1909 Concrete House

An ornate example of one of the early reinforced concrete houses built in the United States. And possibly the first one built west of the Mississippi River. It is built entirely out of poured-on -site, reinforced, concrete.

It still remains almost unchanged at 2110 Park Boulevard, in Palo Alto, California (the original address was 510 Park Boulevard in the town of Mayfield, which became incorporated into the newly formed town of Palo Alto in 1925).

This was one of the first residential houses in the tracks of land plotted out for residential buildings in Mayfield.

It was built to demonstrate that the fire and earthquake resistant features of reinforced concrete structures could be obtained without losing attractive architectural styling.

This reinforced concrete house is described as: "a free adaptation of Mission Revival devices and forms". At the time of construction it was an inventive building, both structurally and visually. Internally it used a new and unique method of reinforcing the poured on site concrete. And externally blue and yellow concrete tiles surrounded each window and formed a 3 foot tall color mosaic along the roof lines on the North and West sides.