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In 1891, Charles Keeler and Bernard Maybeck met on the 5 p.m. commuter ferry from San Francisco to Berkeley. Keeler was 20 and worked at the California Academy of Sciences. Maybeck was 29 and employed at the architectural firm of A. Page Brown. Four years later Maybeck designed Keeler’s home--the first house on Highland Place, in the Daley’s Scenic Park tract just north of the university campus. 

Years later, Keeler reminisced about the building of his house in “Bernard Maybeck: A Gothic Man in the 20th Century.” 

“So our home, which was his first, created much attention and comment...When it was done, with a green dome of the live oak back of it, we thought we’d never seen so simple and yet so uniquely charming a home, blending with the landscape. 

‘But,’ I said to Mr. Maybeck, ‘its effect will become completely ruined when others come and build stupid white-painted boxes all about us.’ 

‘You must see to it,’ he replied in his quiet, earnest tones that carried conviction, ‘that all the houses about you are in keeping with your own.’” 

This was the germ of the Hillside Club, an organization of neighbors that was highly influential in the cultural life of Berkeley and whose mission was “to protect the hills of Berkeley from unsightly grading and the building of unsuitable and disfiguring houses; to do all in our power to beautify these hills and above all to create and encourage a decided public opinion on these subjects.” 

Fifteen years ago I came to live in Daley’s Scenic Park. My partner and I thought it was paradise. If the past 15 years have taught us anything, it’s that an urban paradise doesn’t make itself. You must see to it, as Maybeck said. 

Since we moved here, there have been many occasions to exercise the “seeing to it.” Our neighborhood is the oldest in north Berkeley and faces inexorable encroachment by the ever-expanding UC campus. Much here was destroyed in the 1923 fire, but much remains, including an open stretch of the north fork of Strawberry Creek, a collection of turn-of-the-century architectural gems, and the legacy of the Hillside Club: a system of street improvements comprising retaining walls, divided roadways, planted median strips, stairways, and elevated sidewalks that form a continuous line stretching over blocks, including Le Conte, La Loma, LeRoy, Virginia, La Vereda, and Hilgard Avenues, as well as portions of Hearst Avenue and Arch Street. 

The Hillside Club Street Improvements were designated a Berkeley Landmark in July 1983. In the 20 years that elapsed, periodic animosity would erupt between those wishing to protect this unique public resource and those concerned primarily with their private property rights. On three occasions, attempts have been made to demolish retaining walls in the Hillside Club Street Improvements for the purpose of replacing a portion of hillside with a driveway or a garage, always with the object of jacking up a property’s selling price. It worked the first time. The third case, in 1997, involved the City of Berkeley in a protracted lawsuit lodged by a developer. The city won, but the case, since then dubbed “The Wall,” has become an oft-cited excuse for a do-nothing approach in the face of endangered historical resources. 

Few are those who adhere to the Hillside Club’s conviction that “There is a need of realizing civic pride and making sacrifices for it, sinking personal prejudices for the benefit of the whole.” Thus it came as no surprise when a recent anti-preservation article in the East Bay Express (“Berkeley’s Hysterical Landmarks,” Sept. 17 led off with a skewed story of “The Wall,” told from the point of view of the developer who had sued the city and lost. Other cases  

cited were treated in similar one-sided fashion. The Express has not seen fit to print any letters correcting the article’s numerous misrepresentations. 

Was it sheer coincidence that as soon as the Express article appeared, the list of designated Berkeley Landmarks on the city’s website disappeared? That list, fraught with errors, had not been updated since July 2000. Upon inquiry, I was told by Donna Lasala, Electronic Government Manager: “I am 99 percent sure that the Planning Department (along with our GIS staff) is currently updating the information.” 

Maybeck’s words came to mind: “You must see to it.” 

The result is a new Berkeley Landmarks website. It includes a complete and accurate listing of all designated landmarks, many linked to photographs and additional information. 

In the “Preservation Discourse” section, there are illustrated articles and letters on polemical issues, including responses and corrections to the Express article. Your contributions are welcome. 

Daniella Thompson is webmaster for the Berkeley Landmarks website: http://brazzil.com/daniv/berkeley/landmarks.html.