Cottages, Castles & Changing Curbs

Last Wednesday our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group had a very strong turnout of 55 walkers and six K-9 best friends at the Exedra for another special walk.

As part of the group’s new initiative to ensure the long term future of the activity, more walkers are leading walks. This morning Mary C was going to have the group check out the new student drop off zones and plan for the parking spaces around Havens School. After that, she was going to draw on her former Wildwood School Piedmont history lessons and Ann Swift’s 2007 Cottages and Castles – The Centennial Houses of the City of Piedmont for a look at beautiful, old pre 1906 San Francisco Earthquake homes. Swift’s book describes 173 of the city's historic homes that qualified in 2007 as Piedmont Centennial Homes.

Mary led us across Highland Avenue past the commercial center and up the street to a spot across the street from Havens’ Ellen Driscoll Playhouse. She pointed out new “No Parking During School Hours” signs. This is the new, area for Havens students to be dropped off. There were cars parked there, but when school starts next week this will be illegal. We crossed the street at the Havens crosswalk to the front entrance of Havens which is another student drop off zone. Next we went around the corner on Oakland Avenue to the Pre-School, TK, and Kindergarten student drop off zone.

We then went to down Bonita Avenue and in the middle of block, in front of the school where a gate provides an entrance to the playgrounds. Mary said when school starts this gate will no longer provide access as a student drop off zone to the school. Bonita will be one-way going north to Oakland Avenue and additional parking spaces have been created on the street. However, when school starts, there will be lots more people looking for parking places in the center of Piedmont, and parking is going to be even more challenging.

Now it was time for Mary to share some Piedmont history. This gate to the school is on the spot where the entrance to the original Bonita Avenue School was when it was built in 1910. The school was later renamed for Frank C. Havens who donated the land. Much of the original building was torn down in the 1950s and a new building replaced portions of it in 1955. Later, the campus was almost entirely rebuilt.

We continued down Bonita to the historic Wetmore House, the oldest surviving house in Piedmont. Jesse L. Wetmore built it in 1878 in a New Orleans architectural style. This wonderful house narrowly escaped being torn down by the City in 1942. When the last Wetmore daughter died in 1939, she left the property to her maid, Myrtle Brown. However, while the will was in probate, Brown died which prevented her from taking ownership. The house was vacant until 1942. City officials wanted to raze the house to construct a City parking lot, but Mills College art instructor Alice Putnam Erskine stepped in and purchased the home at an auction through a friend for $5,200 and saved it from the wrecking ball. Erskine ultimately secured the home's permanent survival by getting it officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It is the only property in Piedmont with this designation.

Back in the 1870s Wetmore built a similar Southern cottage, as a wedding gift, for his daughter, Blanche, and her husband, Dr. George Sherman, on his land next door. The Sherman Cottage was later modified and became a Christian Science Reading Room. The City acquired the building in 2003 and it was converted into the Piedmont Center for the Arts at 801 Magnolia in 2011.

Then Mary lead us down Magnolia Avenue, past the new pool, to the building that has been the home of the Piedmont Recreation Department for approximately 77 years. However, this building was not the first one on the site. James Gamble, one of Piedmont’s first residents, bought land adjacent to Isaac Requa’s property from Walter Blair, and built a Victorian mansion on it sometime before 1883.

It was Gamble who first used the Italian word “Piedmonte” to describe the hillside community that became the city of Piedmont. The name “Piedmont” remains the same, but Mary noted some Piedmont street names have changed since that time. Piedmont Avenue is now Magnolia Avenue, Vernal is Highland Avenue, and Amity is Craig Avenue.

Gamble’s residence was destroyed and a new house, owned by Ralph W. Kinney, was built on the site in 1912. The City of Piedmont bought the Kinney house in 1949 as a Recreation Center for youth. The building’s exterior configuration remains largely unchanged from its original residential design. In 1964 the private Piedmont Swim Club built a pool near the building and ran it until 2011 when the City took it over. The new, larger Piedmont Community Pool is on the original pool’s site.

We made our way up Hillside Avenue and Mary identified, described, and told the histories of many of the beautiful homes built in different architectural styles before the City of Piedmont was incorporated in 1907. She noted some were built for children when they got married. Mary also pointed out the different Corinthian, Ionic, and Doric columns that are part of the homes’ exteriors.

Mary led us down Hillside to its end at Park Way and then up a block to Bonita for a quick look at the Moffitt House at 101 Bonita. Mary said James Moffitt built it for his new wife in 1907, but she didn’t like it and refused to move in. They lived with her parents until they built a new house at 86 Sea View in 1912. Mary told the group there were more interesting and beautiful Bonita homes to see on a future walk. We appreciated all the research and information that Mary had provided and went back to Park Way and walked along Highland Avenue for our return to the Exedra.

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