Architecture Wednesday: Julia Morgan Designed 1911 Berkeley Home

At the top of Rose Walk in Berkeley’s North Hills stands 1400 Le Roy Avenue, a 1911 Arts & Crafts residence designed by pioneering architect Julia Morgan, commissioned by independent professional woman Jessie Wallace, and carefully reconstructed after surviving the 1923 Berkeley Fire.

The home dates to the first decade of Morgan’s practice, when her architectural philosophy was taking shape through residential commissions primarily in Berkeley. Morgan, California’s first licensed female architect and the first woman admitted to Paris’s École des Beaux-Arts, would go on to an illustrious career and she was posthumously awarded the AIA Gold Medal in 2014, the profession’s highest honor.

The home’s original client adds remarkable depth to its story. Jessie Wallace was a professional stenographer who enrolled at UC Berkeley at age 42, graduating in 1914. Her decision to commission Julia Morgan reflected broader patterns in Morgan’s early practice: many clients were women—educators, professionals, civic leaders—seeking homes that reflected new ideas about women’s roles in society.

Just three years after Wallace died, on September 17, 1923, a grass fire in Wildcat Canyon swept over the Berkeley Hills destroying more than 600 homes in a matter of hours. Rose Walk was heavily affected, with many original houses lost entirely and later rebuilt, but this home suffered minor damage though a thoughtful reconstruction preserved the home’s original footprint and architectural character.

The home features wood-framed construction with gambrel roof and clapboard siding. On the front façade, paired and tripartite dormer windows capture morning sun, while French doors and casement windows on the rear of the home toward porches and garden spaces. There are also original Morgan details including multi-pane wood windows, built-in elements, and a living room fireplace; the proportions, the light, and the way the rooms flow into each other are all deliberate, yet the home never feels fussy or formal which is pure Julia Morgan: elegant without being ornamental, spacious without being grand, connected to landscape without sacrificing privacy.

The main floor features a large front-to-back living area, family room, dining room and kitchen with stairs to the basement level where there is a bedroom, laundry and recreation room. On the second floor in a primary suite with attached bathroom, two secondary bedrooms one with access to a sleeping porch, a study and second bathroom.

The property’s location at the top of Rose Walk is integral to its significance. Rose Walk was designed in 1913 by Bernard Maybeck, Julia Morgan’s mentor, in the Beaux-Arts tradition. This spacious pedestrian stairway has connected Euclid and Le Roy avenues for more than a century and the walk and the houses surrounding it reflect a period when Berkeley’s hills were becoming a laboratory for new architectural ideas rooted in craftsmanship, landscape, and belief that the built environment could shape daily life for the better.

Rose Walk is one of those Berkeley secrets that locals treasure: a public space that feels intimate. Being at the top of it, with unobstructed Bay views extending to San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, makes this Julia Morgan home a cut above others in the neighborhood.

This is a home for someone who values design, who appreciates Berkeley’s history, and who wants to live in a place that feels connected to something larger than just the four walls. It’s not for everyone, but for the right person, it’s everything. And that may explain why the home sold for $800K over its asking price.

As always, click to emBIGGERate …

A few years after this home was completed Julia Morgan took on a slightly larger, nearly thirty year long project along the California Coast and designed Hearst Castle.

Dwell