The 60-acre development of Park Hills began in 1939 by the Mason-McDuffie Company. Duncan McDuffie is best known for developing the Claremont and Northbrae neighborhoods of Berkeley and St. Francis Wood district in San Francisco. His upscale developments were laid out as “residential parks,” with streets that follow the contours of the hills and power lines that run underground. McDuffie was a notable conservationist and president of the Sierra Club from 1928 to 1931 and again from 1943 to 1946. He also helped create the East Bay Regional Park District. Park Hills Homes Association was originally part of Contra Costa County but became part of Berkeley in 1959.
Mason-McDuffie hired the Olmstead Brothers from Brookline, Massachusetts, to design the landscape in the neighborhood. The Olmstead’s’ vision was to create a landscape to pass through rather than look at and unite the neighborhood with its surroundings. The brothers inherited the nation’s first landscape architecture firm from their father and designed many notable campuses, parks, and civic areas. The brothers played an influential role in creating the National Park Service.
The gate entry of Park Hills near Shasta Road, fountain, and walls were designed by William Wurster who would later be named dean of the UC Berkeley Architecture school and go on to create the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, which brought the schools of architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning into one organization.
Looking for more information? See the Mason-McDuffie archives at the U.C. Bancroft Library and the July 1961 document available at the U.C. Institute of Governmental Studies entitled “How Park Hills Moved the County Line: A Self-Study in Citizen Action.”
