- City:
- Berkeley, CA
- Site Type:
- Parks and Recreation, Gardens and Nurseries
- New Deal Agencies:
- Work Relief Programs, Works Progress Administration (WPA), Civil Works Administration (CWA)
- Completed:
- 1940
- Designer:
- V.M. Dean
- Contractor:
- Charles W. Cresswell
- Quality of Information:
- Very Good
- Marked:
- Yes
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
The Berkeley Rose Garden lies on the west side of Euclid Avenue in the Berkeley Hills. It was constructed in the little valley of Codornices Creek, which emerges in a viewing pool at the bottom of the garden. The rose garden was likely begun by the Civil Works Administration (CWA) in 1933-34, as they built the adjoining ball courts. But the Rose Garden itself was a project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), completed in 1940.
“The Garden is designed like an amphitheater with wide stone terraces facing magnificent views of San Francisco Bay. A semicircular redwood pergola, which extends the full width of the garden, provides not only visual definition to the site, but a structure for climbing roses and shaded benches. The planting of 2,500 rose bushes was planned by the East Bay Counties Rose Society under Charles V. Covell. The roses were arranged one color per terrace, from shades of red at the top through bronze and pink to yellow and white at the bottom.” – Susan Cerny, Berkeley Landmarks.
“You turned out 5000 strong for one result of the [recreation] department’s efforts: the opening of the Rose Garden at Codornices Park in April.” – Berkeley Civic Affairs Report, 1940 (p. 1)
(The ball courts and rose garden are so twinned that they are shown here as both at the same location).
Source notes
Cerny, Susan Dinkelspiel, 'Berkeley Landmarks,' Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, 2001.
Site originally submitted by Shaina Potts, Gray Brechin on July 25, 2010.
Additional contributions by Richard A Walker.
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This Berkeley Rose Garden with four and a half tennis courts is our nonprofit community development project involving our architect and tennis player Paul E. Ferro (www.Form4Inc.com, the Award Winner of the American Architecture in 2017-2022 named the Form4 Architecture Inc of San Francisco) and CEO and Founder Pil Lee Orbison of the Bay Area Diversified Tennis Foundation (http://BayAreaDiversifiedTennisFoundation.org, formerly Hercules Parks-N-Community Tennis Foundation, dba. Hercules Community Tennis Foundation, at http://HerculesCommunityTennisFoundation, was founded in the city of Hercules on July 18, 2013 and branched out in Berkeley to undertake this project as part of the City of Berkeley Capital Improvement Project since August 27, 2014.). City of Berkeley copied our architect’s Site Plan and CAD and stole Pil Orbison’s presentation materials with Business License and Pil Orbison’s nonprofit grant writing documents with the Scope of Work and Engineering and Landscape Architect’s Consultation and Cost submitted to the City of Berkeley since September 10, 2014 and October 08, 2014 at Parks, Recreations and Waterfront Committee Meetings and at the Berkeley City Council Meetings beginnig of April 15, 2015 and January 16, 2016 under Hercules Parks-N-Communitiy Tennis Foundation and the Bay Area Diversified Tennis Foundation. Due to the embezzled incident and misuse of our foundation architect Paul E. Ferro’s services and grant writing documents caused a major financial burden of over $6M while declaring the embezzled fund $3M as “Tax Deductible Donation,” (March 10, 2010, City Council meeting Action Item in the proposed Agenda, Mayor Jesse Arreguin, District 6 Councilmember Susan Wengraf and Kriss Worthington are the racists and ‘Xenophobi’c City Government councilmembers) during the time when our foundation was not tax-exempted. Paul Ferro and Pil Orbison are Cal Berkeley grads and were deeply soured during the racial and political corruption during the solicited City Pilot partnership project. Pil Orbison is the retainer of these archives and the submitted architect’s drawings and my nonprofit business documents are privileged and to be undertaken by our philanthropic foundation as a perpetual project without being ripped.