I look at this house and smile.  I imagine the people living there.  I imagine that they are intelligent and compassionate, with exquisite if simple taste that reflects solid Berkeley values.  Is that reading too much into a beautiful painted lady?  I doubt it.

After a first and second post on Berkeley’s painted ladies, I am back with a third.  I have relaxed my use of the word “Victorian” to describe the architecture, happy instead to focus on colorfully painted houses, especially Victorians.

This is not a scholarly examination of architecture and I am not competing with the expertise of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association – I am simply presenting photos of pretty things that I have seen in my walks around Berkeley.

I am not a stickler about styles.  I like houses with polychrome decoration that embellishes or enhances architectural details.  I like frilly architectural details.

No more talk – more photos please.

To be continued – one suspects.

Two lovely houses waiting for colors.  I think that they will come.

The elephants painted on the front of the house are a relic of two owners ago – Jeffrey Masson, author of When Elephants Weep.

 

I think that this is aqua, no?  Or is it cyan?  In the additive color system, or RGB (additive) color model, used to create all the colors on a computer or television display, cyan is made by mixing equal amounts of green and blue light.

As I finished my friend came and sat down in my work room.  He handed me a couple of photos.

He explains “A Berkeley parade in 1961.  It was a different city, wasn’t it?  Still Athens of the West. The Big Changes still a few years away.  Hard to imagine.  What do you think these painted ladies looked like then?”

I see his point.  “That’s a thought.  I guess that there weren’t a lot tarted up like many of these.  I’m guessing monochromatic.”

After this conjecture, I get back to our central question.  What does he think of this third installment of painted ladies?