Morgan, Julia
Entry Author: David
Parry
Architect
 Julia
Morgan was a Bay Area native, born in San Francisco on January
20, 1872 and raised in Oakland. Her father Charles B. Morgan
was a mining engineer from New England who first sailed around
the Cape to San Francisco in 1867, returning back East to
marry Julia's mother, Eliza, convinced that their future was
brighter in the Golden State. Julia was the second of five
children born in California to Charles and Eliza, three boys
and two girls.
Julia attended Oakland High School, graduating in 1890. With
a strong mathematical interest she enrolled at U. C. Berkeley,
in the College of Engineering. In her senior year Bernard
Maybeck, then 32, was hired to teach descriptive geometry
and he initiated a series of informal architectural seminars
for his favorite students. He became a positive influence
on Julia and others, encouraging them to study at the prestigious
École des Beaux-Arts in Paris which he had attended
ten years earlier. Julia went to Paris in 1896, learned French,
and passed her entrance exams in the fall of 1898, becoming
the first woman ever admitted to the architectural division
within the École. She chose the atelier
of Benjamin Chaussemiche, 1893 Grand Prix de Rome
winner, considered to be one of the finest of the younger
French architects. After three years hard work Julia earned
her diploma in February 1902.
Morgan returned to the Bay Area in 1902 and worked initially
for John Galen Howard at U. C. Berkeley, assisting him on
the construction of the Greek Theater. But her ambition was
to open her own practice. She took the State licensing exam
and was certified to practice as an architect in her own right
in 1904. She opened her first office at 456 Montgomery, a
building demolished in the earthquake of 1906. In 1907 she
moved into the Merchants Exchange Building (465 California)
initially with Ira Wilson Hoover as a junior partner, but
from 1910 listed simply as Julia Morgan, Architect.
Her first major project after the April 18, 1906 earthquake
was the reconstruction of the badly damaged Fairmont Hotel,
which had been designed by the Reid Brothers and was very
close to opening at the time of the earthquake. Morgan supervised
its repair for owners Herbert and Hartland Law so that it
reopened on the one-year anniversary of the earthquake.
Morgan designed over 700 buildings in her 50-year career,
many of which were Arts and Crafts houses, particularly in
Berkeley, Oakland and Piedmont. She was highly regarded, especially
by women, which led to many commissions for women's clubs,
residence halls, and YWCA's (five in San Francisco alone,
including the interior of the YWCA for the 1915 Panama-Pacific
International Exposition).
Two of her other notable institutional buildings in the City
include the Katherine Delmar Burke School at 3065 Jackson
Street (1917, now University High School) and the Heritage
Retirement Community residence at 3400 Laguna Street (1924).
She also designed a surprising number of homes and apartments
in San Francisco, including, in Presidio Heights, 306 Laurel
(1906), 3377 Pacific and 3531 Clay (both in 1908), 36 Presidio
Terrace (1911), 3630 Jackson (1917); and in Pacific Heights,
2820 Vallejo (1908) and 2974 Pacific (1916). Other homes she
designed can be found in the Marina and St. Francis Wood.
From two existing structures she very creatively removed
upper stories. The first was at 1055 Green Street on Russian
Hill where she did so for a client in 1916. The second was
her own property in Pacific Heights, which is the subject
of this month's article. In July 1923 she had bought 2231
Divisadero Street, an Italianate Victorian built in 1877.
Six years later, in April 1929, Morgan had the opportunity
to buy the adjacent property to the south, at 2229 Divisadero,
which had also been built in 1877 as part of the initial development
of that block. Morgan combined the two buildings, taking the
upper story off 2229 Divisadero to allow more light to 2231,
which by then was being overshadowed by the six-story apartment
building at 2233 Divisadero. She opened up the interior, moving
the living area to the rear overlooking the garden. A garage
was added and one set of stairs from the sidewalk now gives
access to the combined property. The current owner bought
the property in October 1957 from Morgan's estate and has
retained its character and appearance.
Morgan enjoyed a career-long association with three generations
of the Hearst family. Phoebe Apperson Hearst was a patron
and an early client. Phoebe's son, William Randolph Hearst,
commissioned Morgan for many residential and commercial projects,
the most famous of which were his estates at San Simeon and
Wyntoon, and W. R.'s son George had Julia convert his house
in Hillsborough to a Western model of the White House. Morgan's
work at San Simeon is well known and may be viewed first hand
by visiting this State Historical Landmark.
Morgan closed her office in the Merchants Exchange Building
in 1951 requesting that her files and blueprints be destroyed,
on the grounds that her clients had their own copies. She
would never have anticipated that 40 years later a lawsuit
would develop as a result of the lack of documentation that
she designed a particular house in Oakland. A suit was filed,
however, and an initial summary judgment in favor of the sellers
and agents was overturned at the Court of Appeal in 1994,
significantly extending the State's real estate case law.
Brokers are even more careful now than they were before in
representing that 'famous' architects designed or remodeled
properties they are marketing.
Entry taken from the website of David Parry at www.classicSFproperties.com
and is used by permission. Unauthorized use of this copyrighted
material is strictly forbidden without permission from the
author.
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Born: San Francisco, California, January 20, 1872