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The Shinn House is usually open first Wednesday and third Sunday of each month from 1-4:00pm, except for holiday exceptions. Docent-led tours are available first-come-first-served or by appointment.
The Illustrated Album of Alameda County in 1893 showed the Shinn residence, associated buildings, and the surrounding orchards.
The "Big House" was completed in 1876 a year after the tankhouse was completed. The Alameda County Independent September 2, 1876 reported that "Mr Shinn is putting up a fine looking, spacious dwelling house"
1876-9-2_ACI_Improvements about here including the Shinns' Big House
The Oakland tribune reported on September 11th, "James Shinn is just completing a fine new residence on his ranch near Niles."
Lucy Shinn wrote " I am very impatient to have you come home and make a visit and see us in the new house, and take possession of your room so that it will seem to be yours. It is about in order now and I think looks quite pleasant. We have been rather slow in getting fully and entirely settled, partly because there was no immediate necessity for having all the rooms ready and partly because, the Greenhouse being ready, I was anxious to bring my plants up where I could take care of them, and it was no small undertaking to move them all. I still have Charlie's room to put in order and the carpet to put on the upper hall, and Papa's office is not yet in order and cannot be until the carpenter puts some shelves in one of those wardrobes, to contain his patent office reports, catalogues, "The Ground Swell" and other such like books. Well everyone asks me how we feel in the new house, to which I sometimes reply, just as I did in the old one, and sometimes that we enjoy it very much, and so we do. "
The 'Lamarque' rose (1830, France), budded onto 'Cherokee' stock was the rose that clambered all across the trellis in the old days. On California Revealed.
Charles Howard Shinn included this photo of the Shinn house in his article on California Rose Cottages in Vick's Illustrated Magazine, published in February 1891 in Rochester, New York, in the dead of winter for New York! He talked about roses growing year round in many regions of California.
About this rose, he said "Then, when people ask still further, what roses to plant, I have told them to begin almost any where, but that a Lamarque was good to start with, for one could plant it on a hillside with a crowbar, and it would come out ahead."
Rose Urban legend, anyone? We've heard from several people that the roses on the house were brought from Texas. When? 1856 when the Shinns arrived from Texas and lived along Alameda Creek in the little cottage? Sorry to disappoint, but these are modern roses!
The old photos of the house show La Marque roses on the tankhouse side of the house. Possibly the Lady Banks rose is seen growing on the other side of the house. But certainly not roses that hadn't even been created yet. From the Shinn's Nurseries catalog, the roses sold in 1878.
Climbing roses have festooned the porches of the Big House for a long time.
'Silver Moon' (1910) is the rose climbing the porch today.
Unidentified yellow rose, which was still blooming in December 2023. Possibly Golden Showers (~1950)
from the front porch
from the tennis court
The tankhouse garden
Washington Township News Register, Volume 10, Number 5, 28 April 1917
When did they move in? 1917? 1922 as we've seen written? Did it take a long time to finish up? Check the ledgers.
Lucy Shinn died in 1915. Florence and Joseph Shinn hired H.A. Minton to remodel their house. Some blueprints still exist.
The day room was remodeled in the Colonial Revival style.
The fireplace in the parlor was remodeled to match, with tile and a wood bookcase. The fireplace wall was destroyed after the property became a city park. A marble fireplace was installed and the book case was not added. The Shinn family has said that this room always had many books in it.
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