Architecture Lesson: a Maybeck in the Haight

Architecture Lesson: a Maybeck in the Haight
Camden Avery
Published on September 02, 2013
Last week, we made the happy discovery that the Haight is home to a Bernard Maybeck house.

Bernard Maybeck was one of the primary architects of the craftsman movement--bungalows, geometry, integrated inside-outside spaces and landscaping (think the Swedenborgian Church, at 2107 Lyon Street). It turns out that in 1910, Maybeck designed a house for E. B. Powers, a U.S. attorney; the house still stands at 1526 Masonic Avenue. It's a nondescript, roughly 2,100-square-foot cottage with clean rooflines, a balcony, a recessed front porch and main entry and a garage on the side. It's a hike up to the house but it's worth a stroll by some sunny afternoon. According to this guy, the house was built on the site Powers and his family camped on after the 1906 earthquake. The neighboring house at 1524 Masonic reportedly built a "spite wall" and sparked a feud with the Powers: it's the wall of the house that blocks the Powers house's ocean view. For shame!