Many midcentury homes were built by skilled craftsmen, using quality materials — yup, “built like a rock.” But this 1950 time capsule house — known locally as the Hellbaum House, after its original owners actually is built on and around rock — massive boulders — inside and out! The home also boasts an original elevator that has operated without issue since the day it was installed… steel kitchen cabinets painted in an auto body shop… and other beautiful midcentury modern interior features. Oh yeah: It’s for sale!
The house — which is in the Thousand Oaks neighborhood of Berkley, California — is listed for sale by realtor Ira Serkes. Note, the listing says there is already an offer pending with four backup offers. Here are the detail from the listing:
- Price: $1,100,000
- Year built: 1950
- Square footage: 2,610
- Bedrooms: 3
- Bathrooms: 2 plus 2 partial
The Hellbaum House in Berkeley’s wonderful Thousand Oaks neighborhood!
At a massive street side boulder, rising tiers of Arizona flagstone walls, steps and handmade bronze railings lead you up to the front entry (note the stone inset of the builder/owners’ initial!); the same flagstone is repeated inside at the fireplace, its raised hearth and floor to ceiling detail, and outside at walls and chimney. Three bedrooms, two and a half baths at main living level; half bath in garage; elevator from garage to kitchen.
Huge kitchen [Editor’s note: Those look like vintage Geneva kitchen cabinets — maybe St. Charles — to us) has terrific storage (auto shop painted cabinetry with chromed hardware!); an island counter; breakfast area space; Large room off kitchen includes laundry and a built in desk across one wall; ideal study/art/office space. Filtered Golden Gate, Bay Bridge, San Francisco, Mt. Tam and westward views are seen through large windows; half bath off kitchen.
Two full bathrooms have the original Naugahyde wall covering, enclosed bath tub/shower combos and vanities with chromed tube lights and mirrors. Through a wide central hallway, access three good sized bedrooms: master suite has one large closet with built in drawers, a second smaller closet and opens through sliding glass doors to a mahogany deck and back garden with plantings amid more rock; another bedroom has a built in desk, shelving and glass paned display cases.
Detached garden studio built of clear heart redwood: originally used as a BBQ shed with a fireplace, sink, built-in cabinetry and windows all around, it’s now the perfect art/meditation/separate office space. Recessed lighting in main rooms; soffit lighting in the dining area.
At the garage level (more of the street side rock … and another behemoth rock!) there’s a half bath, utility closets housing elevator machinery and radiant/water heating equipment, and many storage spaces; think installation of a translucent garage door to brighten this area for multiple uses; art; kid playspace; workshop….or park two cars and maybe a third!
619 Vincente was designed, built and lived in by its original owner for many years, and one of its current owners grew up across the street and played among the area rocks as a child.
It is noted in BAHA* and “Berkeley Rocks: Building With Nature by Jonathan Chester (Ten Speed Press)” for its innovative systems: an elevator fairly uncommon in Berkeley homes at the time, and a radiant heat system through ceiling pipes; each room has its own thermostat, and there is radiant heat under the garage floor as well
Per BAHA; “For the structure, Hellbaum purchased a Southern Pacific bridge and anchored the structure on several of the I-beams from the bridge” Look up when you’re in the garage … the beams are overhead.”
Link love:
- Realtor Ira Serkes from Berkeley Homes
- Photographer Kurt Manley
- Rich Anderson from Lucidpic Photography architectural photography
Tips to view slide show: Click on first image… it will enlarge and you can also read my captions… move forward or back via arrows below the photo… you can start or stop at any image:
Robin M. says
someone may have already posted this, but did anyone ever see “The Dick Van Dyke Show” episode that shows Rob Petrie telling the story of how they bought their house? There was a giant boulder protruding out of the wall into the basement so they almost did not buy!
Marty says
I was wondering how ling it would take for someone to mention this…
Katze says
This was my first thought too!! That and wondering if the neighbors basement floods like it did in the show from all the runoff. Haha!
Ben says
It even kind of looks like the rock in the Petrie’s basement…
Jay says
I am always amazed at the size of some of the baths featured in these homes. Great use of glass block – the interior entry way next to the fireplace is stunning. Glass block was still being use for curtain walls in institutional and commercial buildings through the fifties. I wonder if the door chimes are original, very impressive in the niche; sure would like to hear them ring.
virginia says
So beautiful and spacious. I’m a sucker for stonework and this house is just a dream, inside and out. Was looking at the photos, clearing out the furniture and arranging my own things into each room! That’s love at first sight. Beautiful house with a great vibe.
Many thanks.
Robin, NV says
That flagstone entry is to die for! Oh how I would love to come home to that every day. This house has so much goodness – bright and open, bittersweet countertops, great views, and loads of character. What a great house.
@Wendy and Pam – we used to swing out of the hay loft door in my granparent’s barn. Pre-1980, the world seemed to have a gleeful disregard for child safety. But I’m sure kids today still find ways to have clandestine, “unsafe” fun.
pam kueber says
In my youth, I broke bones — and teeth! — on roller skates and skateboards. And I was not a klutz. And I was on solid ground. I can’t imagine what would have happened had I been traveling at real speed — or airborn!
Robin, NV says
The best part of swinging out of the hay loft was when you came back in you’d try to land on the pile of hay. Emphasis on “try.” And no, this was not a grandparent-sanctioned activity. We always had to post a lookout. Gramps would have killed us.
SebastianFTL says
Ha, interesting! Clearly this was “a thing” back in those days. My uncle & auntie lived outside of Syracuse & built an A-frame home sometime in the early 1960s. They were wildly eccentric, and this house proved it. It had central vacuum, conversation pit & working pot belly stove in a divine mixture of things they liked. Well, the conservatory was the only way to get to their bedroom. In the middle of the conservatory was a boulder they couldn’t move. In their bedroom the boulder was in the bathroom, with a “lagoon” surrounding it. It was their bathtub!!! Imagine being six years old!!!
Ranger Smith says
Naugahyde walls: now that’s a first for me! Great looking house, lots of windows. Thanks for this interesting story about this unique home.
Mary Elizabeth says
Lovely house! Nestled into its landscape, as I think all houses should be. Can’t believe the walls in the pink bath are Naugahyde, made here in Connecticut. That stuff was almost indestructible as furniture upholstery, but I find it amazing that it was considered for a wall treatment and survived the extremes of bath temperatures and moisture.
Roundhouse Sarah says
Love the kitchen cabinets, love the bathroom wall covering, love the built ins in the office, love the front door and side lights, love the deck and backyard area…. Ok I’ll stop now!
Stephanie says
Soooo, working at home today, looking at the home office in the pictures provided. Sigh… Puts what I thought was a nice home office in my home to shame. But I probably wouldn’t get ANY work done.
@Wendy, I grew up in the 80s and we never did anything fun 😉
Wendy in St. Louis says
“Apparently there was a swing attached to one of the home’s girders that the neighborhood kids used to swing on while also wearing roller-skates and then fly off and skate out of the garage and down the driveway.”
I *LOVE* this! It reminds me of many fantastically fun things we did as kids, before all of the “Caution, oven may be hot when turned on” warnings, and suing as a income stream came about.
Sometimes I feel sorry for kids born after the mid 70’s, who will never be able to endanger life and limb with exhilarating abandon. 🙂
Wendy in St. Louis says
Ugh.. “an” income stream.
pam kueber says
I hear ya, but golly, that REALLY does sound dangerous – especially the part where they skate into the street. If I caught my child doing that, I would have a heart attack!
Jay says
Today, everything is planned, organized and scheduled to the very last second so kids today really don’t have these types of opportunities to “play”. Even so, it does sound kinda dangerous.
Joe Felice says
Do they play, or do they just spend their time on their devices? Put me on the side of those who feel sorry for kids born after 1970. And my mom NEVER let me go into the street. However, I did one evening, and got run over by a car. Ruined mom’s bridge game, and she was not a happy camper. Neither was the car’s driver. His hair turned from brown to gray almost overnight. We kept trying to convince him we weren’t going to sue him, but. . . Around the same time, I split my upper lip sliding into “home base,” which was the living-room coffee table. That was another ruined bridge date for mom. We weren’t supposed to be running in the house. Yikes! Then I nearly cut off my big toe making stakes for a tent before the cub-scout camp-out. Ut oh! Now that I think about it, I guess I was lucky to have survived 1957 in Montgomery, Alabama! But I did, in spite of eating dirt, earthworms, and all. Even survived a tongue stuck to a fence post in the winter. Ah yes, the memories.
pam kueber says
Good times.
Roundhouse Sarah says
I was a child of the nineties and one of my favorite activities with friends in elementary school was climbing down manholes and exploring the drainage systems with our boots and flashlights then popping out in different parts of the neighborhood. My parents didn’t keep me under close watch lol probably because they were children of the sixties and had free range growing up.
Sid says
Also grew up in the 90s, but never did that! Nice work.
Wendy in St. Louis says
Oh Sarah…me and my friends did the same thing, except about ,(gulp), 20 years earlier.
Seriously… there was a creek that was the outlet from the storm sewers in our neighborhood, and we’d walk through those huge pipes under the streets. About every 2 or 3 blocks there was a storm water inlet built into the curb of the street, and at those points there were “ladders” – metal bars sticking out of the walls of the underground pipe – we’d climb the bars to peek out of the horizontal inlet.
I can’t deny slingshotting rocks, pennies, and on a particularly odd day – Barbie heads – out of those inlets at passing cars.