Maybeck’s Boke House: made by one crusader for another

George Boke House, 23 Panoramic Way (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2005)

The house that Maybeck designed for him on Panoramic Hill was but a brief way station for George Henry Boke (1869–1929), who was born in Placer County to a German store clerk and his 17-year old wife.

From a working-class childhood in Ventura and Butte Counties, Boke progressed through the State Normal School, a teaching certificate, undergraduate studies at the University of California, and a law degree from Harvard to emerge a professor of jurisprudence at U.C.

But Boke was a reformer, and his anti-graft crusading wreaked havoc with his academic career. The full story of Boke and his house is told in Maybeck’s Boke House: Made by one crusader for another.