Scenic Beauty

Mark Daniels excelled in developing and marketing scenic beauty

He extolled: If we wish to develop within ourselves the capacity for inspiration, ambition and a sense of the bigness of things, there is no better way than to seek an environment of inspiring view, where may be seen a portion of the world of sufficient magnitude to give us better perspective and a better sense of the relative importance of things. *

*Daniella Thompson, Then and Now 2007, Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association

Neighborhood

North Berkeley Then

“In a bold stroke, developer John Hopkins Spring, owner of hundreds of acres of land from the edge of the bay to the crest of the hills, created the Thousand Oaks district.  A 1910 advertisement asserted: Thousand Oaks is the crown of Berkeley’s real estate development…Nature’s masterpiece, with revered hand.  No deep cuts will scar its velvet slopes; streets will wind gracefully in and out, oaks will be preserved.  The rocks will be undisturbed. The finest landscape engineer on the coast has been working for months in order to supplement nature’s profusion with the highest of man’s art.  The finest landscape engineer on the coast was Mark Daniels” **

“Civil engineer, planner, landscape engineer, national park superintendent, and eventually architect, Mark Roy Daniels (1881-1952) was perhaps the most accomplished practitioner in California of the art of developing and marketing scenic beauty.

In 1910, Daniels selected a choice lot for his own house {1864 Yosemite Road).  He chose A. W. Smith (1864-1933), one of the Bay Area’s most prolific and versatile home designers of the day.  After laying out several San Francisco tracts (Seacliff, Forest Hill, Crocker-Amazon) in the mid-1910’s, Daniels moved to Monterey where he helped develop Pebble Beach and the 17-Mile Drive.  The early 1920’s would find him in Los Angeles where he would lay out Bel-Air… “*

Thousand Oaks had a distinct identity as a place and as a district.  The beauty of the landscape, the convenience of location, the layout of its streets and lots, all give this district a strong sense of community within the larger city…

Today, Thousand Oaks is a leafy fully-built neighborhood, which beyond its outward beauty, shelters a secret landscape of secluded dells and alpine slopes… hidden private gardens…silent sturdy masses of rock…wide variety of gardens that have been created around the rocks and the placement of the gardens in relation to these sometimes almost overpowering natural objects. ”**

*Daniella Thompson, Among The Rocks:  Homes and Gardens in Thousand Oaks House Tour Brochure 2007 Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association.

** Daniella Thompson, The Baha Newsletter Spring 2007 No. 125, Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association

North Berkeley Now

Perched above the city and offering some of the most sweeping panoramic views in the entire Bay Area, the quiet, residential North Berkeley Hills neighborhood offers peace and solitude not far from the hustle and bustle of the city’s more urban areas.

Homes in the neighborhood are built in a variety of styles and feature beautiful architecture, some with historic pedigrees and lushly landscape gardens. Some homes are hidden from the road by large trees, while others offer views of the San Francisco and Oakland skylines, the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island, and Mount Tamalpais. North Berkeley Hills backs up against Tilden Regional Park, which offers numerous opportunities for outdoor recreation all year long.

Some residents in the southern part of North Berkeley Hills are within close proximity to the thriving retail district on Solano Avenue, and the adjacent Shattuck Avenue 'Gourmet Ghetto.  Though those who live at higher elevations will likely need to drive to most places. Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District bus lines that serve the neighborhood drop residents at the Downtown Berkeley BART station for a quick commute to downtown San Francisco.