Home & Garden

Scores of curious sightseers—and perhaps some serious potential buyers—wandered this past Sunday through the closest thing to a residential palace in Berkeley, the John Hopkins Spring mansion.  

According to what the realtor told visitors on Sunday, the immense vacant house will be open again from 1 – 4 this coming Sunday, July 18. The asking price is $6,495,000. 

The Spring Mansion, which borders on The Arlington but has its practical access through two gated drives on San Antonio Avenue, is an approximately 12,000 square foot house that looks, inside and out, like a seat of landed aristocrats or minor nobility dropped into the North Berkeley Hills. 

The house was built in 1912 by wealthy developer and capitalist John Hopkins Spring as a centerpiece to the Thousand Oaks subdivision his firm had developed. It once stood prominently on the hillside, visible from considerable distances, but the landscape and other buildings have grown up around.  

You can—and probably will—pass by on The Arlington just a few hundred feet downhill from the house and not notice much except a curiously long stretch of dense vegetation and a fence. 

Daniella Thompson has written that the house was modeled on the Achillion Palace in Corfu. It also resembles, in plan at least, a considerably toned down version of The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island. 

The exterior sense of the monumental building, designed by John Hudson Thomas, is broadly neoclassical, with columned portico and symmetrical facades, but the grandly scaled interior spaces have interesting architectural characteristics of earlier eras.  

There’s an almost Minoan or Egyptian feel to the two story atrium with its flat lay light, four immense, unornamented, corner columns, simple decoration, oil-lamp-like sconces, and wrap-around second story balcony. 

The ground floor includes a vaulted entry hall (and a back entry hall as well), and vast, now largely empty, rooms that served as library, living room, dining room, and billiard room (a pool table now occupies the original dining room). 

Several of the formal rooms are wood paneled and have coffered ceilings. The downstairs spaces could host dining for scores or a party for hundreds, social living on the scale of a Gatsby or Stanford. There’s an enormous kitchen and butler’s pantry.  

Upstairs, six large bedrooms form a “U”. Fireplaces abound. Baths have an early 20th century character—lots of white subway tile and older tubs—there are some cavernous pass through closets and dressing rooms, and a sitting room with balcony is centered above the entry portico with splendid views to the west through the trees. 

Here and there are traces of the resources required to sustain early 20th century opulent living—enormous linen closets on either side of the second floor, three bedrooms for servants in a corner of the first floor, a carriage house (considerably altered) out near one of the entry gates. 

Look for John Hudson Thomas signature touches like oversized mantles, simple curves and scrolls, subtle groupings of four, square, raised blocks, and curious, angular, cutouts in unusual places including the trim of the butler’s pantry cabinets. 

One of the main bedrooms is still fitted out with bookcases—and books—from the Cora Williams Institute, the private school that occupied the property from 1917 until the 1970s. 

One wall of the atrium has a large ethereal mural bordered with the motto, “Go Free The Child For Self Realization”, presumably a relic of the Williams Institute days. 

The realty listing describes the surrounding site as “a 100 year old botanical garden”. It is immensely spacious for Berkeley—more than three acres for the whole property—and does have some treasures, including a rare old wine palm and some unusual pines, but at present it looks rather like a dry wooded hillside in Tilden Park. 

Some of the outdoor fixtures look to be in ruins. There’s a tennis court with rocks piled along one side and a tree sprawled onto it, one outbuilding pocked by graffiti, and two formal ornamental pools, both dry, with forlorn remnants of sculptures. 

Outbuildings include a structure and a house down by The Arlington, the converted carriage house (two residential floors and a basement) off San Antonio, a strange, squat, brick and wood eruption that looks like a 1970s fraternity lounge—complete with lava rock fireplace and ample bar counter—helicoptered onto one of the formal terraces, and a charmingly derelict cottage in the woods. 

Some ornamental features—statuary, light standards—that show up in pictures from just a few years ago are now damaged or absent, although grand exterior stairs and balustrades remain. 

The Spring Mansion is at 1960 San Antonio Avenue. Head up The Arlington from The Circle, turn sharply right and uphill on San Antonio, and wind around a few curves to reach the entrance gates. Be cautious of traffic and pedestrians on the narrow street, and park where it’s legal, instead of just convenient. 

Check http://www.redoakrealty.com/ for current listing information and any announcements about an open house on July 18. The property is listed as “1960 San Antonio Avenue.” 

The property is listed by Red Oak Realty, and on the handouts at the open house described as “presented by” realtors Robin Gaskins and Laurie Capitelli (who also serves on the Berkeley City Council). 

It’s being marketed as a property that ‘lends itself perfectly to either a grand executive residence or institutional uses such as a retreat, conference center, school or extended stay residences.” The property has been subdivided into four parcels that could be sold together, or separately; the main house occupies the largest. 

You can read two thorough articles about the history of the Spring Mansion in back issues of the Daily Planet online. 

February 22, 2006, Daniella Thompson wrote about the history of the building in the Planet, and later expanded her article into a longer piece that can be found online at Berkeleyheritage.com 

February 13, 2007, Dave Weinstein wrote about both the history, and about development plans for the building at that time.