East Bay Home and Gardens

A little-noticed gated driveway branching east off Hillside Avenue north of Dwight Way bears a name most Berkeleyans wouldn’t recognize: Fernwald Road. It leads to a UC apartment complex housing 74 student families. Smyth Fernwald, as the complex is called, is named after the previous owner of the land, engineer, inventor, and social economist William Henry Smyth (1855-1940). Fernwald was the name Smyth gave his estate in the mid-1890s. -more-

It’s funny how little I know about a house prior to pulling up to the curb. Despite some lengthy conversation with my client, it really isn’t until I’ve arrived that I can actually see what I’m going to be dealing with. Had I known on this particular day what it was that I was going to see, I might have turned it down but, in retrospect, it was probably best that I didn’t know and showed up anyway. -more-