Big House
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
from the front porch
from the tennis court
The tankhouse garden
The 'Lamarque' rose (1830, France), budded onto 'Cherokee' stock was the rose that clambered all across the trellis in the old days.
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."
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)
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? 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 been hybridized yet. From the Shinn's Nurseries catalog, the roses sold in 1878.
