Dunsmuir House

Dunsmuir House

The Dunsmuir House and Gardens, also called The Dunsmuir-Hellman Historic Estate and once known as Oakvale Park, is a special place in Oakland, California. It sits on a large 50-acre site, which is about 200,000 square meters.

The house has a beautiful style called neoclassical-revival and is very important, so it is listed in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Today, the Dunsmuir House is used for many things, like weddings, big meetings, and events where people dress up like people from long ago to show history. It is a wonderful place to visit and learn about the past while also enjoying special occasions.

History

The Dunsmuir House was built in 1899 by Alexander Dunsmuir, son of Robert Dunsmuir, a wealthy coal businessman from Victoria, BC. Alexander built it as a special gift for his new wife, but he became ill and passed away during their honeymoon in New York. His wife returned to live in the house but passed away a few years later in 1901.

In 1906, I.W. Hellman Jr. bought the estate as a summer home for his family. By 1913, the house was changed to fit the family better and to hold their growing collection from travels in Europe. After Mr. Hellman passed away in 1920, his wife kept the estate until the 1950s, adding features like a swimming pool and more beautiful gardens.

In the early 1960s, the City of Oakland purchased the property, planning to use it as a conference center. When those plans changed, a non-profit group formed in 1971 to help care for the estate. In June 1989, this group took charge of most tasks and renamed the grounds the Dunsmuir House and Gardens. Today, the mansion serves as a place for learning about history, culture, and plants. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and both the mansion and the Carriage house are important landmarks in Oakland.

Grounds and gardens

The gardens at Dunsmuir House were designed by John McLaren, who also helped design Golden Gate Park. The gardens have many different kinds of trees, such as Camperdown Elms, Bunya-Bunya, and Hornbeam trees. The estate had a golf course, a croquet area, a tennis court, a swimming pool with a bathhouse, a greenhouse with a grotto, a large bird cage, a maze, and a Japanese garden. Deer, wild turkeys, and water birds also lived there.

Mansion

The Dunsmuir mansion was designed by an architect from San Francisco. It has a style called Neoclassical-Revival, which was popular in the late 1800s. The house has 37 rooms and is 16,224 square feet big. It includes 10 fireplaces, a beautiful dome, wooden walls in some rooms, and special patterned floors. There are also areas for up to 12 staff members to live.

Current uses

Guides take visitors through the big house and pretty gardens on some days from April to September. People can book the place for special events such as weddings or parties. The estate has been in movies and TV shows, like Burnt Offerings, Phantasm, Partners in Crime, A View to a Kill, The Vineyard, So I Married an Axe Murderer, Nash Bridges, Gloria, True Crime, Case #13, and Delirium.