10 05, 2011

The website the architect built

By |2019-04-25T17:06:36+00:00May 10th, 2011|Random observations, Uncategorized|Comments Off on The website the architect built

Way back in the late nineties I needed convincing by an old college roommate about the value of having my own website for my architecture business. He worked in Silicon Valley and was hipper than I to this notion. “People will be able to check you out on their own. They’ll be much more willing to do that, compared to having to call you on the phone to ask questions.” Hmmm. That sounded like it made sense. No wonder this Internet thing just might catch on. A week or two later I happened to be laid up in Kaiser for [...]

7 04, 2011

My Benicia fixer-upper

By |2019-04-25T17:06:36+00:00April 7th, 2011|My favorite columns, Uncategorized|Comments Off on My Benicia fixer-upper

  When Melody and I decided to move to Benicia twenty-two years ago it was about getting a water view, but we were of limited means, so I knew our best strategy was to buy the worst house with the best view we could find. Of the two of us, I was the only one with passion for this particular strategy, but she sensed my enthusiasm for throwing myself into a “fixer upper” and trusted me. It was years later that I learned that her challenge during our house-hunting had been to relax and [...]

2 03, 2011

Smokestack Benicia – PART 3

By |2011-03-02T15:57:47+00:00March 2nd, 2011|Benicia, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Smokestack Benicia – PART 3

 It must have been quite a sight to see fifty or more boats fishing commercially for salmon off the Benicia shore, as was common in the early 1880’s before they overfished that waterway and screwed it up. According to one observer, the entire fleet usually numbered three times that amount! Since most of the salmon in California needed to pass through the Carquinez Straits to get to their home rivers, it was easy for these boats to haul them in like crazy. Right on shore were large cannery buildings to process the catch. All very convenient in a Benicia sort [...]

26 01, 2011

At the corner of West X and 15th Street – PART 2

By |2011-01-26T19:42:06+00:00January 26th, 2011|Benicia, Uncategorized|Comments Off on At the corner of West X and 15th Street – PART 2

In the Capitol Building on West G Street you can see the original city map from 1847 showing how the streets were originally envisioned for the city of Benicia. Only slightly faded with time, it is a glimpse into the unbridled optimism of the city’s founders Robert Semple and Thomas Larkin for a place that was then just empty fields with some marshy creeks along a coastline. Over the rolling hills and even out into the water they planned a vast array of city blocks with wide streets. Less than a third of these planned streets came into being. Almost [...]

22 12, 2010

‘48ers: Benicians rushed for gold before it was cool – PART 1

By |2010-12-22T19:29:16+00:00December 22nd, 2010|Benicia, Uncategorized|Comments Off on ‘48ers: Benicians rushed for gold before it was cool – PART 1

I recently had the chance to read a source for interesting stories about the history of Benicia and I’m quite certain that almost none of you have seen it. I plan on sharing the best stories from it with you here. This history is actually less a book and more a large “document” that was recently commissioned by the city especially for use by the Historic Preservation Review Commission in order to help provide historical background information that may aid with preservation decisions. I’m currently serving on that commission which is why I had access to the early drafts of [...]

26 11, 2010

A tale of two buildings

By |2010-11-26T19:23:38+00:00November 26th, 2010|Thinking like an architect, Uncategorized|Comments Off on A tale of two buildings

Melody and I had a nice dinner out the other day in downtown Napa in a brick warehouse that had been a “grain-and-feed” building many years ago but had been cleaned up and converted into a restaurant. It was an old funky building being reused for something it wasn’t originally designed for and of course that made the place even more quirky and therefore enjoyable. “Celadon” was the restaurant’s name. Half of the tables were outside in a big space with a four sided brick fireplace in the middle under a large sloping corrugated metal roof with big plants that [...]

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