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Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley

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  • 7 chapters

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History

The First Unitarian Church of Berkeley was founded on July 12, 1891. (The name was changed to Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley in 1998.) Its first minister was Edward B. Payne. The church occupied rented quarters for several years, purchasing land for a building at Bancroft Way and Dana Street in 1893. Following a resolution by the Pacific Coast Unitarian Conference to establish a Unitarian divinity school, an ambitious design for the church and seminary was drawn by architect Joachim Mathisen. However, the Panic of 1893 intervened, and the seminary did not materialize until later, eventually becoming the Starr King School for the Ministry. A more modest design by A. C. Schweinfurth for the church alone was built in 1898. The redwood-shingled First Unitarian Church became a landmark of Bay Region "building with nature" architecture and still stands at the same location, now used as a dance studio on the University of California campus. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) since 1981.

Bernard Maybeck, another leading California Arts and Crafts architect, was a member of the church and designed its parish hall, built in 1909 (not extant). (He had been out of the country during the period when the Schweinfurth building was designed and built.) He also made sketches for a Mission Revival style building for the Pacific Unitarian School for the Ministry. In the mid 1950s, the elderly Maybeck was also the owner of a tract of land in Kensington, an unincorporated area of the Berkeley Hills, which he sold at a discount to the church when it had outgrown its old building and the university had taken the property through eminent domain. A new church building on the Kensington site was designed by Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons with Theodore Bernardi as lead architect. Bernardi was a great admirer of Maybeck and said Maybeck's work influenced his church design. Geraldine Knight Scott was the landscape architect. The congregation began using the main building in 1961; two religious education classroom buildings were added soon thereafter.

During the planning for the move to Kensington, a segment of the congregation, dissatisfied with the move and the leadership of the Rev. J. Raymond Cope, decided to remain in Berkeley proper. They formed the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, which still exists at Cedar and Bonita Streets.

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