Edgemont home, Tomales Bay, 1906. Donated by Jeff Craemer.
This week I cataloged a photograph that piqued my curiosity—a picture, dated 1906, of the collapsed front porch of a shingled house with the notation “Earthquake damage, Mattie Morgan’s Edgemont.” As it is April, and nearly the anniversary of the quake, I thought it an apt subject for a bit of research.
Edgemont, as it was named by its owners, was the second house in West Marin built for Berkeley residents Ben and Mattie Morgan. Their first was a gable-roofed, board-and-batten, two-story structure built in Inverness in 1895. Nicknamed “Crow’s Nest,” the house incorporated tree roots into its foundation and used real tree trunks for interior supports. At Crow’s Nest, Ben and Mattie entertained and provided a relaxing retreat for some of Berkeley’s most prominent figures.
With Berkeley-based contractor Leslie Roberts, the Morgans built Edgemont, their second Marin home, on a bluff overlooking Tomales Bay. Completed in 1904, Edgemont was modeled after Berkeley’s brown-shingled houses of the day, with wide double-doors, an open floor plan oriented around a fireplace, built-in seating, and redwood beams. Mattie additionally requested “rough and stained” interior wood reminiscent of the Bernard Maybeck-designed UC Berkeley Faculty Club.
Mattie Morgan died in 1905, not long after Edgemont was completed. Crow’s Nest changed hands after Ben’s death in 1908, living on as a vacation home, and even an inn and French restaurant, until the fragile structure was demolished in 1999. Edgemont, extensively restored in 1996, still stands as a fine example of the Arts and Crafts design.
Enclosed porch at Edgemont, 1904. Courtesy of the Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History.
Source: Under the Gables, Vol. XXIV, Number 4, Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History