Senger House owners and residents
1321 Bay View Place – The Senger House – architects: Maybeck & White
1907-1927
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Joachim Henry Senger
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Lucy Alice Helen (Pownall) Senger
1927-1935
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Samuel Chester May
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Eleanor May
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Randolph May (19) & Kenneth May (17)
1936-1938
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Frank E. Stewart, Sr. (salesman) & Gail & 2 sons
1939-1972 (1939 or later expanded property by purchasing the Northrup home next door)
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George John Burkhard (teacher & principal)
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Dorothy “Dolly” Sarah Colbert Burkhard (teacher)
1972-2018
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Frank H. Trinkl (economist, educator)
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Barbara H. Trinkl (artist)
2018-2020 (never occupied the home)
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Kermit Lynch (winemaker, wine retailer)
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Gail Skoff (photographer)
January 2020-current
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Michael & Andrea Scharff
1333 Bay View Place – The Northrup House – architect: Charles Manning MacGregor
1905-1944
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Charles Northrup
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Grace Davis Northrup (vocal teacher)
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Ammi Davis (ret. shoe manufacturer, private gardener) – Grace’s father
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Eva Davis – Grace’s mother
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Winnie Moodie (stenographer) – lodger, 25 y.o.
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Sugitani – Japanese male servant
Acquired by the Burkhard family unknown date between 1939 and 1944. The home was demolished in 1946, possibly as the result of a fire. At this time the properties were combined into double lot and orchard.
Excerpts from “The Senger House and Its Environment” by Daniella Thompson
The Northrup House - 1333 Bay View Place
Origins of the Tract
The third house to be built on Bay View Place was constructed for Charles Henry Northrup (1874–1908) and his wife, the well-known San Francisco soprano Grace Davis Northrup (1877–1935).
Charles Northrup acquired lot 2 in block E from the Berkeley Development Company in October 1905 and signed a contract with the prolific builder Charles Manning MacGregor (1871–1954)5 to design and construct a two-story residence at the substantial cost of $4,335. The Northrup house at 1333 Bay View Place was completed in early April 1906 and therefore was spared the intense competition for construction services occasioned by the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. In September of that year, MacGregor alone took out 32 building permits in a single day.
There are only two known photos remaining of the Northrup residence, showing it as a large Colonial Revival house with the typical symmetrical façade, hip roof, and central dormer. Like the other early-20th-century houses in the district, it was clad in brown shingles according to the dictates of the Hillside Club, although its massing and design did not conform to Arts & Crafts principles. It is shown (left) with the Senger house behind it.
Grace Davis Northrup, who was also a vocal teacher, established a music studio in the new house. On 30 January 1907, the Oakland Tribune reported on a “Program of a High Order, Rendered by Amateurs, at Studio of Mrs. Grace
Davis Northrup.” This type of musical soirée would soon be practiced next door, after the Sengers moved into their new house. Another notice appeared in July 1909 announcing a gathering of the Eurydice Members, a popular music organization of which Mrs. Northrup was the Director.
The Northrups shared their home with Grace’s father,Ammi Davis, a retired shoe manufacturer, and her mother, Eva. Charles Northrup died in May 1908, aged 35. The 1910 U.S. Census enumerated five people residing at 1333 Bay View Place: Ammi Davis, then a gardener for a private family; Eva Davis; Grace Davis Northrup, vocal music teacher; Winnie Moody, a 25-year-old lodger who worked as a stenographer in a wholesale store; and Sugitani, a 27-year-old male Japanese servant.
In 1910, Grace Northrup left for a year of study in New York and moved there permanently in 1912.
Excerpts from “The Senger House and Its Environment” by Daniella Thompson
1321 Bay View Place – The Senger House – architects: Maybeck & White
1907-1927
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Joachim Henry Senger (b. Koslin, Prusssia, 1848; d. 1926)
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Lucy Alice Helen (Pownall) Senger (b. Columbia, CA, 1859; d. 1940)
1927-1935
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Samuel Chester May
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Eleanor May (d. poss. suicide attempt – bathroom gas explosion – 1935)
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Randolph May (19) & Kenneth May (17)
1936-1938
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Frank E. Stewart, Sr. (salesman) & Gail & 2 sons
1939-1972 (1939 or later expanded property by purchasing the Northrup home next door)
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George John Burkhard (teacher & principal)
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Dorothy “Dolly” Sarah Colbert Burkhard (teacher)
1972-2018
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Frank H. (DOD & UC prof, d.2007) & Barbara H. Trinkl (artist, d.2015)
2018-2020
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Kermit Lynch & Gail Skoff (never occupied the home)
January 2020-current
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Michael & Andrea Scharff
1333 Bay View Place – The Northrup House – architect: Charles Manning MacGregor
1905-1944
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Charles Northrup (d. 1908, 35 y.o.)
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Grace Davis Northrup (vocal teacher)
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Ammi Davis (ret. shoe manufacturer, private gardener) – Grace’s father
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Eva Davis – Grace’s mother
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Winnie Moodie (stenographer) – lodger, 25 y.o.
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Sugitani – Japanese male servant
Acquired by the Burkhard family unknown date after 1939, 1944, possible fire and home was demolished in 1946. At this time the properties were combined into double lot and orchard
The Post Senger years
Samuel C. & Eleanor O. P. May
Samuel Chester May (1887–1955) and his first wife, Eleanor Onsworth Parkin (1887–1935), came to Berkeley in 1921. Professor May was brought here by U.C. president David P. Barrows to define and develop the new field of public administration.
As a teacher, he excited hundreds of students to study public administration and to choose public service as a career.
One of the instruments with which he taught was the Bureau of Public Administration. Many professors, civil servants, and politicians have served an apprenticeship on the staff of the Bureau or have used in their studies its outstanding collection of materials. The Bureau was established as an independent unit within the University in 1930, but Professor May began in 1922 to collect material which grew into the library of the Bureau.
Like the Sengers, the Mays were Unitarians. This probably explains the connection between the families that led the Mays to switch houses with the widowed Lucy Senger.
Eleanor May, who was born in England, developed ties with the British nationals on campus. On 9 February 1930, the Oakland Tribune reported, “The home of Mrs. Samuel C. May in Bayview Place was the setting of a happy gathering of the younger set. The guests were the British Commonwealth students at the University of California […]”
Eleanor May, who was born in England, developed ties with the British nationals on campus. On 9 February 1930, the Oakland Tribune reported, “The home of Mrs. Samuel C. May in Bayview Place was the setting of a happy gathering of the younger set. The guests were the British Commonwealth students at the University of California […]”
Eleanor died in tragic circumstances after a period of ill health that forced her to give up her numerous social and club activities. She may or may not have attempted to commit suicide by gas asphyxiation in her bathroom (newspaper accounts differed on this subject), but when she turned on the light in the gas- filled bathroom on 29 May 1935, she accidentally caused an explosion that burned her severely. She died of her burns the following day. At the time, her sons, Randolph and Kenneth, were 19 and 17, respectively. Soon thereafter, Samuel May left 1321 Bay View Place and its oppressive memories. From the Marston family, he rented a nearby studio at 2330 Vine Street that was no less picturesque than the house he left behind. Eventually, Prof. May remarried. At the time of his death in 1955, his home address was 16 Roble Road.
Voter registration records for 1936 and 1938 indicate that during at least three years after the May family’s residence, the Senger house was occupied by Frank E. Stewart, Sr., a salesman, his wife Gail, and their student son Everts.
George J. & Dorothy S. Colbert Burkhard
The Burkhards, both teachers, acquired 1321 Bay View Place about 1939. George John Burkhard (1904–1967) was born in Liverpool, England and spent his youth in Idaho. He attended the University of California, graduating in 1925. After obtaining his master’s degree in 1928, he joined the Berkeley public school system. He was a commercial teacher at Berkeley High School, later advancing to head of the commerce department. For the last four of the seven years he held that post, he was also vice-principal of the high school. In 1940, he was appointed principal of the Whittier-University Elementary School in its new WPA Streamline Moderne building on Virginia Street.
Mr. Burkhard (Olla Podrida, June 1931)
Like her husband, Dorothy “Dolly” Sarah Colbert Burkhard (1899–1981) spent her entire working life as a teacher in the Berkeley public schools. She grew up in Oakland, the child of a broken home. Her mother filed suit for divorce in both 1902 and 1903, first on charge of cruelty, the second time because her husband beat her. Both parents remarried after the divorce. When Dolly’s mother died in 1907, the child went to live with her widowed grandfather. In her will, the mother, thought to have been penniless, left Dolly an estate valued at $30,000. An ugly court fight ensued over the guardianship of the child and her inheritance. Dolly’s father, the newspaperman John F. Colbert, was awarded the guardianship two weeks after the grandfather’s death.
During the trial, testimony was heard to the effect that Dolly disliked her father. Living with him, a step-mother, and a step-sister may not have been entirely to her liking. The facts involving the relationships in the Colbert household are unknown, but Dolly’s marrying at the age of 18 may have had something to do with the desire for escape.
Dorothy and her first husband, Leslie Van Vranken, settled in the house that used to be her maternal grandparents’ home, a turreted Victorian that is still standing at 648 Chetwood Street, Oakland. A daughter, whom the Van Vrankens named Shirley, was born in 1920.
The official report of the Berkeley Schools for the year 1922–1923 listed Dorothy Van Vranken as a commercial teacher at Berkeley High School. By the time her husband died in 1934, she will have known and worked with George Burkhard for six years. The couple married not long thereafter. In 1938, they were listed in the Oakland directory as residing at 648 Chetwood Street, but they didn’t stay there long. The 1940 U.S. Census enumerator found them at 1321 Bay View Place.
At some unknown date, the Burkhards acquired the former Northrup property at 1333 Bay View Place, which consisted of a double lot and included an orchard. The house was occupied in 1944 and may have suffered a fire. In 1946, George Burkhard applied for a permit to demolish the house.
Real estate records in the BAHA archive show that in July 1947, the Burkhards came close to selling 1321 Bay View Place, but it was only in September 1972, five years after George’s death, that Dorothy C. Burkhard sold the house to Frank H. and Barbara H. Trinkl.
Frank H. & Barbara H. Trinkl
Frank Herman Trinkl (1928–2007) was born in Cudahy, Wisconsin. He received
an M.A. in Economics from the University of Michigan, a Ph.D. in Economics from
the University of Michigan, and an M.S. in Statistics from Stanford University.
On 9 June 1951, married Barbara Ruth Henry (1929–2015) in Detroit,
Michigan. They had three children.
Prior to arriving in Berkeley, Frank Trinkl worked in Los Angeles and Washington, DC. In the latter, he served as a special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1965. In Berkeley, he was first a senior lecturer at the Graduate School of Public Policy (1970–1974), then president and director for planning and economics analysis at the Center for Policy Studies, Inc. (1979–1983). Later he served as principal consultant to the California Legislature in Sacramento (1983–1985) before becoming a director of the Public Law Research Institute and Adjunct Professor at U.C. Hastings College of the Law (1986–1993).
Barbara Trinkl was a ceramic artist who used the barn at the southern end of the property as a studio. During the 1970s and ‘80s, she exhibited her sculptures in galleries and at Mills College.
Kermit Lynch & Gail Skoff
Kermit Lynch (born December 1941 Bakersfield, California) is an American wine importer and author based in Berkeley, California and Provence, France. He is the author of Adventures on the Wine Route, which won the Veuve Clicquot Wine Book of the Year award, as well as Inspiring Thirst. He owns Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant in Berkeley, CA and co-owns Domaine Les Pallières in Gigondas along with the Brunier family of Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe in Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
Gail Skoff is a photographer known for her handcolored prints. Much of her work focuses on landscapes and food. She was a 1976 recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and several of the prints resulting from fellowship are held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her works are also held at the Biblioteque Nationale in Paris, the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, and the Oakland Museum of California.
Kermit and Gail purchased The Senger House in September 2018 but never occupied the home. In early 2019 they put the property back on the market.
Michael & Andrea Scharff
Michael and Andrea purchased the Senger House in January 2020 and are excited about preserving, sharing and caring for this magnificent home.