HISTORY

The Blume House. Home to Heinrich [1837-1895] and Fredericka Johanning Blume [1841-1925], immigrants of Prussia (Germany). Heinrich immigrated to the United States from his village of Wingertshausen (approximately 49 miles from Frankfurt) in 1856 and married Fredericka Johanning from the village of Spenge (Prussia) in 1867. The Blume Family arrived in San Pablo in 1858 and purchased a large section of land. They were like many other farm families in Rancho San Pablo. Hay and grain were the main crops. They also kept milking cows and many chickens. However, the family raised both beef and dairy cows. Butter, made from the cows' milk and chicken eggs were sold. The cream, separated from the milk and turned into butter, was always sold at a much higher price than milk. 

Farmers and their families had to be self-sufficient. The Blume family was often isolated from the town due to muddy roads and from winter rains. They had to be able to do their own maintenance on the farm buildings and equipment.

After Heinrich died in 1895, Mrs. Blume kept farming the land, and in 1905 built this luxurious home where she raised her five sons while maintaining the 1,000-acre farm in San Pablo (in the Hilltop Mall area). By 1911 she had sold most of their land to Standard Oil but leased back 400 acres for farming and kept 36 acres around the home.

In 1971, the San Pablo Historical Society arranged for the purchase of the Blume House from Standard Oil who owned the house and the land it sits on. Plans were to tear it down for a new shopping center to be built in that hilltop area, however the Historical Society saved it and negotiated with Standard Oil to fund the move to its new location at Alvarado Square in the new San Pablo Civic Center which included a bunkhouse. The structures were moved by truck in March 1974 and opened as museums in 1979. Blume Drive, in the Hilltop Mall area commemorates this family's farm. Today, the Blume House operates as an important reminder of San Pablo’s rich agricultural history.

Blume House

The Blume House was built as a residence in 1905 on the Blume Ranch near the current location of Hilltop Mall in Richmond, California.

The Blume House was part of the Blume Ranch, an extensive holding to the north of San Pablo that was established and operated by German immigrants Henry and Fredericka Blume and their five sons where Hilltop Mall currently stands.  Agricultural census schedules record a Henry Bloom[sic] in 1870 as owning 350 acres of land valued at $3200, producing 1400 bushels of wheat and 1200 of barley in the preceding year.  In 1880, a Henry Blum[sic] in Contra Costa County had 500 acres of land and a farm valued at $10,000 which produced 1200 pounds of butter, 2000 bushels of barley and 2000 bushels of wheat in the preceding year.  The bunk house, built in 1894, was also part of the Blume Ranch complex.

The buildings were moved in 1974 to their current location, where the house is maintained as a museum interpreting “agricultural era living in the Bay Area” (City of San Pablo 2017).  Planner Charles A. Farren’s 1975 Historic Resources Inventory form for the site describes a 40’ x 80’ “1 ½ story wood frame structure with a high hip roof and hipped dormers.  An open veranda extends the front and both sides. Main floor is elevated over a ground level basement.  Structure has been moved from its original site to a more secure area where it is to be used as a historical museum.  A new foundation is the major alteration to the exterior appearance of the structure.”

The Blume House is listed as a Building of Historical Significance (No. 15) in the San Pablo General Plan 2030 (2011:7.25), and as a “Structure of Historical Significance” according to the Contra Costa County Historic Resources Inventory (2016:55).

Blume House Moving Day!

"This lovely farmhouse stood in a green valley near a hilltop with a view of the ocean. It had been built in 1905 by the Blume family, immigrants from Germany. In the 1970s it was still a working horse ranch and was threatened by development. Hilltop Mall was about to be built on its idyllic hill. The house was slated for demolition. This property was originally part of San Pablo but had later been incorporated into Richmond." ~San Pablo Historical Society archives

Blume House - A look into the past

The Richmond Standard: The Blume House Museum by Mike Kinney

"San Pablo History in Full Blume"

The Standard recently caught up with Janet Pottier, president of the San Pablo Historical and Museum Society, for insight about the historic Blume House, one of several historic structures serving as museums at Church Lane and San Pablo Avenue.

And we also got some good news: Even though San Pablo City Hall, which is located next to the museums, is moving in April into a brand new building about a quarter-mile away, the Blume House and its neighboring historic structures — including the Bunk House, Alvarado Adobe and little Texiera cottage — will remain at their current location and will be enhanced by a newly created park, Pottier said.

That’ll offer more access to learn about the large Blume Farm House, which was built by German immigrants in 1905, during San Pablo’s agricultural era spanning from 1847 to 1940. While it originally existed at the site where Hilltop Mall sits today, the Blume House was moved to its present site in 1974 in order to make way for the mall’s construction. 

“The new immigrants who were coming to San Pablo, were now displacing the Mexicans, who had displaced the Ohlone Natives,” noted Pottier. 

San Pablo’s history started in the early 1800s when the Castro Family had a 20,000 acre land grant. Juan Baustista Alvarado, the first native born governor of California, married one of Castro’s daughters and they lived in the Alvarado Adobe, which is located a stone’s throw from the Blume House.

Many of the ranchers that would come to San Pablo were new immigrants from Germany. One such immigrant was Henry Blume, who arrived in San Francisco in 1856 from Prussia. He worked in hotels until he had a enough money to buy a piece of the Castro land grant. When he started ranching, he grew hay and grain, along with cattle and chickens at Hilltop. After his death in 1895, his wife Frederika and their five sons kept farming. Then in 1905 they had a enough money to build the luxurious Blume House which consisted of seven bedrooms, running water and a parlor.

“The house was totally empty back in 1974,” Pottier said. “So we fully furnished it with original 1900s-era furniture that would have been more than likely in the Blume House…the original wood-burning stove was the only artifact that came with Blume farmhouse back in 1974. Later a family from El Sobrante donated and returned the original round dining room table with the lions claws back to the Blume House.”

Pottier noted the Blume House also has a fully functional indoor bathroom complete with a pull chain toilet and the original bathtub. “When Frederika’s son and daughter in-law, who lived in the house with her attempted to bring a gas stove for to cook on, she wanted nothing to do with it,” Pottier said. “She preferred and continued to cook on her wooden stove.”

Next door to the Blume House is the Bunk House, which came from the original Hilltop location as well. Pottier said the Bunk House was built in 1890 and housed hired hands upstairs and farming equipment downstairs. Some of the original farming equipment is still there and even some of original blacksmith tools, she said.

By the 1930s, the Blumes no longer lived in their home. Standard Oil would acquire the land, which would become a rental property until the early 1970s.

Source: https://richmondstandard.com/community/2020/02/18/san-pablo-history-in-full-blume/