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In the early years of the 20th Century, Telegraph Avenue was a grand residential street lined with elegant homes. The two residences at 2740 and 2744 Telegraph Avenue were built by John Albert Marshall. They are the houses on the right side of the picture.  

Marshall was a building contractor who got his start as a cement contractor in the 1890s, and many of Berkeley’s sidewalks bear his imprint. Between 1895 and 1915 Marshall built at least six homes as his personal residences, each one more imposing and substantial than the last. 

2744 Telegraph Avenue 1900 was designed and built by John Marshall and the Cunningham Bros. construction company in 1900. It is a two-story shingle Colonial Revival house, which has rustic stonework on the first floor and two rustic stone chimneys. The hipped roof contains several hip-roofed dormers. There is a rounded bay at the southeast corner and several impressive stained glass windows. The covered front porch has square Ionic columns, turned balusters, and a mahogany door.  

2740 Telegraph Avenue was designed by architect C.M. Cook in 1903 and is a large Tudor Revival style house with two prominent gables on the street facade that are decorated with barge-boards, finials, and pendants. Rustic stonework is used for the siding on the first floor and entry, while on the second floor the house is half-timbered. The second story overhangs the first with projecting beam ends and the arched entrance is recessed. 

Surrounding both Marshall houses is a low concrete wall with posts and decorative concrete garden walkways. Both these houses are now used as an inn.  

On the far left of the picture is a large home designed by Julia Morgan for Joseph Mason, of the Mason-McDuffie Company. Like most of the homes on Telegraph Avenue it is no longer standing.  

Susan Cerny writes Berkeley Observed in conjunction with Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association.