“Homes of Cosmopolitan Architecture”
Oakland Tribune Mar 29, 1925
The Court of All Nations is located on Hillen Street (formally Trumbull Street) near Mills College, with a view of the bay and the nearby hills. The group of fifty homes was built in 1925, with the first four starting in January of that year.
Unique Idea Result of Europe Trip
The unique idea was brought back by local builder R.C. Hillen after spending five months motoring through Europe in search of ideas for one of his next developments.
He wanted to reproduce the picturesque homes that dot the hillsides and valleys of European countries.
The homes are of five and six-room European style with American convenience. Each home is an architectural gem, specially adapted by W.W. Dixon, architect and the editor of the Home Designer Magazine, from sketches Hillen made during that trip.
They will include patios and landscaped gardens both in front and back.
Casa Romero
Casa Romero is a Spanish-Moorish type, and it opened in ???. The iron grill balconies before the windows and the flower-grown patio with pool and fountain suggest old Spain.
W.W. Dixon, who designed Casa Romero, said, ” the name an old Spanish name dating from the days of the Mexican Grants in California.” Casa Romero means the house of the Romeros.
“‘Casa Romero’ Is All Electrically Equipped: Radio Featured.”
Oakland Tribune May 17, 1925
A Pipe-Organ Radio is installed in the living room. The rare acoustic properties of the room, eighteen by thirty-six feet in size and eighteen feet high, were fully utilized. A Radiola super-heterodyne is hidden behind what appears to be pipes of an organ on the balcony above. Using a central control, you could listen by loudspeaker or earphone connections by merely pressing a button.
European Style Homes
Some of the homes were designed along the lines of English cottage architecture, and others suggest French and Italian villa homes with homes from Spain, Norway, or Holland.
All have charming features and will include a large living room with a unique fireplace, a dining room with a buffet, and a kitchen with all the modern fixtures. Priced from $6500-$7900
Grand Duke
Dixon and Hillen
Walter W. Dixon (1884-1953)
Robert C. Hillen (1884-1955)
Style: Storybook, fairy tale, Hansel & Gretel
Dixon designed homes and other buildings, alone and with the firm Dixon and Hillen, from about 1910 to 1950, mostly in the East Bay.
Dixon built grand Storybook houses and houses in other styles and is best known for compact Storybook tract cottages.
Both were involved under the name of Dixon and Hillen Publishers with the Home Designer Magazine, based in Oakland and printed out of their office at 1844 Fifth Ave. The monthly publication costs $2.50 yearly for a subscription and covers mostly bungalow and Storybook types of homes.
They also designed the homes on Picardy Drive in Oakland.
More Info:
- Storybook Homes in East Oakland – Old House Online
- W.W Dixon’s Storybook Homes – SF. Chron Aug 20, 2005
- Storybook homes of the ’20s revisited – DJC Oregon
- Storybook architecture – Wikipedia
- Oakland Heritage: Picardy Drive – Our Oakland
- Unique Idea From Recent Trip – Oakland Tribune Jan 24, 1925
- European Architecture – Oakland Tribune Feb 1, 1925
- In Court of All Nations – Oakland Tribune Mar 29, 1925
- Thousands Visit Casa Romero – Oakland Tribune May 24, 1025
I never knew about this until now! Thank you for this neighborhood visit! I’m going here — next trip across the bridge!
Fascinating! You never know what you’ll learn that is new here! Thank you!
During the Mortgage Meltdown of 2008 – 2012 I was still in the real estate business. I got to go into a lot of modest but amazingly beautiful small homes in the Flatlands where, sadly, people had been taken in by predatory lenders and foreclosed on. I could not believe some of the architectural details – Batchelder tile around fireplaces, Spanish-style exteriors. I hope we have learned from that awful experience to insist on paying fixed rates on mortgages and not borrow more than we can afford.