Weston Havens House

The Weston Havens House is a historic Modernist and International Style house in the Panoramic Hill neighborhood of Berkeley, California, built in 1940. John Weston Havens Jr. (1903–2001) commissioned the architect Harwell Hamilton Harris (1903–1990) to design a custom house suited to Havens' interests and preferences.

The Weston Havens House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 11, 2008. It is recognized as an example of regional California Modernist style, with its radical design that looks outward from the hill to a view of the Pacific, along with its use of materials such as Douglas fir and redwood.

Original owner
Havens was the last direct descendant of Berkeley founder, Francis Kittredge Shattuck, and built the house with part of his inheritance. Havens wanted a beautiful private home suited for entertaining guests, listening to music, displaying his collection of antique Asian art, and playing badminton in a courtyard with large amounts of plants. Havens was a gay man, and the house has been referenced in scholarly works about queer space.

Architecture
The Weston Havens House has been compared to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house. The house has a unique truss system that supports the roof, main floor, and lower floors. The trusses are made of three inverted triangular beams. Harris built the house of unfinished redwood. The large windows give an 180-degree panorama of the San Francisco Bay.

The house has not been changed, but it is vulnerable to weather damage and has needed repairs,  for example after winter storms in winter 2002.

Impact and legacy
In 1941 Man Ray photographed the interior and exterior of the house, and these photos were published in many magazines.

Upon Havens' death in 2001, he bequeathed the house to the University of California. The UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design takes care of the property and provides limited access for tours and other educational purposes. Original drawings and other materials related to the house are in the Environmental Design Archives at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design.