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The Camron-Stanford House Self-Guided Tour

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The Camron-Stanford House Self-Guided Tour The Camron-Stanford House Self-Guided Tour Camron-Stanford House Timeline 1876- Alice Marsh and her husband William Walker Camron purchase the property at 1218 Oak Street (now 1418 Lakeside Drive). 1877- Alice and William’s youngest daughter, Gracie (age 2), passes away. The family puts the house up for rent and embarks on a tour of Europe. 1877- David Hewes rents the house. He, his wife Matilda, and his stepdaughter Franklina C. Gray move in at the end of their own two year tour of Europe and the Middle East. 1878- Franklina and William Bartlett marry at the Camron-Stanford House. The ceremony is held in the bay window of the family parlor. 1881- The Hewes and Bartlett families move to Southern California. 1882- After a series of bad business deals, the Camrons are forced to sell their lakefront home. The house is purchased by Josiah Stanford. Josiah, his wife Helen and their son Josiah Jr. (Joe) move in. 1890- Josiah Stanford passes away at the Camron-Stanford House 1891- Alice Gertude Gordon, wife of Josiah Jr. and daughter-in-law to Josiah and Helen Stanford, passes away in the house shortly she suffers a stillbirth. Her funeral is held on site. 1903- Helen Stanford sells the house to Captain John Tennent Wright, Jr. 1907- The Wright family sells house to the City of Oakland for $40,000. 1910- The city expands the house to serve as Oakland’s first public museum, showcasing Oakland’s ethnography and anthropology collections. 1967-1969- Following the building of the Oakland Museum of California, the property is vacated. The house remains empty for several years, and faces an uncertain future. 1971- The Camron-Stanford House Preservation Association, a group of forward thinking individuals, comes together to save the house. Years of restoration work, led by dedicated volunteers, follow. 1978- The Camron-Stanford House opens to the public as a historic house museum. Welcome to the Camron-Stanford House Introduction The Camron-Stanford House was built in 1876 and was home to five influential families during its time as a residence. When the house was originally built, the lake and surrounding land were private property. Samuel Merritt was one of several land investors who saw “Contra Costa” (translated from Spanish to mean “the opposite coast”) as an attractive country retreat for San Francisco’s wealthy businessmen. At the time of its incorporation in 1852 Oakland was part of Contra Costa County and its population was a few hundred citizens. Merritt was a bachelor physician born in Maine who arrived in California in 1850 with the Gold Rush. He found his fortune not in mining, but in real estate. Among his investments were several “elegant” homes built north of 14th Street and east of Alice Street, including his own impressive residence on Madison. These were country estates for San Francisco capitalists. Among his neighbors were some whose businesses you might recognize today including Folger, Chabot, and Schilling. In 1876 the home was purchased by Alice and her husband, William Walker Camron for $15,000. The house was a private home from 1876 to 1907, but when the lake and surrounding park became public land the city transformed the house into Oakland’s first public museum (The Oakland Public Museum), which it remained for 60 years until the Oakland Museum of California opened in the late 1960s. In 1978 the house reopened in its current incarnation as a house museum. The museum highlights the experiences of the families who lived in the house, as well as the larger cultural experience in 19th century Oakland and Pictured: The Camron-Stanford House soon after the Camron Family moved into California. the home in 1876. Members of the family, including Alice, William, their two children, the children’s nanny, and some of their household staff can be seen in the Because of its years as a photograph. public museum little that is original to its days as a private home remains. The Camron-Stanford House Preservation Association, the nonprofit that now operates the house, has relied on loaned items and gifts to recreate how the families might have decorated their home and lived their lives. What we know about the history of the house and its families is thanks to the volunteer research by the original Association members. New members, staff, and docents continue their work. Directions For This Tour This book is your guide to the Camron-Stanford House. Begin your tour at the main entrance, at Viewpoint #1. Follow the directions at the bottom of each section to find the next viewpoint on the tour. Note: You do not have to read the whole tour booklet, but you may find helpful information about each of the rooms, the residents who lived here, and some of the collection pieces on display. If you have any questions along the way, please feel free to ask one of our volunteer docents. As a reminder, we ask that you please do not sit on, move, or touch any of the items on display unless signage specifically invites you to do so. If you’d like to learn more about the families who lived in the Camron-Stanford House, please see the list of residents at the end of this booklet. Begin your tour at the Main Entrance, Viewpoint #1 Viewpoint #1: The Main Entrance What is a Calling Card? You are now standing at the main entrance to the Camron-Stanford House. If you were paying a visit to A calling card, or visiting card is a small Alice and William Walker Camron in 1876, you card similar to a business card that you would have walked along the manicured pathway, up might recognize today. Calling cards were the front steps, and knocked on the front door. There, a a way to announce your presence. If you member of the family’s household staff would likely were making a visit, you might offer your have greeted you. You may have given them your card for household staff to announce your arrival. When traveling, you might leave a calling card so that they could alert the family of your card with someone to let them know visit. you’re in town, along with a note about how and when they could visit you. If the family was expecting you, or if they approved your visit after seeing your calling card, they might Not everyone could afford custom printed greet you here, in the entryway, or the household staff calling cards, of course. During the 19th might usher you into the Receiving Parlor to wait. century they were most often used by the upper classes, often as a tool to flex one’s You Might Notice… social status, and sometimes to keep unwanted visitors at bay. • If you look at the transom window above the front door you will see the original address Look closely and you may spot a calling numbers-- 1218. The address used to be 1218 card or two while on your tour! Oak Street before the city renamed and re- numbered this street. • The front door panels you see today are not original but were re-created using the original wheel cut technique used for the glass. The glass panels were custom made by a local artisan. • The radiators you see on either side of the front doors were installed by the second owner of the house, Josiah Stanford. These radiators still provide heat for the entire building. Example of a standard calling card. This one was found in an album of cards collected by FranKlina C. Gray, a resident of Camron-Stanford House. Camron-Stanford • Another re-creation is the newel post at the House Collection. Gift of Tracey Bartlett, 2018. foot of the main staircase. The original disappeared in 1973 and the new post was based on a photo of the original. Continue through the door to Viewpoint #2 to learn about what life would have been like in this house in the 1870s. Viewpoint #2: The Receiving Parlor If you were welcomed into the home beyond the front entry you would probably wait for your host here in the Receiving Parlor. The word parlor comes from the French verb parler which means “to speak.” These rooms were certainly used to convey a message! Most upper class (and some larger middle class) homes had formal receiving parlors, and they were often seen as a status of wealth. They were decorated with the best furnishing, works of art, and other trinkets meant to communicate the family’s refined status. If you were visiting in the 1880s, Helen, wife of Josiah Stanford, may have greeted you here. If the time was right and the sun was shining, she may have invited you for tea in the solarium, through the door on the right. If you were visiting in the evening, the gasolier you see suspended from the center of the room might be lowered and lit using the torch and key lighter you see on the center table. Whatever the time, you would have enjoyed a delightful conversation surrounded by portraits of the family and their favorite decorative pieces. Portrait of Josiah Stanford painted by Georgina Campbell in 1891. Courtesy of Cantor Art Center, Stanford University. You Might Notice… • The blue couch you see is called a settee. This set you see here is not original to the house but was owned by resident Franklina C. Gray and her husband William Bartlett when they lived in Southern California. • The second owner of the house was Josiah Stanford, whose portrait hangs above the fireplace.
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