Maybeck’s design laboratory

Annie, Wallen, and Bernard Maybeck at home on Grove Street, 1900 (Jacomena Maybeck: Maybeck, The Family View)

Bernard Maybeck’s first 14 years in Berkeley were spent in a home-made house he constructed in stages on the corner of Grove Street (now MLK Jr. Way) and Berryman Street. Assisting him in adding to the house were his architecture students, all of whom went on to brilliant careers.

Maybeck would apply the principles tried out in this domestic laboratory to his early private commissions, the first of which was the Charles Keeler house on Highland Place.

Eight years after the Maybecks bought their Grove Street property, Ben’s cousin John built a house for his own family a block to the south, at 1423 Grove.

The story of the two cousins is told here.