Father Pitt

Why should the beautiful die?


Trio of Small Apartment Buildings on Neville Street, Oakland

414–410 North Neville Street

Father Pitt is not sure whether these three buildings were originally built as apartments or as single houses, but he is almost positive they were built as rental properties. Old maps tell a clear story: at some point a little before 1910, T. Herriott, who owned a house to the right of these buildings (where the Mark Twain Apartments are now), bought his neighbor’s large lot, demolished the frame house on it, and had these three buildings put up, which he continued to own at least through 1923. They obviously had porches, since the scars where the porch roofs were removed are covered with vertical clapboards.

410 North Neville Street

The Flemish-bond brickwork is arranged with the headers in a different color, so that it looks surprisingly like Wikipedia’s color-coded diagram of Flemish bond:

Brickwork in Flemish bond by Jonathan Riley
Brickwork in Flemish bond, by Jonathan Riley, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
414–410 North Neville Street
Kodak EasyShare Z981.


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