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Overview

The huge Henry W. Taylor House occupied a hilltop site at 275 The Uplands Road in the Claremont tract, now a part of both Berkeley and Oakland, CA. Henry W. Taylor worked in lumber, hardware and building materials in Berkeley.

Building History

The architect Louis Christian Mullgardt (1866-1942) designed this very large and unusual residence for Henry Willard Taylor, a Berkeley lumber merchant. The architectural historian John Beach thought very highly of the Taylor House, saying of it: "Mullgardt's career as an architect was star-crossed and erratic. Some of his most important designs were never built. Those which were built seem to exert an irresistible fascination upon bulldozers; many of the finest have disappeared. One of the greatest losses, and certainly the masterpiece of his residential work, was the Taylor house of 1908. To the battered walls and traditional roof line of the Mission Revival Mullgardt added the rough-cast stucco wall with which the Mission Revival recalled primitive adobe technology. It was an enormous house, which capped and dominated a visually prominent Berkeley hillside. The main rooms were grouped in a line along a gentle slope, separated only by arched openings which indicated, but did not separate, changes in social function. Although this series of subspaces shared a single ceiling plane, the floor level of each was stepped up the slope, a few steps above the space next to it, with the entrance at the very bottom. This must have been one of the most staggering pieces of spatial sculpture in the Bay Area oeuvre. Midway in this spatial cascade was a room-sized alcove to the west, with a large fireplace. On warm nights this alcove could be separated from the main space by sliding glass doors: the fire could thus be enjoyed visually, without the discomfort of added heat." (See John Beach, "The Bay Area Tradition 1890-1918," in Bay Area Houses, Sally Woodbridge, ed., [Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1988], pp. 86-87.)

Henry W. Taylor owned the Henry W. Taylor Lumber Company, located at 2151 Center Street in Downtown Berkeley in 1910. (See Polk-Husted Company's Oakland City Directory, 1910, p. 1156.)

Prior to moving to this mansion, Taylor resided at 1514 Walnut Street in Berkeley. (See Polk-Husted Company's Oakland City Directory, 1908, p. 1454.)

On 12/08/1931, the widower Taylor married for the second time to the widow Emma Squires Foy. At the time of this marriage, Taylor continued to reside at 275 The Uplands in Berkeley. (See Ancestry.com, Source Information Ancestry.com. California, U.S., Marriage Records from Select Counties, 1850-1941 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014, accessed 01/08/2025.)

Demolition

The Taylor House was destroyed in 1935.

PCAD id: 4802