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The fairy-tale village
Feb. 18th, 2021 07:32 pmhttps://www.sfgate.com/local/article/berkeley-normandy-thornburg-village-photos-15954705.php?fbclid=IwAR1axGc2yfEs7E-JsS19m8PH03gzd90YOrCqqqB2_qguXQtMkR70abrVTFA#taboola-2
( Read more... )
... one young man named Jack Thornburg. Then just 21, he began to plan out a new neighborhood filled with fairy-tale charm and secret corners.
To find it today, you need to know what you’re looking for. Normandy Village is tucked away on an ordinary street, just off the intersection of Hearst and Spruce. A few steps up Spruce and you’re transported to another world. The collection of a few dozen apartments, homes and condos comprise perhaps the best example of the storybook architectural style, which had a brief, magical moment in California in the 1920s. The look is more fantasy than reality, an imagined dream of a French-English village straight out of "Beauty and the Beast."
No one is quite sure who conceived of Normandy Village’s unusual style, but at some point Thornburg joined forces with Oakland architect W.R. Yelland.
A glowing May 1927 story in the Tribune explained the excitement around Normandy Village. “Large windows are the rule, and the charm of the strange building is enhanced by carved heads, or grotesque gargoyles, hanging above,” it read. Frescoes of fairy-tale roosters called chanticleers, still cheery today, were done by Yelland himself. Inside, the homes were decidedly modern, though, with electric ranges and top-of-the-line plumbing. “Only in the conveniences can an accusation of conventionalism be made,” the Tribune said.
( Read more... )... one young man named Jack Thornburg. Then just 21, he began to plan out a new neighborhood filled with fairy-tale charm and secret corners.
To find it today, you need to know what you’re looking for. Normandy Village is tucked away on an ordinary street, just off the intersection of Hearst and Spruce. A few steps up Spruce and you’re transported to another world. The collection of a few dozen apartments, homes and condos comprise perhaps the best example of the storybook architectural style, which had a brief, magical moment in California in the 1920s. The look is more fantasy than reality, an imagined dream of a French-English village straight out of "Beauty and the Beast."
No one is quite sure who conceived of Normandy Village’s unusual style, but at some point Thornburg joined forces with Oakland architect W.R. Yelland.
A glowing May 1927 story in the Tribune explained the excitement around Normandy Village. “Large windows are the rule, and the charm of the strange building is enhanced by carved heads, or grotesque gargoyles, hanging above,” it read. Frescoes of fairy-tale roosters called chanticleers, still cheery today, were done by Yelland himself. Inside, the homes were decidedly modern, though, with electric ranges and top-of-the-line plumbing. “Only in the conveniences can an accusation of conventionalism be made,” the Tribune said.
