A recent owner of a 124-year-old Victorian in Berkeley, California, gave the front and back yards a thorough makeover, adding a yoga/dance studio, a sizeable treehouse, artwork and numerous fruit trees.
These changes and the four-color exterior give the 3,183-square-foot home at 906 Hearst Ave. a unique energy, said Jodi Nishimura of Berkeley-based Kai Real Estate, who has co-listed the property with Noah Manning of Real Brokerage for $1.49 million.
“What I like to emphasize the most with a property like this is all the love and care that’s been put into it,” she said in an interview. “These people were really intentional about wanting to create a special environment.”
The art includes an unusual wrought-iron archway at the entrance to the house lot designed by Bryan Tedrick, who has crafted several large metal sculptures for the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada. He also designed a curved railing on the second-floor balcony. Nuria Bowart, who owned the house from 2002 to 2020, built the backyard dance studio for her professional work and as a party space. She built the treehouse, located in an avocado tree, for her daughter and friends, but some of the grown-up residents have also used it as an outdoor workspace.
The house is divided into three units, with the main three-bedroom space on the second floor and two smaller one-bedroom units on the ground level. The three families that bought the house from Bowart own it jointly, but previous owners rented out the two downstairs spaces. Nishimura and the sellers recently learned that a contractor they hired to prepare the home for sale had lived in one of the downstairs units as a child. His grandfather, and later his father, owned the house; the father rented out the upstairs unit to support the family.
Whoever buys the house will have shared use of a large garden and apiary in an adjacent backyard, Nishimura said, citing an informal agreement with the neighbor. Behind her house, Bowart planted cherry, apricot, mulberry, cherimoya and apple trees and grapevines, all of which bear fruit each year.
“With the garden next door as a place for annual crops, I allowed my backyard to be a place of dappled light, fruit and herbs,” Bowart wrote in a note for the current owners that Nishimura shared.
There are other eco-friendly aspects of the property, including solar panels that handle much of the house’s energy needs and a greywater system to recycle wastewater from sinks.
Nishimura said potential buyers have been intrigued by the property’s art and green elements, but also the shared garden and the fact that three families share ownership currently.
While some may find sharing property unappealing, it is a draw for other buyers.
“What’s been interesting is the number of buyers looking at a multigenerational setup, with the kids upstairs and retired parents downstairs because it is level land,” she said. “There’s also been a couple of people interested in a co-ownership situation like the sellers have.”