for several years. His father moved to Denver in 1897, accepting a position as pastor of the First Avenue Presbyterian Church, while the children remained in Canada. In 1900, Rev. William Hunter was enumerated in the U.S. Census as a boarder in the household of a family living near First Avenue Church. His daughter, Irene, 14, was living in the same household and attending school, while his eldest son, Graham, 17, newly arrived from Woodstock, Ontario, had just enrolled as a freshman at the University of Denver and was living in the home of Professor James E. Le Rossignol, another Canadian expatriate.

In 1901, Rev. William Hunter remarried and was settled in a home located around the corner from the First Avenue Church. This enabled him to bring his

31 Rev. William Cochrane, D.D., Ed. Men of Canada, Vol. 1. Brantford, Ont.: Bradley, Garretson & Co., 1891.



two younger sons over from Canada. Stanley was enrolled at the West Denver High School, graduating in 1905. He and Irene followed Graham at the University of Denver. Irene graduated cum laude in 1909, while Stanley left for Princeton in 1906, following his elder brother Graham (class of 1904) and preceding younger brother Allan (class of 1916).

Rev. William Hunter saw to it that all his children received a well-grounded, broad-minded education with a strong basis in the humanities. One light-hearted manifestation of this liberal education may be seen in Irene’s humorously observant poem “The Culture-Crazed,” published in the Saturday Evening Post on 19 June 1909, just after the poet had turned 24. More serious manifestations were the liberal arts syllabi prepared by Stanley Hunter at Princeton University.

Princeton University & Allahabad, India As an undergraduate at Princeton, Stanley participated in oratory and essay-

writing contests, winning an honorable mention in English, as well as the New York Herald Prize in Politics. He wrote several syllabi, including Syllabus in Junior Philosophy, a 60-page book covering the history of philosophy from the early Greek philosophers to Kant; Syllabus in English Poetry of the Nineteenth Century; Syllabus of Required Reading in Politics 45, National Legislation; and Syllabus of Readings in Constitutional Government: Dicey, Bagehot, and the Parts Required of President Wilson’s Two Books.

Stanley’s period at Princeton coincided with Woodrow Wilson’s final years as president of the university. Stanley attended Wilson’s course in constitutional government, as reflected in the syllabus he wrote, summarizing the books required as reading for the course.

A progressive Democrat and a leading advocate of liberal internationalism, Woodrow Wilson was a devout Presbyterian, as were many other Princetonians who went on to become well-known ministers and educators. It was the Rev. C.A.R. Janvier, a Princeton alumnus and Presbyterian missionary in Allahabad, India, who proposed to the North India mission of the Presbyterian Church that they request sanction from the head office in New York to found a college in Allahabad.

Figure 57. Alumni & students of Ewing Christian College, Allahabad, India, following the

inauguration of Dr. Janvier as Principal, 12 Nov. 1913. (The Continent, 25 December 1913)



The Allahabad Christian College (later Ewing Christian College) was founded in 1902 and drew upon the Princeton graduate body to augment its teaching staff. One of the dormitories at the college was named Princeton Hall.

Stanley Hunter received his B.A. from Princeton in June 1910 and immediately left for India. He taught at Allahabad Christian College for two years, living in Princeton Hall. Stanley’s high school yearbook of 1911 stated that he was now “professor of psychology and ethics in Christian College, Allahabad, India.”32 According to all other sources, however, he taught English and philosophy, a far likelier choice, given his Princeton syllabi on Philosophy and English poetry.

While he was in India, and shortly after his return home, Stanley Hunter wrote a prolific number of articles for publication, including “Educational Court of the Uttar Pradesh Exhibition” (1911); “With the Elephants in India” (1911); “Centennial of James McCosh” (1911); “Leader Beloved: Arthur Ewing of India” (1912); “Sermons in Stone” (1912); “A Princeton Martyr and the Indian Mutiny”33 (1912); “The Indian Tiger” (1912); “Christian Endeavor in India” (1913); “An American Sir Launfal in India: Higginbottom of Allahabad and His Work” (1913); “Foiling a Devil-Priest” (1913); and “What the Intellect of India Reads” (1913).34

The Princeton and Allahabad connections remained strong (and often intertwined) throughout Stanley Hunter’s life. Shortly after his return from Allahabad, his article “Arthur H. Ewing’s Twenty Years in India” (1913) was published in The North American Student. The following year, the Allahabad Mission Press published his 30-page book, The Religious Ideals of a President: Some Utterances of Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, on Matters Connected With the Religious Life (1914). In June 1924, as the newly installed pastor in Berkeley, Stanley Hunter gave a talk on the work of Ewing Christian College, illustrated with 75 colored lantern slides, to the junior, intermediate, and senior departments of the St. John’s Presbyterian Church Sunday school.35 When he published The Music of the Gospel in 1932, royalties from the book’s sales went to the library fund of Ewing Christian College. Eleven of the book’s 26 chapters were the work of Princeton alumni, including Stanley, Graham, and Allan Hunter.36

Riverside, California In 1909, while Stanley Hunter was an undergraduate student at Princeton, his

father was called to be the pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church in Riverside, California, where he lived out his life. Riverside became home base to the three younger Hunter children. Stanley Hunter was listed in Riverside directories between 1914 and 1918.

32 “Alumni.” The Annual 1911. West Side High School, Denver, Colorado, page 87. 33 https://archive.org/details/princetonmartyri00hunt 34 http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3AHunter,+Stanley+Armstrong,&qt=hot_author 35 “To Speak on India.” Berkeley Daily Gazette, 21 June 1924. 36 “Music of the Gospel” (book review). Princeton Alumni Weekly, 5 February 1932.



Columbia University & Union Theological Seminary, New York Having returned from India in 1912, Stanley Hunter enrolled at Columbia

University and Union Theological Seminary, where he pursued simultaneous graduate studies in the liberal arts and theology, like brother Graham before him. His Master’s thesis at Columbia was titled A Sociological Study of Bohemians in New York (1914).

Stanley Hunter followed his father (class of 1880) and brother Graham (class of 1909) to the Union Theological Seminary, a non-denominational Christian seminary (several years later, his younger brother Allan followed Stanley to Columbia and UTS). He was registered at UTS in 1912–1914 and again in 1915–1916, obtaining his diploma in 1916. His dissertation, titled “American Revivals Since 1860,” was submitted for the Hitchcock Prize in Church History.

Both Stanley Hunter and his sister Irene contributed to Woman’s Work, a monthly magazine published by the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Societies of the Presbyterian Church. While Stanley wrote about intellectual life in India, Irene wrote from the perspective of the home missionary. Her article in the June 1916 issue, titled “Welcoming the Foreigner,” described how newly arrived young Koreans were adapting to life in California, and what the church was doing to help them adapt.37

Early Postings & the Pittsburgh Years Stanley Armstrong Hunter was ordained into the Presbyterian ministry on 2

October 1914.38 While he was still a graduate student, his early postings included assistant pastorates in the Central Presbyterian Church, NYC (1913) and Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, PA (1914–1915). Following graduation from Union Theological Seminary, he acted as temporary pastor at Church of the Pilgrims (Congregational) in Brooklyn, NY.39 The same year (1916), he was offered a permanent position as pastor of North Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, PA, where he served until 1924, when he was called to Berkeley. During his ministry in Pittsburgh, Stanley Hunter also acted for a time as associate editor of the Presbyterian Banner,40 a “Weekly Illustrated Religious Newspaper for the Home.”

On 21 March 1918, Rev. Stanley Armstrong Hunter married Elizabrth Peirce (1891–1979), daughter of Harold and Charlotte (Converse) Peirce of Haverford, PA. Haverford is a township abutting Bryn Mawr, and the wedding took place in the Presbyterian Church of Bryn Mawr, where the groom had been assistant pastor three years earlier.

The Hunters’ first child, Stanley Armstrong Hunter, Jr., was born on 14 April 1919 and died the following day. The cause of death was reported as “cerebral hemorrhage,” and the contributory cause, “concussion or fracture of skull (caused by use of forceps at delivery).” The second child, William Armstrong “Army” Hunter III, was born on 15 February 1921.

37 Irene Louise Hunter. “Welcoming the Foreigner.” Woman’s Work, Vol. 31, June 1916, page 124. 38 Alumni Catalogue of the Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, 1836–1936. 39 Who’s Who in California, Vol 1942–43. 40 Guide to the Stanley Armstrong Hunter Papers. Presbyterian Historical Society.



From 1917 until 1924, Rev. Hunter served as secretary of the Western Pennsylvania chapter of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief,41 which raised $500,000 in response to the Armenian Genocide.42

The Berkeley Years

Rev. Hunter began his ministry at St. John’s Church the first of the year [1924], conducting the mid-week prayer service last Wednesday evening, and preaching last Sunday morning and at the vesper service Sunday afternoon.

Since the resignation of Dr. Francis W. Russell, pastor of St. John’s, last spring, the church has been without a permanent pastor. Mr. Hunter made a trip to the western coast in late autumn and preached two Sundays at St. John’s Church. He quite captivated the congregation by his charming personality, and his splendid sermons, and by a unanimous vote of the church a call was extended to him to accept the pastorate.

Mr. and Mrs. Hunter and their young son arrived just before the holidays and are now settled in the manse, 2901 Benvenue avenue.43 In its online history, St. John’s Presbyterian Church recounts:

[I]n January, 1924, Dr. Stanley Armstrong Hunter from Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania started his ministry with us. For the next thirty years, Dr. Hunter played a major role in framing the history and future direction of St. John’s, retiring in January, 1954.44 When the Hunters arrived in Berkeley, Elizabeth Hunter was pregnant, and

on 26 May of that year, she gave birth to a daughter whom the Hunters named Charlotte, after her maternal grandmother. The baby lived only four days and was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Riverside, where her grandfather, Rev. William Armstrong Hunter, had been interred in February 1920, and her aunt, Irene Hunter, would be laid to rest in September 1924.

The Hunters’ youngest son, Converse “Conny” Peirce Hunter, was born on 21 August 1926. Both he and his brother Armstrong would follow their father and uncles to Princeton University and Union Theological Seminary. Both were ordained as ministers, although Armstrong never had a congregation and devoted his life to teaching and publishing—his doctrine was “we minister unto each other.”45 Converse held several pastorates on the East Coast. His ministry was characterized by a passion for peace and justice issues: racial justice, sustainable peace, and openness to diversity.46

41 Pan-Pacific Who’s Who. 1941. 42 “Brief Items.” The Continent, 3 July 1919. 43 “Installation Service for New Pastor Planned.” Berkeley Daily Gazette, 9 January 1924. 44 A History of St. John’s Presbyterian Church. http://www.stjohnsberkeley.org/ourcommunity/history 45 “William Armstrong Hunter III ’42.” Princeton Alumni Weekly. https://paw.princeton.edu/memorial/william-armstrong-hunter-iii-’42 46 Obituary of Converse Peirce Hunter. Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 4–5 December, 2010.



Rev. Hunter’s Modern Educational Methods In June 1924, scarcely three weeks after baby Charlotte’s death, Rev. Hunter

held a Foreign Missions Day at St. John’s Sunday School, presenting his aforementioned slide show on the work of Ewing Christian College. Endeavoring to sustain his young pupils’ attention, he also screened photos taken during the summer vacation in Kashmir “and other sections of the Himalayas.”47 Employing audio-visual techniques to enhance education was a practice that Rev. Hunter pursued during the 30 years he served as St. John’s pastor. He was known for screening films as a way to engage his flock.

By the 1950s, Presbyterians settled down to tend their upscale

congregations, primarily exhibiting rather than producing films. Rev. Stanley Armstrong Hunter, the nationally known pastor of Saint John’s Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, California, announced that “now our children don’t like to miss a Sunday” because he had been using a Bell and Howell Filmosound Projector for three years.48 Honors & Positions In April 1925, a year after his arrival in California, Rev. Stanley Armstrong

Hunter received an honorary doctorate in divinity from Occidental College. From 1925 to 1941, Dr. Hunter was chairman of the Foreign Missions

Commission Synod of California. In July 1939, he was elected to another important office:

Stanley A. Hunter is moderator of the Synod of California and Nevada of

the Presbyterian Church for the current year. Representatives of 333 churches, meeting at Berkeley, elected him on July 20. Stanley is pastor of St. John’s Church, one of the strong religious societies on the Pacific Coast. His work as moderator is an additional task and will require many visits to other towns and cities. His father held the same office before him, twenty-eight years ago—Rev. Wm. Armstrong Hunter, a graduate of the University of Toronto, and of Union Seminary in New York.49 Advocacy for Universal Tolerance, Peace & Freedom Following in the footsteps of his professor, Woodrow Wilson, Dr. Stanley

Armstrong Hunter was a leading liberal internationalist, advocating for political, economic, and cultural cooperation among peoples and nations. For nine years, he was chairman of the Institute of International Relations at Mills College.50 He frequently lectured on peace and maintained correspondence with well-known pacifists and social reformers around the globe.

47 “To Speak on India.” Berkeley Daily Gazette, 21 June 1924. 48 Terry Lindvall & Andrew Quicke. Celluloid Sermons: The Emergence of the Christian Film Industry, 1930–1986. New York University Press. 2011. 49 “With the Alumni.” The Princeton Alumni Weekly, Vol. XL, No. 7, 3 November 1939, page 142. 50 “Noted Pastor Dies.” Berkeley Daily Gazette, 4 January 1960, page 1.



Dr. Hunter was in close touch with like-minded leaders at home and abroad. Over several decades, he carried on an active correspondence51 with Toyohiko Kagawa (1888–1960), the world-renowned Japanese pacifist, Christian reformer, and labor activist.

When Dr. Kagawa came to Berkeley in September 1931 to deliver the Earl lectures at the Pacific School of Religion, it was Dr. Hunter, chairman of the Kagawa Cooperators, who introduced him,52 and Dr. Kagawa is reported to have stayed with the Hunters at the manse. Dr. Hunter’s article, “Kagawa, a Modern Saint,” was published in the The Presbyterian Tribune on 9 January 1936.

Another of Dr. Hunter’s enduring friendships was with the celebrated British social reformer and pacifist Muriel Lester (1883–1968). At Dr. Hunter’s invitation, Miss Lester preached at St. John’s Church during the 1934 Christmas vesper service.53 Two years later, she returned to Berkeley on a fundraising tour, speaking to “100 representative women of Metropolitan Oakland” at the Claremont Country Club. Mrs. Stanley Armstrong Hunter was one of the affair’s sponsors.54 Miss Lester’s book, Kill or Cure (1937), includes a biographical sketch of the author by Dr. Stanley Hunter.

In his sermons, Dr. Hunter sought to educate and inspire on multiple levels. An example of his range may be seen in the two sermons he delivered on a single Sunday in January 1931:

“Breaking Down the Walls” will be the theme of the morning sermon by

Dr. Stanley Armstrong Hunter at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Berkeley, tomorrow. At the vesper service he will discuss the theme “Religion as an Art.”55

Figure 58. The Temple of Religion and Tower of Peace, Golden Gate International Exposition

51 The Hunter-Kagawa correspondence is housed in the Burke Library Archives, Union Theological Seminary, New York, NY. 52 “Dr. Kagawa Tells Club of Career as Labor Leader.” Berkeley Daily Gazette, 2 September 1931. 53 Christmas Section. Oakland Tribune, 22 December 1934, page 21. 54 “Country Club Luncheon.” Oakland Tribune, 9 November 1936, page 14. 55 Oakland Tribune, 31 January 1931, page 7.



The Temple of Religion and Tower of Peace at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition

The 1930s were a challenging decade, beginning with the Great Depression

and the rise of Nazism and ending with the specter of a world war. Bay Area religious and civic leaders responded by launching a corporation and a fundraising campaign to finance the building of the Temple of Religion and Tower of Peace at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island, and to fund exhibits and programs for the year of the Exposition.

Dr. Stanley Armstrong Hunter served on the board of directors of Temple of Religion and Tower of Peace, Inc., as well as being a member of the Finance Committee, co-chairman of the General Program Committee, and one of the key speakers during the Exposition. At the conclusion of the Exposition, Dr. Hunter wrote a book documenting the Temple of Religion and Tower of Peace, its provenance, components, exhibits, programs, religious services, and peace meetings.56

The fundraising pamphlet produced to promote the Temple of Religion and Tower of Peace project stated:

The ideal of our Temple of Religion and Tower of Peace will emphasize

unity in religious groups, and aim to present the contribution which religion as a whole has made to Human Welfare. Rabbi Rudolph I. Coffee, president of Temple of Religion and Tower of Peace,

Inc., described the organizers’ aim as “the union of religious forces for the strengthening of freedom and democracy in the United States.”57

The following description of the Temple of Religion and Tower of Peace was provided in the Bancroft Library’s exhibit, Hard Times, High Visions: Golden Gate International Exposition.58

Representation of various world religions certainly occurred at earlier

expositions. What is notable about the Golden Gate International Exposition’s presentation of religion is the theme of religious unity. Along with more typical Christian groups, the Fair included representations of Buddhists, Bahái’ís, Christian Scientists, Jews, Mormons, Protestants, and others. This is particularly interesting in light of the impending World War that would embroil nations in a struggle that emphasized disunity and differences. Rabbi Rudolph I. Coffee states, “Unitedly we embarked on this spiritual adventure, and in working together, we learned to know one another and love one another.”

56 Stanley Armstrong Hunter. Temple of Religion and Tower of Peace at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. San Francisco: Temple of Religion and Tower of Peace, Inc., 1940. 57 Courtney Bender, Pamela Edith Klassen, Eds. After Pluralism: Reimagining Religious Engagement. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. 58 http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/Exhibits/Looking/hardtimes.html



Figure 59. Mills College president Aurelia Henry Reinhardt speaking on 17 September 1939

(San Francisco Examiner, reprinted in Dr. Hunter’s book) Since Dr. Stanley Hunter was chairman of the Institute of International

Relations at Mills College, it is not surprising that Mills College president Aurelia Henry Reinhardt served as vice-president of Temple of Religion and Tower of Peace, Inc. and participated in its programming during the Exposition.

On 17 September 1939, president Reinhardt addressed a crowd of more than 10,000 persons in a peace assembly, one of a series of “Keep America Out of War” events held during the last eight Sundays of the Exposition.

Dr. Hunter led the first peace assembly, held on 10 September, in the prayer for peace. In the final assembly, on 29 October, he delivered the keynote address, speaking on the topic, “America—A Tower for Peace.”

President Reinhardt also wrote the introduction to Dr. Hunter’s book on the Temple of Religion and Tower of Peace.



Figure 60. Dr. Hunter’s hymnal was on exhibit in the Temple of Religion.

One measure of Dr. Hunter’s renown and wide circle of acquaintance was his

famous hymnal, which was on display during the Exposition and contained nearly 1,000 signatures, including those of Eleanor Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover.

Among the other items which aroused considerable interest was a

hymnal owned by Dr. Stanley Armstrong Hunter, of Saint John’s Presbyterian Church, Berkeley, with the signatures of nearly a thousand persons who had, at his request, written their names after their favorite hymns. Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt signed under “Lead Kindly Light” as did both President and Mrs. Robert G. Sproul, of the University of California, Roger W. Babson, John Howell, Jeannette Rankin, Charles Stelzle, F. S. Converse, Geo. R. Lunn, Edward M. Lewis, and several others. Both ex-President and Mrs. Herbert Hoover wrote their names over Kipling’s recessional, “God of Our Fathers.” The hymn of the Quaker poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, was the choice of more signers than any other, among them being Howard Thurman, Sherwood Eddy, Michi Kawai, T. Z. Koo, Muriel Lester, John Anson Ford, Tertius van Dyke, E. Stanley Jones, Joseph Conard, D. Charles Gardner, H. B. Sharman, David R. Porter, Peter K. Emmons, Ray Newton, Horace Westwood, and F. J. Libby. Dr. Hunter also exhibited hymn manuscripts, which he had secured from such contemporary hymn writers as G. A. Studdert-Kennedy, Henry van Dyke, Earl Marlatt, William P. Merrill, Sir Frank Fletcher, Allen Eastman Cross, Calvin W. Laufer, Miriam L. Drury, and Cleland B. McAfee. Early psalm books and hymnals and an 800-year-old leaf of a missal were also displayed from his collection.59

59 Hunter. Temple of Religion.



Civic & Community Activities When St. John’s Presbyterian Church celebrated the tenth anniversary of Dr.

Hunter’s pastorate, the following account of his activities was provided in a newspaper article:

He was a member of the advisory committee on the revision of the

Presbyterian Book of Common Worship. Dr. Hunter has served as moderator of Chester Presbytery and the Presbytery of San Francisco and has been chairman for several years of the Foreign Missions Committee of the Synod of California. Two summers were spent in Sherwood Eddy’s Seminar in Europe and Hubert Herring’s Seminar in Mexico. […] He is a member of the Charities’ Commission of the City of Berkeley and chaplain of St. Andrews’ Society of Oakland.60 The following oral history was provided in the summer of 2017 by Lesley

Emmington, who has a life-long association with St. John’s Presbyterian Church:

Dr. Hunter kept an open house for children and people in need; anyone in the community could walk in. His approach made his house a center for the local community. His ministry emphasized community activities, including Sunday school; cub scouts; boy scouts; summer school; and family dinners. Some of these activities took place at the manse, including some led by his wife, Elizabeth.

Dr. Hunter was an important force in shaping the pacifist movement in Berkeley. As part of this work, he and the church helped Japanese Americans from Berkeley face the difficulties suffered during their World War II internment. This included protecting their properties while they were away.

Dr. Hunter advocated for assistance to refugees from Eastern Europe and assistance to veterans.

In 1937, the Presbyterian Church established the Berkeley Presbyterian Mission Homes at 2918 Regent Street. During World War II, missionaries who were pushed out of East Asia were housed there, and they, with Dr. Hunter, helped shape the anti-war movement in Berkeley. Publications on Music & Religion “Dr. Stanley Armstrong Hunter said that words have a far reach, and yet

there are tremendous regions beyond. Music carries words to far places, where they can never go alone. Music gives life and soul to words.”61 These words were published six years after Dr. Hunter’s death, yet his influence over the use of music in a religious context persisted, thanks largely to the two books he compiled on the subject— Music and Religion (1930) and The Music of the Gospel (1932).

60 “Tenth Anniversary of Pastorate Celebrated.” Oakland Tribune, 23 December 1933, page 10. 61 Cleone R. Eccles. “Appropriate Music Materials.” The Relief Society Magazine, March 1966.



Music and Religion was published by the Abingdon Press in 1930. The book “consists of sermons by ministers of various commu-nions on the value of music in worship. This is one of the early evidences of the revival of interest in worship and the part of music in it. Its purpose is to enhance app-reciation of the heritage of hym-nody and to improve sadly neg-lected congregational singing.”62

In his preface to Music and Religion, Rev. Hunter wrote:

It is hoped that this book will make worshipers and ministers more deeply appreciative of the heritage of our best hymns and more eager to improve congregational singing, which is sadly neglected in our land. “How anyone can hope for artistic worship in which there is the singing of jig-tune hymns is past understanding,” exclaims Bernard Iddings Bell in his chapter on “The Art of Worship,” in Beyond Agnosticism. He adds: “One of the first steps in the restoration of worship will be large bonfires of trashy hymnals.”63

Eleven editions of Music and Religion were published between 1930 and 1973. The book’s success led to a second volume in 1932, titled The Music of the Gospel. It consists of articles about the 26 best-known hymns, descriptions of the significance of their words and music, and accounts of how they came to be written.

In his preface to the volume, Dr. Hunter explained that Christianity is a singing faith, and is almost alone among the religions of the world in using hymns as a medium of conveying spiritual thought.

Stanley Armstrong Hunter retired from St. John’s Church in 1954. He

and Elizabeth moved from the manse to a house at 2711 Regent Street (later cleared for Willard Park). He died at home on New Year’s Eve, 1959, after a period of failing health. 62 Nelson Rollin Burr. Critical Bibliography of Religion in America, Volume IV, Part 4: Religion in the Arts and Literature. Princeton Legacy Library, Princeton University Press, 1961. 63 Excerpt from a book review published in Concordia Theological Monthly, September 1931.



On 2 January 1960, the San Bernardino County Sun published Dr. Hunter’s obituary under the headline “Noted Presbyterian Minister Stricken,” describing him as a “widely known Presbyterian minister.” The Berkeley Daily Gazette’s obituary, carrying the photo on the left, followed on 4 January 1960. Dr. Hunter was described as “one of Berkeley’s most distinguished religious leaders.”

Elizabeth Hunter moved to Weathersfield, Vermont, home of her elder son. She passed away on 14 December 1979.

Figure 61. St. John’s Christmas card (Sarah Wikander collection)

Final Years as St. John’s Manse In 1954, following Dr. Hunter’s retirement, the pastorate of St. John’s

Presbyterian Church passed to Dr. James Comfort Smith (1917–2006). In a letter he sent to the current homeowner on 18 September 2000, Dr. Smith wrote:

We moved into what was then the manse of St. John’s church in 1954

when I left my pastorate in Sacramento to accept the pastorate of St. John’s. We lived in the house for the first two years of my sixteen years as pastor, and then we moved to our home in Orinda, where we lived for the rest of our time, there…

[…] We thoroughly enjoyed the neighborhood, as you do, and we loved the house. It was roomy for our growing family—our oldest son Jim began



school there—and the reason we moved to Orinda had nothing to do with dissatisfaction about house or area. We had simply begun life together in the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael and we longed for the open feeling of suburban life.

The post–St. John’s Years

Figure 62. Mynard & Mary Groom Jones (Oakland Tribune, 1937 & 1924) Mynard S. & Mary Groom Jones In August 1956, St. John’s Presbyterian Church sold its manse at 2901

Benvenue Avenue to Mynard and Mary Groom Jones. The Joneses were a celebrated Bay Area musical couple with long and distinguished singing and teaching careers that began in the 1910s and continued for many decades. During the time they owned and lived in the Hicks House, as well as earlier, the Joneses were considered premier vocal teachers in the Bay Area, were judged to be “remarkable in skills, knowledge and inspirational capacity”64 and trained generations of accomplished concert singers.

Mynard Sherman Jones (1892–1968) was born in Santa Ana, CA, the third of four children in a family that had migrated west from Iowa. His father, who had begun as a carpenter, like his father before him, branched into other occupations. By 1896, the family was residing in Oakland, and the father was a mechanic.

The Joneses moved to Berkeley in 1900, when Mynard was eight years old. His father, who had prior experience in a furniture store, went to work for Durgin & Bleakley’s undertaking and furniture establishment in downtown Berkeley. When Frank Durgin parted company from Robin Bleakley and took on 64 Robert Commanday. “The Teaching of Voice, a Gift.” San Francisco Classical Voice, 27 July 2004.



Walter A. Gompertz as his new partner, David Fowler Jones followed him to the new business, eventually becoming secretary and treasurer of the Berkeley Undertaking Company, Inc.65

The Joneses were a socially prominent family and a musical one. Both Mynard and his sister Ethel were gifted singers. As a boy, Mynard sang in the choir of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. At Berkeley High School, he was a star of the Choral Society. By the time he turned 15, his voice had deepened into a bass-baritone, which enabled him to sing the part of Dick Deadeye in Gilbert & Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore. He was the only participant in the Pinafore production to have his picture (left) published in the Oakland Tribune.66

By the time he turned 17, Mynard had developed into a basso cantante. In

1910, the teenager sang First Bass in a double quartet of male voices accompanying a benefit production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, performed al fresco at the top of Russell Street (the area was known as the Claremont hills).67

Not yet 18, Mynard was already teaching music. He was listed as a music teacher in the Berkeley city directories between 1910 and 1914. He was also composing music. In June 1913, he participated in a soirée for “about forty musicians and music lovers” who “met at Miss Beatrice Clifford’s pleasant Berkeley studio.” (Miss Clifford was a music teacher who resided at 2518½ Etna Street.) There he “sang by special request several of his own compositions.” The latter included “Reflection at Sea,” “Adoration,” and “Indian Song of Vengeance.”68

In March 1916, the Musical Courier published a “Concert Record of Songs By Some of Our Best Known American Composers.” It included Gena Branscombe’s song “A Lovely Maiden Roaming,” performed by Mynard Jones in San Francisco.

Little is known about Mynard Jones’s first marriage. In the first half of the 1910s, he married Lily Vita Markowsky Lytjen (1892–?) of Berkeley. The two

65 Daniella Thompson. “The Circuitous Career of Berkeley’s Favorite Undertaker.” East Bay: Then & Now. Berkeley Daily Planet, 17 September 2009, and BAHA website. http://berkeleyheritage.com/eastbay_then-now/durgin.html 66 “Light Opera to Be Staged by Students.” Oakland Tribune, 24 November 1907. 67 “Last Full Dress Rehearsal Held.” San Francisco Call, 29 May 1910, page 34. 68 “Short Items of Interest.” Pacific Coast Musical Review, 12 July 1913.



probably met through Lily’s brother, the violinist and music teacher Marinus Lytjen (1884–1921). At that time, Lily was working as an attendant at the NAPA State Hospital. The couple’s two children were born in Napa in 1915 and 1916, respectively.

In 1917, the family was back in Berkeley. Mynard was now an employee of the Leo Feist music-publishing firm, located in the Pantages Theatre building in San Francisco. He claimed exemption on his World War I draft registration card, citing his wife and two children.

The 1920s During the silent film era, every large movie theatre possessed an imposing

pipe organ. In the post-WWI years, Mynard Jones became known as a theatre organist, playing in some of the most opulent cinemas, such as the T. & D. Theatre in downtown Oakland, and on tour in various California towns.

In the early 1920s, Jones became an artist-member of the faculty of the Arrillaga Musical College in San Francisco. At the same time, he was active in San Rafael, as recorded in the following 1923 newspaper article.

NOTED SINGER INSTRUCTING IN SAN RAFAEL Mynard S. Jones, well known local teacher of San Rafael, will continue vocal

classes throughout the summer in the Peters building in San Rafael. He has outlined special work for music supervisors and grade teachers in the use

of the child’s voice with regard to pitch, rhythm and appreciation. Teachers and singers with complicated vocal problems are welcomed.

Mr. Jones has been a student of, and associated with, such musical celebrities as Wallace A. Sabin, Arthur Foote, Fred J. Wolle, Clarence Reynolds and P. R. Stephen. At present he is a soloist at St. Paul’s in San Rafael and musical director of the Rotary and Lion’s Clubs at San Rafael. Mr. Jones is available for concert, recital and lecture work and brings to the people of Marin county an opportunity to advance themselves in the musical line under the tutelage of an expert.69 The 1920s saw the birth and rapid expansion of commercial radio

broadcasting. Mynard Jones found steady work as an NBC singing star. In the studio he met Mary Groom Richards (1898–1987), a Welsh contralto who had immigrated to the U.S. in 1920, and the two fell in love. Word got around to their respective spouses, and two divorce cases ensued, followed by the marriage of the two singers on 28 May 1929. The following year, the U.S. Census enumerated the newlyweds in a San Francisco household that also included Mary’s parents, newly arrived from Wales, Mary’s daughter, and Mynard’s two children.

69 Sausalito News, 12 May 1923, page 1.



Figure 63. Mynard Jones directing the Firestone Choristers at NBC

(“Song of Siberia” sheet music cover photo, 1929) The 1930s The late 1920s and the 1930s saw Mynard Jones taking on many new

professional responsibilities. At the NBC radio network, he directed the male vocal octet the Firestone Choristers, as well as the vocal quartets the Olympians and the Knickerbockers. In 1933, he became a Lecturer in Music at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as conductor of the University Choral Ensemble. A year later, he was hired as organist and choirmaster at St. Clement’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley, “beginning a relationship that was to last twenty-fire years (divided between two terms).”70 During this decade he also became the musical director and conductor of the Oakland Orpheus Club,71 a long-established and well-regarded male chorus of 85 voices, and director of the Berkeley Women’s City Club Choral, a female vocal chorus of 35 voices.72 All the above activities,

70 Judith Davis et al. St. Clement’s Episcopal Church: The First 100 Years, 1908–2008. Berkeley: Minuteman Press, 2010. 71 “Radio Star to Direct Concert.” Oakland Tribune, 7 December 1936. 72 “City Club Choral Sets Rehearsal.” Oakland Tribune, 30 December 1937.



which took place alongside Mynard’s and Mary’s private teaching practice and public performances, brought the Joneses to the East Bay.

Figure 64. Oakland Tribune, 21 October 1956

The 1940s–1960s In 1946, Mary Groom Jones followed her husband into the UC Berkeley music

department, where she taught singing until her retirement in 1977.73 She often sang as a soloist on concert stages, at UC, and in church productions. Her performances comprised a diverse repertoire, from Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah, performed with the Vallejo United Choral (100 voices) at Trinity Methodist Church on 27 January 194674; to a Welsh festival of sacred music that she headlined on 1 July 1956 at the First Congregational Church in San Francisco75; to the works of Catalan composer Federico Mompou, given at Hertz Hall on 24 and 25 April 1960, in two tribute concerts honoring Pablo Casals.76

Meanwhile, Mynard Jones was president of the San Francisco chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing.

Once they acquired the Hicks House, the Joneses established their teaching studios there. In the early 1960s, Mynard Jones served as the Northern California

73 “Some Former Berkeley Music People.” Cum Notis Variorum: The Newsletter of the Music Library, UC Berkeley, 1988. 74 Oakland Tribune, 25 January 1946. 75 Oakland Tribune, 1 July 1956. 76 Fons Frederic Mompou: Inventari provisional. Biblioteca Nacional de Catalunya, Secció de Música, Juliol de 2007.



representative for the New York Metropolitan Opera when the Met held its regional auditions.

Mynard Jones died on 30 August 1968. Following her retirement from UC in 1977, Mary Groom Jones moved to Carmel, where she passed away on 28 December 1987.

Summary of Ownership

1904–1906 Thomas & Louise Hicks

1906–1907 Alexander & Ethel Sclater

1907–1919 Lee & Mertie Wolcott

1919–1956 St. John’s Presbyterian Church

1956–1976 Mynard & Mary Groom Jones

1976–1996 Wendy LaRiviere

1996–1999 John & Mary Klem 1999–present Shmuel Weissman The Builder Chapin Alva Martin Chapin Alva Martin (1849–1918) was born in Martinville, Quebec, Canada,

the youngest of seven children. Little is known about his early life. In 1874, he married the Quebecquois Ellen “Nellie” Manning in Lyndon, Vermont (his parents had also married in Vermont, for unknown reasons). At the time, Chapin’s occupation was listed as miller.

Four children were born to the couple: the future Methodist minister Willsie Manning Martin (1878–1953); the future schoolteacher Dora Louise Martin (1878–1967); the future lawyer Leon Elmer Martin (1881–1918); and the future limestone quarry owner Mrs. Mabel Regina Johnson (1885–1960). All but Leon were born in Canada, indicating that the Martins crossed the border several times before officially immigrating to the U.S. via Detroit circa 1888.

By 1892, the family had settled down in Santa Ana, Orange County, where Chapin Martin was naturalized in 1894. In his 1896 voter registration record, he was listed as a carpenter.

On 9 August of 1896, the Martins left Santa Ana, bound “for Berkeley to reside. Willie and Miss Dora Martin will enter the university,” reported the Los Angeles Herald.77 Three days prior to their departure, they had sent their 77 “Santa Ana.” Los Angeles Herald, 10 August 1896, page 3.



belongings to San Francisco on board the Pacific Coast steamship St. Paul, sailing from San Pedro. They never saw their belongings again, for the ship ran ashore in the fog near Pacific Grove and was wrecked off Point Pinos.78 On 11 August, the Herald published the following account, filed on the 10th:

Among the sufferers by the sinking of the steamer St. Paul are H. K.

Snow, C. A. Martin and Shaffer of Santa Ana. Mr. Snow had 225 boxes of lemons sold and shipped to J. M. Spafford, C. A. Martin had his entire stock of household goods, furniture and carpenter’s tools on board, shipped to Berkeley, where he was removing to send his children to the university. It will be a heavy loss to him. Mr. Shaffer had about 4000 pounds of walnuts and peanuts on board. The Martins overcame the misfortune. The 1897 Berkeley city directory listed

them at 2316 Dwight Way. Chapin Martin announced himself as carpenter and builder, while his children Willsie and Dora were both listed as students. Within a year, they moved to 2231 Dana Street, in the now vanished Villa Lots Adjacent to the University tract. Their new house, which they owned, and which, presumably, was built by Chapin, stood two doors north of the First Unitarian Church. The Martins remained at this address until 1904 but continued to own the house for years afterwards.

Soon, Chapin Martin allied himself with another builder, Warren Augustus Graves (1852–1913), who often designed the houses he constructed. The two worked on both sides of the Bay. In October 1900, they signed a contract for alterations and improvements on frame buildings at 131–133 Haight Street, with Martin and Graves acting as contractors, and Graves as the architect.79 The same roles were allocated in 1903, when Martin and Graves were hired by Leonore Chinn to build a 7-room dwelling at 2508–2510 Etna Street (demolished).80

One would have been tempted to speculate that Warren A. Graves had also designed the Hicks House, were it not for the fact that the Berkeley houses known to have been designed by Graves during the first decade of the 20th century were plain Colonial Revival “Classic Boxes” that bore no resemblance to the Hicks House.

Since the surviving database of early Berkeley building permits does not include permits issued earlier than 1909, our knowledge of Chapin A. Martin’s activities relies on property assessments and published contract records. From the assessment records, we learn that Martin launched into development activities circa 1904. In most cases, he constructed houses in pairs, on lots realigned to save space.

Martin’s first independent venture comprised two Colonial Revival houses built c. 1904 on the southwest corner of Dwight Way and College Avenue. The Martin family moved into the western house, 2646 Dwight Way (demolished for an apartment building c. 1927), where they lived for a year, selling the corner house at 2500 College Avenue (Fig. 65), which was later altered and moved to 2502 College Avenue. 78 “Ran Ashore in the Fog.” Los Angeles Herald, 10 August 1896, page 1. 79 San Francisco Call, 12 October 1900, page 11. 80 “Building contracts have recently been recorded as follows:” Oakland Tribune, 8 April 1903, page 5.



Figure 65. 2500 College Avenue, built c. 1904 (Donogh files, BAHA archives)

Also in 1904, Martin built a speculative house at 2610 Etna Street

(demolished), which was sold to a family newly arrived from Virginia City. In 1905, shortly after building the Hicks House, Martin constructed two shingled Colonial Revival speculative houses at 2800 and 2802 Garber Street (Fig. 66).

Figure 66. 2802 Garber Street, built in 1905 (Donogh files, BAHA archives)



In 1906, Martin built two speculative shingled Arts & Crafts residences at 2806 Derby Street and 2705 Piedmont Avenue (Fig. 67).

Figure 67. 2705 Piedmont Avenue, built in 1906 (Donogh files, BAHA archives)

Figure 68. 2643–45 College Avenue, built in 1906 (Donogh files, BAHA archives)

The same year, Martin constructed a speculative shingled Arts & Crafts

duplex at 2643–45 College Avenue. The building featured flared skirts, sturdy posts and beams, dragon-head rafter-tails, and attractive fenestrations with very small panes (Fig. 68).

In 1906–07, Martin built two adjacent Colonial Revival houses at 2700 and 2704 College Avenue (Fig. 69). The Martin family moved into the corner house at 2700 College, selling the other house. Like many other Martin-built houses, this pair displayed flared rooflines, sturdy porch posts, and windows glazed with leaded glass.



Figure 69. Martin House, 2700 College Ave, built c. 1906–07

(Donogh files, BAHA archives)

Figure 70. 2705 Derby Street, built c. 1907–08 (Donogh files, BAHA archives)

Another typical Martin speculative house is the shingled residence at 2705

Derby Street (Fig. 70), distinguished by its prominent eave brackets, front pergola, and diamond-paned windows.

By 1910, Chapin Martin had turned 60 and was no doubt thinking of retirement. He had kept several of his former residences as income properties and also ventured into the mining business. Over the next several years, he gradually gave his children titles to some of his properties. About 1910, the Martins moved into their final residence, at 1050 (later 1066) Keith Avenue.

In 1912, Chapin Martin embarked on his largest solo project. Having acquired in his daughter’s name a two-story Victorian house (c. 1885) at 2227 Dwight Way,



Martin designed and constructed a three-story, six-unit apartment building to replace it.

Completed in the summer of 1913, the building was named the Elms Apartments. A classified newspaper ad announced:

Figure 71. Berkeley Daily Gazette, 1 September 1913

Figure 72. The Elms Apartments in 1958 (Donogh files, BAHA archives) & in January 2018 (photo: Daniella Thompson)

The Elm Apartments featured clay tile awnings supported by heavy beams

and carved brackets, and an ornamental frame for the central second-floor window. Currently owned by Lakireddy Bali Reddy, the building caught fire on 8 March 2012. While the rear was destroyed, the street façade remained intact, and the Zoning Adjustments Board issued Use Permit #13-10000018 to rebuild the fire-damaged, legal non-conforming, six-unit apartment building to the same



size, extent, and configuration as previously existed. The reconstruction did not begin until 2016 and was not quite complete at the time of this writing (January 2018).

Having moved to Keith Avenue, Chapin Martin became active in civic affairs, taking a major role in the Cragmont Improvement Club. In 1911, the City of Berkeley leased from the People’s Water Company vacant land on the east and west sides of Berryman Reservoir for a period of 27 years, with the intention of turning it into a park. The Park Commission undertook to “spend considerable money on the improvement of the property, on which work will be started at once.”81 Plans called for a playground, a tennis court, and swings for children. The Cragmont Improvement Club embraced the park plan and advocated for building a clubhouse. Among the idea’s chief promoters were Chapin Martin, his son Leon, and his daughter Dora.82

Figure 73. San Francisco Call, 21 June 1913

By the summer of 1913, none of the park plans had been realized. Codornices

Park remained “practically untouched because of considerable criticism of the transportation by different sections of the city. Despite the efforts of the Cragmont Improvement Club to have the park retained, the council proceeded with its efforts to get a release, upon recommendation of the playground commission.”83 In his final annual report to the City Council, outgoing mayor J. Stitt Wilson recommended that the City make improvements to San Pablo Park instead of spending money on Codornices Park.84 This setback caused members of the Cragmont Improvement Club to take matters into their own hands. They announced 4 October 1913 as Park Day.

81 “Berkeley Leases Plot of Ground for Park.” San Francisco Call, 11 February 1911, page 15. 82 “Club Will Build House.” San Francisco Call, 21 June 1913, page 22. 83 Oakland Tribune, 18 July 1913, page 15. 84 “Berkeley’s Mayor Has Final Word.” San Francisco Call, 28 June 1913, page 2.



On that day the men of the district will take picks and shovels and go to work grading and leveling and planting shrubs. City Engineer J. J. Jessup will attend to establish grades, and Mayor Charles D. Heywood will lead councilmen in the shovel brigade.

The women will serve luncheon to the toilers at noon and a New England dinner at night.

To provide tennis courts a club is being organized by Miss Evelyn Petch and Miss Marian Sanderson.

The general committee in charge of Park day consists of E. P. Carey, Prof. Thomas H. Reed, Leon Martin, Thomas D. Petch, H. H. Gastman, C. A. Martin and E. M. Ellis.85

On 1 October 1913, Chapin Martin filed a permit application to build a one-

story, one-room “Park House” in Codornices Park, to be occupied as “Park & Club House.” The building’s dimensions were to be 30 ft. W x 40 ft. L x 22 ft. H, and the owner was listed as City of Berkeley. Municipal funds were allocated, and the sum of $697.15 was recorded as an outlay in the City Auditor’s Report for the fiscal year ended on 30 June 1914. Presumably, the lion’s share of the money was spent on materials, since the clubhouse was largely built by volunteer labor, with the active participation of Bernard Maybeck.

Figure 74. Maybeck helps build the Codornices Park clubhouse.

(BAHA archives) The clubhouse was already in use when the second Park Day was held on 21

November 1914. On that day:

Roadways were laid, an ornamental bridge built under the direction of Attorney Stacey W. Gibbs, and other improvements made.

Professor A. S. Eakle of the department of geology, Professor H. W. Fairbanks, well-known geographer; Bernard Maybeck, talented architect; Attorney Leon J.

85 “Pick and Shovel for Cragmont.” San Francisco Call, 26 September 1913, page 3.



Martin and many others participated in the actual labor. […] H. H. Gastman, E. B. Ellis, C. A. Martin, and others were on the committee in

charge. […] Later, following the service of a dinner, exercises were held at the park

clubhouse. […]86 In December 1914, Martin filed a permit application for another park

building—this time, a one-story, three-room, 20-ft.-by-40 ft. “Rest House” in San Pablo Park. In its issue of 6 January 1915, Building and Engineering News reported that the City of Berkeley awarded C. A. Martin a contract to build a one-story, three-room rest house in San Pablo Park at a cost of $672.

Figure 75. Building and Engineering News, 6 January 1915

During World War I, Leon Martin enlisted in the Infantry and was shipped to

France as a first lieutenant commanding a one-pound gun company. He was killed in action on 27 September 1918, the second day of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. His father died 12 days later, on 9 October 1918.

Ellen and Dora Martin continued to live on Keith Avenue. In the house next door, also built by Chapin, lived the younger daughter, Mabel, with her husband, the engineer Fred W. Johnson. In 1922, the Johnsons moved to Santa Cruz, where they acquired a limestone quarry and established the Pacific Limestone Products Company, with the trade name Kalkar. Dora taught history and civics at the Franklin and Luther Burbank intermediate schools. After the death of her mother in 1932, Dora moved to the Durant Hotel, where she lived for a number of years. Following retirement, she joined her sister in Santa Cruz. Chapin, Ellen, and Leon Martin are buried at Sunset View Cemetery in El Cerrito. 86 “Women Prepare Meals to Feed Hungry Workmen.” Oakland Tribune, 22 November 1914.



Who designed the Hicks House? No architect’s name was found in connection with the building of the Hicks

House, yet the house is more distinctive than most of the residences in the Elmwood.

As mentioned earlier, Warren A. Graves, who was Chapin A. Martin’s partner for some years, was ruled out, since the houses he designed were plain Colonial Revival Foursquares.

On the other hand, Chapin A. Martin himself was capable of producing attractive buildings with notable architectural features that are similar to those seen on the Hicks House, as is evident from the various examples of his speculative buildings, cited above.

Like many other builders across the land, Martin may have obtained his design ideas from pattern books. In the case of the Hicks House, at least some of the inspiration could have come from the block to the north, where the first two houses had just been erected. One of those houses, designed by Albert Dodge Coplin for Charles and Jessie Westenberg, is an Arts & Crafts building featuring oversized twin gables (Fig. 76).

Figure 76. Was A. Dodge Coplin’s Westenberg House an inspiration?

(BAHA archives) 16. Context

The Elmwood district, in which the Berry-Bangs Tract is located, is an upscale streetcar suburb, developed in the early years of the 20th century in anticipation of and in response to the expansion of the Key System’s commuter rail and ferries.



Figure 77. A 6-College car on College near Garber, 1938 (photo: Charles Smallwood)

Figure 78. Transit routes in the neighborhood, 1920 (Lederer, Street & Zeus Co., Berkeley)

From the beginning, the area caught the attention of prosperous homebuilders. Perhaps it was the level land and the elegant, straight avenues running off to infinity. Or the fact that the building lots were elevated enough on Berkeley’s sloping plain to afford a bay view, at least from second-story windows, without perching one’s house on a steep hillside. Benvenue and



Hillegass avenues were also situated close to the center of activity, but without the everyday hustle and bustle. Commuters enjoyed a short walk through the open fields to the trains on Adeline Street and had even an easier time of it when streetcars serviced the area directly. […]

Substantial and varied houses were built along these long, straight streets, with a rhythm created by the unfolding series of gable and hip roofs, bay windows, and porches. Home sites here were coveted by Berkeleyans and newcomers alike, and the area soon became known for its Berkeley “brown-shingles.”

Most houses were built [before] 1914 and reflect the values and architectural styles of an upper-middle-class neighborhood of the time. Many property owners commissioned Bay Area architects to design their new homes, and the streets abound with the work of well-known—and less well-known—designers.87 The first streetcar to serve the district was the No. 31 (aka K) Alcatraz Avenue

line, which began running on College Avenue in 1901, enabling residents to connect to transbay trains on Adeline Street.

Figure 79. The No. 31 line, aka the K (Sappers, “Key System Streetcars”)

Figure 80. The No. 31 streetcar on Alcatraz near College Ave., 1924 (photo: W.E. Gardiner) Next came the No. 6 College Avenue line, established in 1905. It connected

the Elmwood district with Oakland’s and Berkeley’s downtowns continuing to the North Berkeley Hills.

87 Anthony Bruce. “Beautiful Benvenue, Elegant Hillegass.” Introduction to BAHA’s Spring House Tour guidebook, 2008.



Figure 81. The No. 6 line route (Sappers, “Key System Streetcars”)

In the wake of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, Berkeley was

flooded with new residents, and homebuilding activities accelerated everywhere, including southeastern Berkeley.

Figure 82. New houses in the Berry-Bangs Tract, December 1906 (Berkeley Reporter)

In 1909, a single-track line was established along Ashby Avenue. The track

turned north on Hillegass Avenue and east on Russell Street, passing by the Hicks House on its way to the Claremont Hotel. It was discontinued in 1928.

Figure 83. Ashby Avenue route (Sappers, “Key System Streetcars”)

By the time the Claremont Hotel was completed for the opening of the 1915

Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the neighborhood had taken its present homogeneous appearance, featuring a preponderance of shingled houses in the Colonial Revival and Arts & Crafts styles.



Figure 84. Looking east from 2811 Benvenue Avenue (BAHA archives)

The Elmwood business district began to form in 1907, when grocer Fred

Koerber built his two-story store & apartment building on the northwest corner of College and Ashby avenues.88 The 1911 Sanborn map below shows the cluster of shops that had grown around the Koerber Building. Four more shops, including a corner drugstore, were located on the southwest corner.

Figure 85. Block K, including early commercial cluster at College & Ashby;

the Hicks House is shaded (Sanborn map, 1911) 88 Daniella Thompson. “Grocer-Politician Fred Koerber Left Berkeley a Double Legacy.” Berkeley Daily Planet & BAHA website, January 2008. http://berkeleyheritage.com/eastbay_then-now/koerber.html



Figure 86. The Koerber Building at College & Ashby (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2008)

In 1914, the future College Avenue business district between Russell and

Webster streets was still largely vacant land. That year, the Beach & Krahn Amusement Company, owners of the Lorin Photoplay Theater on Adeline Street, saw the neighborhood’s potential and built the Strand Theater (now the Elmwood Theater).

Figure 87. The Strand Theater c. 1920 (courtesy of Jack Tillmany)



The Strand Theater was the first in the Bay Area to offer children’s matinées.

Children’s Matinee Idea Grows In Berkeley, California, and Around San Francisco Bay, Exhibitors Are Beginning to Note the Success of the Beach & Krahn Strand Theater’s

Special Matinee Shows for Children—How the Movement Started Here. BERKELEY, CAL—The children’s matinee at the Strand theater

conducted by Beach & Krahn, at College and Ashby avenues, has become an established institution in the college city and has made such a pronounced success that exhibitors in other cities around San Francisco Bay are commencing to give the proposition of special performances for children more attention. This plan was adopted by Beach & Krahn shortly after the opening of the new house and after being operated for a year is more of a success than ever, the results greatly exceeding expectations.

Saw the Demand for Special Shows. The idea was originated following a campaign by Berkeley club women

for better films. During this campaign the censorship question was brought strongly to the front and H. L Beach, who was then president of the Exhibitors’ League of California, appeared before various organizations and spoke against censorship, with the result that the idea was dropped. The need for a special performance for children was strongly impressed upon him, however, and the cooperation of several Mothers’ Clubs was enlisted to assist him in placing the plan he had formulated in operation. The women are consulted as to the suitability of the films presented and they make up a list of subjects they desire to have shown. Permission has been secured to announce the matinees in the public schools of the city and the theater has thus become a widely known place of amusement, instead of merely a neighborhood house.

Strand Is in Residence District. The theater is located in one of the most exclusive residence districts in

Berkeley and children from many of the wealthiest families attend the matinees regularly. This location in a measure accounts for the success that has been met in featuring a matinee for children at 10 cents, instead of 5 cents, as is usually the case. In speaking of this Mr. Beach said: “It is no easy matter to secure films regularly for a program of this kind and more time and energy is expended in booking subjects than is the case with our regular shows. No objection has ever been made to the 10-cent price, and frequently we have an attendance of from 600 to 700, practically filling our house. Six reels of pictures constitute the regular matinee program, as compared with seven in the evening.”

A few adults always attend the matinee performances, but these are outnumbered twenty to one by the children. Either Mr. Krahn or Mr. Beach are always on hand to preserve order, but little difficulty is experienced in this line. The children are allowed to make as much noise as they please, as long as it is in the nature of applause, but are kept to their seats as much as possible to prevent confusion. When an especially attractive program is offered, club women may be seen bringing the children to the theater by the automobile load and many families permit their children to come here unaccompanied, knowing that special care is taken of them and that suitable pictures will be shown.89

89 T.A. Church. “Children’s Matinee Idea Grows.” The Moving Picture World, 26 August 1916.



It was not until the early 1920s that the 2900 block of College Avenue came into its own as a commercial district. All the distinctive shop buildings along this stretch were constructed between 1921 and 1925, including two by John A. Bischoff (2900 and 2912 College); two by Hutchison & Mills (2961 and 2992 College); one by William H. Weeks (2949 College); one by Walter H. Ratcliff (2959 College); and fine examples by lesser-known builders (2985 and 2995 College).

Figure 88. John A. Bischoff Bldg. (1921), 2900 College Ave. (Google Street View)

Figure 89. Solomon Morris Bldg. (1922), 2985 College Ave. (Google Street View)



Figure 90. The fully developed Block K (Sanborn map, 1931)

Figure 91. The No. 6-College streetcar at College & Ashby, 1946 (photo: Addison Laflin)



In BAHA’s 2015 Spring House Tour guidebook, Elmwood Park, the Elmwood business district was described as follows:

The Elmwood is a well-preserved small town ‘Main Street’ complete

with movie theater, post office, library, banks, and assorted shops. “To walk the blocks is to step into a pleasant time.” So began a BAHA walking tour of the Elmwood business district led in 1982. The same can be said today as well, although, in the intervening years, this neighborhood center lost its hardware store, two drugstores, and a shoe repair shop. What has been lost was replaced with vibrant specialty shops, bookstores, and an amazing variety of restaurants.

All this current activity takes place in one of Berkeley’s best-preserved neighborhood shopping districts. Architecturally, the buildings represent some of the best in commercial design of the 1920s. Architects such as Walter Ratcliff and Hutchison & Mills contributed their design skills, as did local builder John A. Bischoff, who constructed an entire half-block of memorable shop buildings. Watch for impressive use of tile on some of the buildings.

The area is significant, because despite alterations over the years, the buildings are essentially intact. Only two buildings have been replaced, and no other new buildings have been built since 1928. The original low scale has been maintained, and the few two-story buildings, which are more impressive in design, serve as anchors for the surrounding low buildings.

The greatest threat to the neighborhood’s character loomed in the 1930s,

while the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the Eastshore Highway, and the Caldecott Tunnel were being constructed. Ashby Avenue was designated as the main traffic artery between the bridge terminal and the tunnel,90 becoming part of State Highway 24 (now SR 13).91 In 1935, the City of Berkeley supported using state funds to widen and repave Ashby Avenue between College and Claremont avenues. When the Caldecott Tunnel opened in 1937, residents of southeastern Berkeley were alarmed to find a busy 24-hour thoroughfare running through their neighborhoods and protested to the City.

Ultimately, the City Council approved widening the curve at Ashby and Elmwood avenues but refrained from widening the entire stretch of Ashby to Claremont Avenue.92

Rail service on College Avenue was abandoned on 30 September 1946, and buses replaced the streetcars.

90 B.J. Rosenthal. “Tunnels, Highway, Bridge Projects Are Moving Fast.” Oakland Tribune, 1 December 1935. 91 https://localwiki.org/oakland/Caldecott_Tunnel 92 Steven Finacom. “The Ashby Cut.” Elmwood Park. Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, 2015.



17. Significance

Consistent with Section 3.24.110A.1.b., the Hicks House possesses architectural merit. It is an outstanding example of Arts & Crafts architecture, featuring many notable features of the style, including a five-gabled roof with flaring eaves and upturned bargeboards; a symmetrical façade marked by twin gables; a shingled second floor overhanging a first floor clad in heavily textured stucco; decorative rafter-tails marking the transition from upper to lower story; original wood-sash windows with latticed lights set in wooden muntins and framed in hood moldings; clinker-brick skirt base, porch columns, parapets, and chimneys; and a central recessed portico with a heavy timber beam, exposed ceiling joists and clinker-brick pilasters flanking the front door.

Consistent with Section 3.24.110A.1.c., the Hicks House is worth preserving for the exceptional values it adds to the neighborhood fabric. Constructed in 1904, it was the earliest house built on its block and is one of the most distinctive and best-preserved single-family homes in the Berry-Bangs Tract and the Elmwood disrict.

Consistent with Section 3.24.110A.4., the Hicks House has historic value. Having first been the successive home of a lumber dealer and two executives of the Sherwin-Williams paint company, for 37 years between 1919 and 1956, the Hicks House served as the manse of St. John’s Presbyterian Church and was the home of its pastors, notably Rev. Francis Wayland Russell, D.D., and Rev. Stanley Armstrong Hunter, D.D., both of whom were nationally known religious leaders. Dr. Hunter, in particular, was a widely known scholar, educator, and author, as well as a major advocate for peace, world unity, and freedom of religion.

When St. John’s sold the Hicks House in 1956, it became the home and working studio of Mynard and Mary Groom Jones, two well-known musicians whose careers panned six decades, accomplished concert singers and voice teachers who trained generations of classical singers.

The Hicks House retains integrity of location, design, materials, setting, feeling, and association. Historic Value: City Yes Neighborhood Yes Architectural Value: City Yes Neighborhood Yes 18. Is the property endangered? No 19. Reference Sources: Alameda County assessment records. BAHA. Berkeley and Oakland directories. BAHA, Berkeley Historical Society, Ancestry.com. Block files. BAHA. Building permits. BAHA, City of Berkeley. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. BAHA. Assessor’s maps. Alameda County Assessor’s Office. U.S. Census and California Voter Registration records. Ancestry.com.



Ormsby Donogh files. BAHA. Sappers, Vernon J. Key System Streetcars: Transit, Real Estate, and the Growth of the East Bay. Wilton: Signature Press, 2007. The Making of a Streetcar Suburb. BAHA House Tour guidebook. Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, 2002. Beautiful Benvenue, Elegrant Hillegass. BAHA House Tour guidebook. Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, 2008. The Knoll: Where Claremont and Elmwood Meet. BAHA House Tour guidebook. Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, 2012. Elmwood Park. BAHA House Tour guidebook. Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, 2015. Thompson, Daniella. “Grocer-Politician Fred C. Koerber Left Berkeley a Double Legacy.” Berkeley Daily Planet, 11 January 2008, and BAHA website. http://berkeleyheritage.com/eastbay_then-now/koerber.html Thompson, Daniella. “Westenberg House: The Grande Dame of Benvenue Avenue.” Berkeley Daily Planet, 1 May 2008, and BAHA website. http://berkeleyheritage.com/berkeley_landmarks/westenberg.html Nelson, Marie. Surveys for Local Governments—A Context for Best Practices. California Office of Historic Preservation, 2005. http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/pages/1054/files/Survey Savvy CCAPA.pps 20. Recorder: Applicant: Daniella Thompson Shmuel L. Weissman 2663 Le Conte Avenue 2901 Benvenue Avenue Berkeley, CA 94709 Berkeley, CA 94705 Date: January 2018


2901 benvenue avenue landmark application application ... the hicks house retains integrity of...

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