Built 1910 BERKL # 5 Opened 1910 Added to NRHP 22 December 1977 | NRHP Reference # 77000283 Designated NHL December 22, 1977 Phone +1 510-845-7199 Architect Bernard Maybeck | |
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Architectural style Mixed (more Than 2 Styles From Different Periods) Address 2619 Dwight Way, Berkeley, CA 94704, USA Similar Swedenborgian Church, Hillside Club, Faculty Club, St John's Presbyterian Church, Camron‑Stanford House Profiles | ||
First Church of Christ, Scientist is a Christian Science church, located at 2892 Dwight Way and Bowditch Street across the street from Peoples Park, in the South Berkeley neighborhood of Berkeley, in Alameda County, California.
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The Christian Science Society, Berkeley, a slightly smaller version of First Church of Christ Scientist, Berkeley, continues to meet in the over-100-year-old church building.
History
"The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Berkeley held its first service in Wilkin's Hall, 2412 Haste Street, on Sunday, March 12, 1905, and its present membership— October, 1905—is forty-eight. A lot was bought (2892 Dwight Way) in June, and a church building will be erected later on."
The historic 1910 church was designed by renowned architect Bernard Ralph Maybeck (1862–1957), in a primarily American Craftsman style, with Byzantine Revival, Romanesque Revival, and Gothic Revival style elements. The church is widely considered one of Maybeck's masterpieces.
The basic plan is that of a square or Greek cross, with two pair of great crossed trusses spanning the central space overhead. In 1929 a Sunday School addition was added to the Church.
Landmark
It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1977, and is on the National Register of Historic Places in Alameda County, California.
In October 2005, the Friends were awarded a prestigious federal Save America's Treasurers (SAT) Grant, for the roof replacement and seismic strengthening of the 1910 Church and much of the 1929 Sunday School addition. The church received a Getty Architectural Conservation Implementation Grant in 2006, to enable the completion of the seismic strengthening of the Church and Sunday School addition. In 2009 and 2010 the Friends received University of California Berkeley Chancellor's Community Partnership Grants for restoring the garden setting of the church.