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Building History

The Decker Oak Building was erected on the first site of the Charles W. Decker House at 510 Waverley Street (the dwelling was later moved). The house's property contained a mature live oak that was removed before this office building and retail space was constructed. Charles William Decker(born 03/31/1855 in Sacramento, CA-d. 09/25/1932 in Palo Alto, CA) was a leading dentist in early Palo Alto. Decker was educated in San Francisco and practiced during the 1880s in that city. (See Ancestry.com, Source Citation Year: 1880; Census Place: San Francisco, San Francisco, California; Roll: 76; Page: 223b; Enumeration District: 131, accessed 04/25/2024.) By 1900, at least, he had relocated to Palo Alto, where he lived at 510 Waverley Street and remained here in 1920 living with a single servant, Kate Welsh (born c. 1871 in Ireland). (See Ancestry.com, Source Citation Year: 1900; Census Place: Palo Alto, Santa Clara, California; Roll: 111; Page: 6; Enumeration District: 0080, accessed 04/25/2024 and Ancestry.com, Source Citation Year: 1920; Census Place: Palo Alto, Santa Clara, California; Roll: T625_147; Page: 20A; Enumeration District: 137, accessed 04/25/2024.) His address was 811 Hamilton Avenue in 1930, where he lived with his daughter Ethel Decker Ney, her husband Bartholomew and their two sons Charles and Bartholomew, Jr. (See Ancestry.com, Source Citation Year: 1930; Census Place: Palo Alto, Santa Clara, California; Page: 8A; Enumeration District: 0018; FHL microfilm: 2339952, accessed 04/25/2024.)

New owners of the property were Palo Alto developers William MacGregor Cranston (1879-1953) and Norwood Browning Smith (1878-1959) of the University Realty Company, the former being the father of long-time CA Senator Alan Cranston (1914-2000). Cranston and Smith rarely commissioned architects to design their buildings, but utilized a San Francisco firm to design the Decker Oak Building. (Cranston's father Robert [born 1849] worked as a San Francisco building contractor and may have instilled in William that architects were an unnecessary expense.) According to the Palo Alto-Stanford Heritage (PAST).org website: "Architect Birge Clark recalls that William Cranston and Morris [sic] Smith, the owners, gave the commission to Powers of San Francisco, an out-of-town firm with its own house architect. Per the original Inventory sheet for 502 Waverley Street, Cranston and Smith usually operated without architects. Until recent years its second floor offices were occupied by some of the city's leading dentists—Carl H. Ellertson, E. L. Hoag; physicians H. L. Niebel; architect H. C. Collins, Charles K. Sumner; and contractor William F. Klay. Shops on the ground floor included pharmacies, groceries, tailors, beauty parlors, and clothing stores. A number of specialty shops presently occupy the ground-level space [ in 1985]." (See Palo Alto-Stanford Heritage.org, "Palo Alto Historic Buildings Inventory 382 - 386 - 396 University Avenue / 502 Waverley Street Decker Oak Building," published 1985, accessed 04/25/2024.)

It is interesting that Decker, a dentist, would vacate prime commercial land on which a building that catered, in part, to dentists and physicians would be built. At this time, developers were building medical-dental office buildings along the Pacific Coast, catering to wealthy professionals who could afford to pay higher rents.

PCAD id: 4079