Features

Panoramic Hill will become Berkeley’s newest national landmark, a federal official said Thursday. 

Sandwiched between the two UC Berkeley campuses and Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve, the landmark-to-be is a narrow wedge of hillside marked by narrow one-lane roads that sit next to some of Berkeley’s most distinguished houses. 

Paul Lusignan, the National Register of Historic Places historian in charge of landmark designations in western states, said minor changes remain to be made in the application, but “there’s nothing that stands in the way of its eventual listing.” 

The district features unique creations by illustrious architects, including Julia Morgan, Bernard Maybeck, Ernest Coxhead, John Hudson Thomas and William Wurster. 

Two Panoramic Hill residents—Janice Thomas and Fredrica Drotos—prepared the 62-page application for submission to the State Historic Resources Commission, which endorsed the proposal in February and forwarded it on to Lusignan’s office. 

At the time, state historian Marilyn Lortie said that in her 20 years with the state Office of Historic Preservation, “this is one of the nicest residential districts I’ve ever seen. It has all the stars of California architecture.” 

Once the minor bugs are resolved, the Panoramic Hill Historic District will become the city’s 11th national landmark and the second district to be recognized. The Berkeley Historic Civic Center District was recognized two years ago. 

“This is fabulous news,” said Thomas when informed of Lusignan’s comments. “It’s a great relief. Let’s hope it protects us from whatever the university’s got planned.” 

Thomas and her friends on Panoramic Hill have been outspoken critics of UC Berkeley’s plans for installing nighttime television lighting at Memorial Stadium, which sits at the base of their hillside. 

Of the 61 hillside homes nominated for inclusion in the district, Lusignan rejected only one, the creation of Frank Lloyd Wright—arguably the best-known of American architects. 

The problem wasn’t so much the structure as its age. 

While Wright designed the home in the 1930s for a hillside site in Malibu, his client never built it, and the plans remained in the custody of the architect’s estate until purchased for construction at 13 Mosswood Road on a site approved by the Taliesin Foundation. 

The home was built in 1975, nearly four decades after it was designed—and that’s what counted for Lusignan. 

“It’s a Frank Lloyd Wright design, but from our perspective it’s a 1975 home,” he said. 

That date puts it outside National Register criteria, he said, and the design wasn’t sufficiently distinctive to breach the age restriction. “It’s not exceptional enough.” 

“We knew there was some risk with including it,” Thomas said. “The owners have done a fabulous job of keeping it intact.” 

Thomas said the current owners had been enthusiastic about the possibility of their home being included in the district, and she was worried that without that protection a future owner might now be able to enlarge or otherwise alter the structure.