Historic American Buildings Survey,
Engineering Record, Landscapes Survey
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Rodoni Property, 1715 Elm Street, El Cerrito, Contra Costa County, CA
- Title: Rodoni Property, 1715 Elm Street, El Cerrito, Contra Costa County, CA
- Creator(s): Historic American Landscapes Survey, creator
- Related Names:
Rodoni, Ambrose
Rodoni, Virginia
Rodoni, Louis
Lincoln Trust Company
Eddie Biggs Development
Santa Fe Railroad
Stevens, Christopher M. , transmitter
Bradley, Denise , historian
Corbett, Michael R. , historian
Komorous-Towey Architects , delineator
Morrow, Elisa , delineator
Morrow, Charles , delineator
Komorous-Towey, Klara , project manager
Fukuda, Takashi , photographer
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, San Francisco District , sponsor
McPartland, Mary , transmitter - Date Created/Published: Documentation compiled after 2000
- Medium:
Photo(s): 17
Measured Drawing(s): 2
Data Page(s): 36
Photo Caption Page(s): 2 - Reproduction Number: ---
- Rights Advisory:
No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. (http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html)
- Call Number: HALS CA-143
- Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
- Notes:
- Significance: The Rodoni property at 1715 Elm Street in El Cerrito, California, was the home to members of the Ambrose and Virginia Rodoni family from 1897 to 2002. The Rodoni property represents the formative stage in the development of El Cerrito during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when the land had been surveyed but retained a semi-rural character. During this period, single-family houses were isolated from one another, and many of them included agricultural features such as gardens, fenced pastures, and outbuildings. The Rodoni property is significant as a rare surviving example of the vernacular architecture and landscapes that characterized this era of El Cerrito’s development. The Rodoni property is also significant for its association with El Cerrito's Little Italy. This ethnic community, with approximately 100 houses, was centered on San Pablo Avenue between Hill Street and Potrero Avenue. The residents were mostly Lombard-speaking immigrants who retained their Italian cultural identity. Little Italy had its own shops, churches, and social organizations and thrived from around 1920 until the early-to-mid 1950s. Many of the residents, including Ambrose and Virginia Rodoni, retained the cultural traditions they brought from Italy, including growing their own fruit and vegetables and making wine with their own grapes. The residents typically worked as laborers at the neighboring quarries or other local industries. The first generation of the Rodoni family -Ambrose and Virginia -came from Italy in 1887 and about 1893, respectively. The couple purchased Lot 13 of Block B of the Schmidt Village subdivision in 1897 and built a small house. Over the next several decades, they purchased the parcels on either side of their original lot and made improvements to their half-acre property. They enlarged the house and added Queen Anne style details. They also created a vernacular landscape that reflected many of the cultural norms of El Cerrito's Little Italy. The Rodoni house occupies the front portion of the center lot, and a garage and shed are located behind the house. A well house is located in the southwest corner of the property. Up until the late 1960s, the property also included a windmill to pump water from the well and a tank house to store the water. Both of the lots that flank each side of the house contain evidence of past cultivation, and when the family lived there contained food gardens, a small vineyard, and fruit trees. For decades, children and grandchildren returned weekly for meals made from the garden. The family also made its own wine and canned fruit and vegetables in the basement of their house. A distinctive feature of the Rodoni property is a creek -located 15' south of the house -that runs in a straight alignment from the front to the back of the property. The creek's sides are reinforced with dry-laid stone walls, and in the past, water from this creek provided irrigation for the food gardens. It is likely that Ambrose Rodoni and his sons, with experience as quarry workers, built the stone walls that line the creek. Ambrose, who listed carpenter as one of his occupations, may have built the house, and he and other members of the family made most of the improvements to the property. The work and occupations of the various members of the Rodoni family reflected what was typical for the immigrants of the Little Italy community. Like many, Ambrose and one of his sons worked in local quarries. Ambrose also described himself in census records and directories at different times as a farm laborer, a carpenter, and a laborer. His jobs and many of the jobs of his sons were described in the census records as "working on own account" -they were not employees but self-employed day laborers. In this way, their working lives represented their status as immigrants at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy. In the first generation, Ambrose had no power to obtain more secure or more lucrative positions. In the second generation, the sons of Ambrose and Virginia Rodoni sought and generally achieved employment positions in big companies with more security and better pay. The property remained in the Rodoni family until 2002 when Louis, the next to youngest son of Ambrose and Virginia, died at age 98. His two step-daughters inherited the property and sold it to Lincoln Trust Company of Fairfield, California. In 2003, Eddie Biggs Development acquired the property with the intention of building condominiums. Currently, the property remains vacant.
- Survey number: HALS CA-143
- Building/structure dates: 1897 Initial Construction
- Subjects:
- Place:
- Latitude/Longitude: 37.923504, -122.312722
- Collections:
- Part of: Historic American Landscapes Survey (Library of Congress)
- Bookmark This Record:
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ca4366/
The Library of Congress generally does not own rights to material in its collections and, therefore, cannot grant or deny permission to publish or otherwise distribute the material. For further rights information, see "Rights Information" below and the Rights and Restrictions Information page ( https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/rights.html ).
- Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html
- Reproduction Number: ---
- Call Number: HALS CA-143
- Medium:
Photo(s): 17
Measured Drawing(s): 2
Data Page(s): 36
Photo Caption Page(s): 2
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- Call Number: HALS CA-143
- Medium:
Photo(s): 17
Measured Drawing(s): 2
Data Page(s): 36
Photo Caption Page(s): 2
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