University House

About this property

The University House is a residence and venue for official events on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. Designed by the architect Albert Pissis and completed in 1911, it was formerly named President's House while it served as the home of the president of the University of California, starting with Benjamin Ide Wheeler and ending with Robert Gordon Sproul. Since 1965, it has been the home of the Chancellor of the Berkeley campus. The exterior of the building is designed as a classical Mediterranean villa; the front fascia faces south onto the main campus axis, which runs east into the Berkeley Hills from the Crescent Lawn on Oxford Street. The front entrance is in a triple-arched, recessed portico, and the east and west ends of the mansion have round bays with balustrades. The interior and grounds were designed by John Galen Howard in 1910 after it was decided to finish it as a residence for the President. The grounds surrounding University House are 2+1⁄2 acres (1.0 ha) and include a rose garden, greenhouse, and cutting garden. The formal gardens lie east of the structure. One of the features added later is a large topiary clock, southwest of the residence, donated by the Swiss government. The front door opens onto a reception hall with a stairway to the second floor; a living room lies to the west and drawing and dining rooms lie to the east. The Chancellor (and their spouse) usually live in the private quarters on the second floor of the home, while the ground floor is used for receptions and other events. The home features art on loan from the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. It is the only actual residence in the historic central core of the Berkeley campus, as all student housing lies outside the core campus, but within walking distance. Under the original ROMA design by French architect Émile Bénard, there was to be a "jurisprudence" building at the present-day site. Bénard had won a competition to design the entire University of California campus sponsored by wealthy benefactor Phoebe Apperson Hearst in September 1899 with his entry entitled ROMA. However, he declined an appointment as the campus's supervising architect and John Galen Howard, who had placed fourth in the competition, was appointed instead in December 1901. The commission for what would become President's House was let separately to Albert Pissis, who created a design in a classical Mediterranean style. Construction began on the building with a groundbreaking ceremony on May 16, 1901, presided over by Mrs. Hearst; a budget of US$215,000 (equivalent to $8,320,000 in 2025) had been appropriated, which proved to be inadequate and work stopped after September 1902. The building was completed in 1907. With the overcrowded campus, it was finished temporarily "into seminar rooms as a measure of relief" to accommodate some of the 2,669 students attending UC.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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