The Traditional House: Streetcar Suburbs and the Colonial Revival Classic Box

After the electric streetcar was introduced in 1891, and then consolidated and expanded in 1903, properties along the routes, and nearby, were subdivided for homes. Martin Luther King, Jr. Way (formally Grove Street) was the location of the earliest electric streetcar line, and today is lined with two-story neo-Colonial style houses often referred to as "Classic Boxes".  

The Classic Box became popular after the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, which had an architectural theme of Classic Revival. The fair became known as “the Great White City”. Across the United States streetcar suburbs were soon filled with houses that echoed the classicism of the Colonial style. The style is quintessentially North American and was built with little regard for climate or location — from Key West to Vancouver, BC and from Maine to San Diego.  

Referred to by various names in different parts of the country, and even by different “what style is it” books, the basic house is distinctive. Among the names it is called are: Colonial Revival, Georgian Revival, Classic Box, Neo-colonial Revival, Seattle Box, San Francisco Edwardian, Rectilinear, Mid-western Four-Square, Prairie. Prairie Box, and simply Traditional. In Berkeley and Oakland they are called “Classic Boxes” because the majority built here between 1895 and around 1910 used classically inspired decorative detailing.

The standard Classic Box is a two story, six room dwelling, containing about 1600 square feet. It has a square or rectangular boxy shape, with a hipped roof and a central, usually hipped-roofed dormer. Some were designed by architects, others put up by builders from pattern books. Some are wide and large, and some narrow and small. Some have elaborate Classic details, and others are plain and covered with brown shingles in the Craftsman Style. Some were designed to look like single family dwellings but were actually built with 2-4 units. They have a good flexible floor plan, and are easy to convert to multiple units or for making additions to the rear without changing the facade. In Berkeley they date from about 1895-1915, so they are rather old.

Advertised in the Berkeley Gazette in 1901 they were touted as featuring one full bathroom, electricity, gas appliances, completed street improvements and being close to transportation. Lot sizes averaged 40 x 100 feet. They cost between $2,000 and $2,500 when houses at that time ranged in price from around $1,000 to $6,000.

Berkeley became an increasingly popular residential with established electric streetcar lines during the 1890s. After the 1906 Earthquake and Fire there was a sudden increase in Berkeley's population. Many who had lost their homes in San Francisco considered Berkeley a safer alternative, and the city's population grew from 13,000 in 1900 to 42,000 in 1910. It was during this building boom that the Classic Box was so popular and why Berkeley has so many examples of this housing type and so many variations.

However, because the Classic Box was built along major public transportation corridors, in the now older sections of towns and cities they are being lost at an alarming rate everywhere. Berkeley over the years, for example, has lost entire blocks of these large, handsome houses particularly in central Berkeley.

Buildings such as these Classic Boxes, and later the California bungalows, give Berkeley a special character not found in the newer communities of California where the majority of the population lives. They provide housing options that are more varied and interesting than the corporate apartment/condo or tract-house alternative.  

Architecturally, Berkeley is an interesting older American city with layers of tangible history in a real setting. Berkeley's older homes and neighborhoods deserve to be preserved so those aspects of Berkeley, which make it unique, worth living in and walking through are retained for the next generation.

Susan Dinkelspiel Cerny is the author of Berkeley Landmarks and An Architectural Guidebook to San Francisco and the Bay Area. This article contains excerpts from articles that appeared in the Berkeley Daily Planet, Feb. 10, 2001 and April, 2003 by Susan Dinkelspiel Cerny. Susan’s earlier Patch Blog on .