This Old Bay Area House

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2023

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why would a house have a garage if it was built before cars were available? How come some Bay Area homes have a front door that's technically on the second floor? When did everyone decide to paint their Victorian houses in bright, vivid colors? This week on the show, we answer multiple questions about some of the Bay Area's architectural curiosities. Additional Reading: Why Are There Garages on Bay Area Homes Built Before Cars Existed? Read a transcript of this episode Sign up for the Bay Curious Newsletter This story was reported by Katherine Monahan and Darren Tu. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Amanda Font and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Paul Lancour, Christopher Beale, Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From K-QED.
0:03.0	Hey everyone, Olivia Alan Price here.
0:06.0	You're listening to a Bay Curious Lightning Round where we answer several of your questions.
0:11.0	Now, oftentimes when a listener sends a question our way it's
0:14.1	about something that they've noticed while out and about. But this week we're
0:18.2	starting with a question that comes from inside someone's house. So our house is what was probably the cookie cutter bungalow of the early 20th century.
0:28.0	This is Adam Eads.
0:30.0	He lives in Oakland in a house that was built in 1910.
0:33.4	There's kind of three bay windows in the front.
0:35.9	It's a single story, but the front door is up a flight of stairs.
0:41.1	And under those stairs, taking over the entire ground floor
0:45.3	of the home is a sort of above ground basement.
0:50.6	The one in Adam's house didn't even have a floor when he moved in.
0:54.0	It was just the dirt and then there was a foundation footing around the side.
0:58.0	This house design, where the entrance is on the second story, is one that you see over and over again on homes all over the Bay Area,
1:05.2	from Victorians built in the 1880s to the craftsmen of the early 1900s.
1:10.7	A lot of those ground floor spaces have been turned into garages, an observation made by a second
1:16.7	listener who wrote in to Bay Curious.
1:20.1	Did people use to put horses and buggies in these garages?
1:24.4	Did somebody, you know, roll their buggy in?
1:29.5	This is Jessica Caliphate.
1:31.4	She lives in Washington, D.C. now, but used to live in Sacramento. When she would drive
	...

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