Art Deco Masterpiece Has Interesting Associations

Buildings often have interesting histories and associations and the former automobile showroom at 2140 Durant is no exception. For starters, consider the building’s connection with two sporting legends, Seabiscuit and Reggie Jackson.

The Art Deco styled structure was built by Charles Howard, owner of the famous racehorse Seabiscuit, the subject of a movie based on Laura Hillenbrand's best selling book Seabiscuit.

The building’s story begins in San Francisco in 1903, when Charles Stewart Howard (1877–1950) arrived in the city and opened a bicycle repair shop where he also worked on automobiles. By 1905, the 28-year-old Howard had convinced William C. Durant, head of Buick Motor Co. and future founder of General Motors, to give him the franchise for San Francisco.

Ambitious, colorful and very successful, Howard (driving the Buick in the photo to the right) soon owned dealerships in eight western states. He was a rich man by the time he turned his attentions to building a grand Berkeley showroom in 1930.

From the late 1960s until the 1980s it was used by the Maggini Chevrolet dealership. For a brief period in the late 1980s baseball player Reggie Jackson operated a Chevrolet dealership here.

The structure was designed by architect Frederick Reimers (1889–1961) and epitomizes the impressive showrooms built for the newly affluent and glamorous automobile industry.

The one-story reinforced-concrete garage and showroom building is remarkable for its Art Deco style facade, featuring large display windows separated by tall, cast-concrete pylons, tinted light brown. Each pylon is composed of three vertical geometric ribs which rise above the cornice and end in a three-part scroll design. Between pylons, the walls are infilled with a brick and concrete zig-zag belt-course pattern. Transoms above the showcase windows are divided into narrow vertical panes by metal mullions which have a scroll design on the bottom.

For many years the once-dignified Howard Automobile Company building languished, largely unused and slowly deteriorating. Over the years there were several plans to use the large site at Durant and Fulton streets, but they did not include restoring the building. Eventually a developer did come forth who carefully rehabilitated and restored the building with special attention to its Art Deco details, winning a Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association award for the effort.

The completed restoration not only preserves an excellent example of an early twentieth century automobile showroom in the Art Deco style, but it also perpetuates, in a tangible form, the rags-to-riches story of Charles Howard and his famous horse Seabiscuit. From a different perspective, it contributes to environmentally responsible building practices, also known as “green architecture,” by retaining and reusing the materials used in the building’s initial construction.

The building is now owned by the Buddhist Churches of America (BCA), which adapted the space to include teaching facilities, offices, a bookstore, and a two-story residential addition above the Fulton Street garage wing in 2004.

The Howard Automobile Co. Showroom was designated a City of Berkeley Landmark on 17 October 1983.

The text of this article by Susan Dinkelspiel Cerny was originally published in the Berkeley Daily Planet in 2003.  Additional photographs and news clippings can be found at on the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association website and the BAHA news blog.