Overview

The Berkeley architect John Hudson Thomas designed this flamboyant, Gothic-influenced residence, built around a cloister, for a University of California, Berkeley professor, Samuel Hume, and his wife, Portia Bell, an early-century psychiatrist. The Humes obviously could afford a large and complex residence with many hand-wrought ornamental features, suggesting family wealth on either or both sides.

Building Notes

The six-bedroom, seven-and-a-half-bath Hume House was for sale in 07/2025, for an asking price of $7,450,000. The house occupied a .71 acre site in 2025, and contained 7,526 square feet of interior space. The intesively developed yard contained a cloister/patio, koi pond, greenhouse, hot tub, gardens and bocce court. Walls of the building were of artificial stone, shaped in cut blocks, rusticated on the outside, smooth on the inside.

The scale of the Gothic tracery lining the cloister and some interior windows was large and somewhat exaggerated, lacking the delicacy of High Gothic prototypes.

PCAD id: 10859