6948 Norfolk, Berkeley

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Our featured home today is a showy new modern residence designed by Karman Ng formerly of Cantilever Design. Ng designed the home for himself and used it as a launch pad for his career as an independent practitioner. As such it is a very personal work filled with carefully considered details and thoughtfully composed spaces. It is an impressive showcase of his work that would become a successful early form of marketing for his then fledgling business.

1167 Keith, Berkeley

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Today we feature the home that created a cultural phenomenon. It is the very first modern A-frame designed and built by Wally Reemelin shortly after the war in 1946. Reemelin was not an architect by training but rather a mechanical engineer and it was his desire to create a new type of low cost housing that could be assembled quickly for use by students at Cal that led him to his novel design. Of course there was no indication at that time that it would one day come to epitomize the vacation home in the minds of so many, but the very efficiency of form and adaptability to difficult sites that made the structure so attractive to Reemelin also made it ideally suited to aspiring vacation home builders all across the country.

6421 Benvenue, Oakland

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Our featured home today is a charming John Hudson Thomas design from the most creative period in his highly prolific career. Here he takes the familiar shingle style and embellishes it with a number of unexpected flourishes both inside and out. There is plenty of Thomas’ trademark heavy timber and creative latticework. His detailing during this period was unlike that of any of his contemporaries and it retains a sense of novelty to this day.

3367 Dwight, Berkeley

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This intriguing complex of structures is part of a larger body of work on Panoramic Hill created by Berkeley native Judd Boynton. Boynton grew up at Temple of the Wings in the midst of all of the artistic and creative ferment that characterized “Nut Hill” at that time. He would go on to build a number of beautiful homes along Dwight and Panoramic including this beautiful conglomeration that was intended to be used as an artist colony. It is a unique opportunity for a buyer looking for a ready-made family compound or cooperative.

2501 Rose Walk, Berkeley

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Though income properties are not generally our primary focus here at Edificionado, it is difficult to pass on a group of duplexes designed by Henry Gutterson and sited prominently above Maybeck’s famed Rose Walk.

The Rose Walk itself was completed in 1913, but the structures that we see around it today were not built until after the Great Berkeley Fire of 1923. Gutterson located the homes with great deference to the walk, and indeed he is said to have consulted with Maybeck regarding their siting and design. The result is a wonderfully unified composition – a community of like structures organized thoughtfully around one of Berkeley’s best loved pedestrian thoroughfares.

1475 Campus, Berkeley

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Today we feature a compelling Third Bay Region home designed by Jack Damonte. Damonte began working with Gerald McCue shortly after graduating from Berkeley in 1965. He would remain with McCue through a number of iterations of his venerable firm, eventually becoming a partner. During that time, he did not design a lot of single family residences but we are fortunate to have a couple of his homes in Berkeley where he still lives. This particular example is characteristic of his thoughtful work with its carefully conceived spaces and understated detailing.

84 The Plaza, Berkeley

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Our featured home today is a picturesque French Eclectic designed by Walter Ratcliff. Ratcliff designed in a variety of styles from First Bay Region through period revival often mixing and matching details to suit his desires on a particular project. The result was often the playful juxtaposition of unexpected influences in a single home. Here we can see that tendency in the variety of different roof types. There are hip roofs, clipped gables, as well as dormers in all shapes in sizes.

2616 Etna, Berkeley

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Today we feature a beautifully restored Dutch colonial shingle style designed by Julia Morgan. The home was commissioned for UC professor of zoology Charles Kofoid and his wife Carrie in 1905. Morgan did not use the gambrel roof in her designs very frequently but here she incorporates it with great aplomb to create some particularly charming spaces in the eaves. The home is further elevated by the custom woodwork built by Charles’ father which has been carefully preserved over all these years and remains a testament to his very personal contribution to the family home.

6849 Snake, Oakland

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This charming mid-century home appears to be a variation on Tom Lowe’s familiar downslope residence. Lowe was an extremely prolific design-builder who built versions of the same home for several decades. He was responsible for a number of extremely creative fully custom residences as well but his trademark downslope homes have really come to characterize the residential built environment of the East Bay hills

2835 Morley, Oakland

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There is no mention of it in the listing but this intriguing Piedmont Pines mid-century is the work of one of our favorite local design-builders, Marv Gunderson. Gunderson was responsible for a number of homes along Morley, each carefully designed to take advantage of difficult lots. This particular example stacks several layers of intertwined spaces on a steep downslope lot with private outdoor spaces on each level. It is a considered solution from a practitioner known for his creativity and attention to detail.