Anatomy of a Public Records Search:
Revealing the Quirky History of Berkeley's Tupper and Reed Building

BERKELEY -- Christin happened upon a storefront shop at 2277 Shattuck Avenue during an early morning stroll in downtown Berkeley. Lured by the store's old-fashioned scarlet awning and ornate tiling encircling the immaculate picture windows, she went inside and spoke with Wayne Anderson, the shop's owner and resident crank.

From her conversation with Anderson, whom she later dubbed "the curmudgeon at the counter," Christin discovered that Tupper and Reed had once been located next door at 2275 Shattuck before a 1955 fire gutted much of the building's interior back when it used to be the Metropol, a swanky midtown eatery.

The music shop's former residence, she learned, is the Tupper and Reed building, a quirkily charming structure that was built in 1925 and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and documented in numerous local history books.

The next day, Lauren and Simon drove to Oakland to track down property records. We first hit the County Clerk Recorder's Office but came up empty handed, so we headed across the street to the Assessor's office. We learned that Morris and Edith Malnick bought 2275 Shattuck upon its construction in 1925 and have since passed it on to their son, Warren.

Warren Malnick, who manages a number of other properties including apartment complexes in Oakland, has earned the distinction of inclusion in the Independent Media Center Housing Project's list of "The Bay Area's 45 Worst Slumlords." He reportedly rents to undocumented immigrants who he believes won't complain about the "raw sewage" that sometimes greets residents in some of his apartments.

We pulled up property assessment records on the ancient computer and found the total assessment for 2275 Shattuck to be $124,478. A present day market price on the property was unavailable.

To find out more about the history of the Tupper and Reed building, which now houses upscale Beckett's Irish Pub, the three of us headed to the downtown Berkeley Public Library on Kittredge Street, a hop and a skip from the store. Resident librarian Anna Marie Miller, who seemed to have an abundance of spare time, provided us with several books detailing the history of Berkeley's downtown. In one, a neon leaflet from a 1994 library program fluttered out. These books were begging to be read. On the third floor, gregarious woman, aptly named Pat bestowed more books upon us.

Tupper and Reed's original owners were John C. Tupper and Lawrence Reed, a gay couple from Santa Rosa who lived together on Cragmont Street. In 1925, the two storeowners decided to move their shop from its location on the corner of Shattuck and Center Streets. They commissioned Hansen, Robertson & Zumwalt of Oakland to erect the building at a cost of $31,500, according to the city's 1984 application requesting landmark status for the property.

We learned that the 2275 Shattuck building was designed by William R. Yelland, a 1913 UC Berkeley graduate famous for his work in the "storybook" or "romantic revival" school of architecture.

"In domestic architecture, it is futile, stupid, to copy or try to reproduce," Yelland said in a 1927 interview in Architect & Engineer. "Every time a man puts his hand down to cut or carve or chisel or guild a house, he must express his own self."

Yelland also designed Berkeley's idyllic Normandy Village, located on Spruce Street near Hearst Avenue.

Tupper's present day location, 2277 Shattuck, was designed by Masten and Hurd in 1925, and blends in so well with its neighbor that many people assume the two buildings are one.

Next we trekked a dozen blocks to the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, where we perused dusty binders full of newspaper clippings, property records and old street maps. Here, we glimpsed more information about Yelland, as well as about what Tupper and Reed was like during its heyday.

Its tearoom was a regular gathering place for the local world-weary, and the off-kilter fireplace in the room's center was a frequent conversation piece. Its second floor was a haven for local musicians, among them the Horace Height Orchestra, an ensemble that was a contemporary of Glenn Miller. Tupper and Reed's defining feature, however, has always been the iron silhouette of a piper that adorns the building's chimney.

-- Reported and written by Christin Ayers, Lauren Gard, and Simon Kinsella