Mark Wilson - Bernard Maybeck Architect of Elegance

Bernard Maybeck

Architect of Elegance

Mark Anthony Wilson

Photography by Joel Puliatti

Bernard Maybeck

Architect of Elegance

Digital Edition 1.0

Text 2011 Mark Anthony Wilson

Photographs 2011 Joel Puliatti

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except brief portions quoted for purpose of review.

Gibbs Smith

P.O. Box 667

Layton, Utah 84041

Orders: 1.800.835.4993

www.gibbs-smith.com

ISBN: 978-1-4236-1181-3

This book is dedicated to the late Jacomena Maybeck (19011996), artist, author, teacher, and friend.

First and foremost, I want to thank my good friend, and colleague in this project, photographer Joel Puliatti, whose beautiful photographs of Maybecks architecture grace the pages of this book. His tireless dedication, skill, and creative talent helped bring to life the elegance of Maybecks buildings in a manner that words alone could not have achieved. Another indispensable contribution was made by Cherry Maybeck Nittler, Bernard Maybecks granddaughter, who graciously offered to write the charming and insightful foreword to this book, to which her twin sister, Sheila, also contributed some of her memories. Cherry was also generous in allowing access to several drawings and paintings by Bernard Maybeck, as well as many unpublished letters and family photographs that add a very personal dimension to this biography of a great American architect.

Several people contributed comments or suggestions to this project. My thanks to Rheanna Bagley, Lisa Neal, Christine Lillevand, William Marquand, Trish Hawthorne, and Fred and Judy Porta for their feedback on my manuscript. Many other people were generous in providing original or archival photographs and images for this book: Laura Ackley, Richard Edwards, Foster Goldstrom, Genevieve Cottraux, Rene Puliatti, Daniella Thompson, Thaddeus Kusmierski, and Judy Hollander. A number of individuals also offered their time in providing specific research information: Angela Lin, Marion Hunt, Robert Craig, Warren and Lorna Byrne, Kris Impastato at the Principia College Archives, Anthony Bruce at the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, and especially the late Kenneth Cardwell, who shared his insights and knowledge as the pioneering biographer of Bernard Maybeck for use in this book.

Various staff members at a number of libraries and archives were very helpful in obtaining primary sources for either the text or archival images in this book; among them: Miranda Hambro at UC Berkeleys Environmental Design Archives; Susan Snyder at UC Berkeleys Bancroft Library; Gemma Guansimo at UC Berkeleys Periodicals Room in Doe Library; Dick Apple at the Media Center at California State University, East Bay; Dayna Hooz at the Art and Music Room at the Berkeley Public Library; and Elizabeth Byrne, Director of the Environmental Design Library at UC Berkeley. Several people were instrumental in gaining access to photograph some of Maybecks buildings: Sister Catherine Rose Holzman (IHM) and Father John Stoeger at the Earle Anthony House in Los Angeles; Barbara Floyd at the Town and Gown Club in Berkeley; Kenna Richards at the UC Berkeley Faculty Club; Edward Bosley, Director of the Gamble House in Pasadena; and Valentyna Hohl at the Swedenborgian Church in San Francisco. I also greatly appreciate the graciousness of the dozens of owners of Bernard Maybeckdesigned homes, who welcomed Joel and me into their homes, and allowed us to share the beauty of these places with our readers.

Finally, the staff and editors at Gibbs Smith were friendly and helpful in resolving various challenges that arose during our work on this book. In particular, my editors, Linda Nimori and Bob Cooper, and contract manager, Michelle Branson, were very diligent in their response to my many questions and requests. And I am especially grateful to Gibbs Smith himself, for his support and vision in making this project a reality.

Finally, I want to thank my wife, Ann, for her patience, understanding, and support during the writing of this book, and my daughter, Elena, for happily accompanying me to so many of the Maybeck buildings in this book.

Bernard Maybeck chopping a tree at Pine Ridge Ranch, Mendocino County, c. 1925 (collection of Cherry Maybeck Nittler).

Memories of Growing Up with Bernard Maybeck by Cherry (Adriana) Maybeck Nittler

Picture a world-famous architect as having many aspects, like the arms of a wizard. From the view of one of his twin granddaughters will come stories after the shape of the man emerges. As a young child, Ben dealt with the death of his beautiful, intellectual mother, Elizabeth Kern, of the prominent Kern family of Yale and Wellesley. He told us of hours standing at the window hoping for her return, and calling himself a fathead for doing so.

As a young boy, he studied art and philosophy in private schools, went to a public high school, then to the College of the City of New York, where he had to take chemistry (he hated it). His German dad, a talented furniture carver, always spoke of following your art, and sent him off to Paris to study furniture carving. As a young man of 20 in Paris, he was smitten with the tall hats on the elegant young men passing by, going to the architecture school at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. After deciding to enter the Ecole, he displayed great talent, showed good humor, and made many friends.

The Maybeck twins, Cherry and Sheila, with their grandmother, Helena Van Huizen, in front of Bernard Maybecks 1929 Packard, c. 1933 (collection of Cherry Maybeck Nittler).

As a young graduate of 24, his search for work in the US led him to Kansas City, where, through a friend he met the charming Annie White, daughter of Henry White, principal of a Kansas City high school. She accepted his proposal when a ring appeared inside a cake, and he agreed to give up his pipe and drinks for her Womens Christian Temperance sentiments. They married in 1890. He was 28; their marriage lasted over 65 years. Along the way, he humorously told his family to put a pipe in his mouth just before he died. As a young husband, he and Annie went to California for more work. There he became part of the Young Turks: talented, creative men who set the tempo for the California Arts and Crafts movement. He was 30 years old.

As a young 36-year-old dad in 1898, he happily welcomed a son born in Brussels, Belgium. He was working for Phoebe Apperson Hearst on the design of the University of California at Berkeley at the time. The boy was four years old when he chose his own name: he became Wallen White Maybeck. A daughter, Kerna McKeehan Maybeck, was born in California a few years later. Ben was a creative parent; family life was full of pageantry, friends, music, books, humor, philosophy, politics, the Bohemian Club, and the Hillside Club of Berkeley.