Oakland Underfoot

61 Alvarado Road, Berkeley

John Albert Marshall II (1900-1976) was the son of J. A. Marshall the Berkeley concrete contractor and homebuilder. He graduated from UC Berkeley, studied architecture at California College of the Arts and started out early as a contractor, being listed as such at age 22 while he was living in the family home at 18 Tanglewood Road. His architectural career was brief, though.

He was listed as an architect in the 1925 directory, but his father died that year and left everything to his mother, so he was quickly on his own. He prospered as a Berkeley homebuilder in the 1920s, and by 1928 was living in the hills above Piedmont with his new wife Julia (Dodge) after an elaborate society wedding. They divorced the following year. He also helped finance the Latham Square building and Fox Theater among other Oakland landmarks.

The 1930 census recorded him living in the penthouse of 2605 Haste Street, the “Casa Bonita,” which he built in 1928. Soon he quit the building business and went in a new direction, moving to Nevada to own and run the Pyramid Lake Dude Ranch. He came back to the Bay area in 1940, when he bought the Castlewood Country Club in Pleasanton and ran it as the Rancho Hacienda dude ranch with his second wife, Emily, until 1952. He spent his remaining days at Villa del Sol, his large residence on a hill overlooking Pleasanton.

As far as I know, Marshall didn’t leave this mark anywhere in Oakland, but I thought it was in Oakland when I posted this, and I’m keeping it. The house was built in 1926.

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