FORGOTTEN ARCHITECT

The Independent, DECEMBER 21, 2006

Many significant early structures, from single-family homes to two-story commercial buildings, in Livermore, Sunol, and Pleasanton were designed and built by architect and contractor Julius Lars Weilbye. His parents, Lars and Ida Weilbye, were natives of Copenhagen. Lars was a seaman who came to Sail Francisco in 1847. Soon he sent for his wife. They settled on a farm in Alvarado. Lars died when Julius was only three years old; Ida left the farm and moved with her three children into Hayward. Eventually, Julius learned the carpenter and joiner trade.

From 1874 until 1877, Julius lived in Livermore. In 1874, when he was only 20, he designed and built Livermore’s IOOF Hall on First Street. In December 1875 he was working on the Hart house on L Street. He married Maude “Molly” Overacher Fuller, a widow with one son, on Christmas Day in 1876. Also in that year, he was the architect and contractor for the sum of $8,000 for the Livermore Public School, a two-story wooden structure with a cupola.

When a “taxpayer” wrote a letter to the editor complaining about the plans for the proposed school, Weilbye wrote back a lengthy defensive letter to the anonymous author, who he proposed must be “an architect out of employment for the lack of brains sufficient to design a one-story log cabin.”

The Livermore Enterprise announced in October 1876 that Weilbye had been hired by William M. Mendenhall, the founder of Livermore, to design and build a family mansion for him to the east of the Livermore Collegiate Institute on College Avenue. The cost of the mansion was $9,000. Later, the building became a part of the Livermore Sanitarium.

In 1877 Weilbye moved to Oakland and then to Nevada, where he worked at lumber planing mills for eight years while making architecture “a special study.”

When he returned to the Tri-Valley, he lived in Sunol from 1885 until 1895. During that time he designed and built a 17-room Victorian sandstone house on Kilkare Road in Sunol for Henry and Elizabeth Ellis. The stones were cut from the nearby Mehrmann quarry in Niles Canyon.

The Pleasanton Times in 1890 wrote of the project, “The building will be a grand piece of architecture, deserving of great credit, and will speak volumes for the ability of the architect and builder J.L. Weilbye, of Sunol, who has designed it and under whose supervision it will be constructed.” Today this is the home of Elliston Vineyards.

During this time Weilbye also built “many of the private residences” in Sunol as well as a hotel and the Sunol public school building—to say nothing of the Tassajara schoolhouse, the Catholic parsonage at Mission San Jose, and in Pleasanton a pharmacy for Dr. Cutler and a brick building for the Druids.

In mid-1895 Weilbye started a lumberyard across the street from the Pleasanton city hall. In 1897 he drew plans for several structures on Main Street, including one for Henry and Emma Reimers that cost $4,000, perhaps today’s Pleasanton Hotel.

In an article describing a “housewarming” for Livermore’s Sweeney Opera House, in April 1904, the Herald declared the structure a decided credit to the architect and building supervisor, J.L. Weilbye.

Later that same year he designed a two-story cottage for Carl Holm, Tilli Calhoun’s grandfather, on the Livermore-Pleasanton Road, now Stanley Boulevard. The Echo listed Weilbyc in 1905 as the owner of one of the six cars in Pleasanton, a 10-horsepower Imperial. In 1907 the Weilbye family moved to a California bungalow in Livermore on S Street that Julius designed and had built. A year later Weilby completed plans for Dr. James K. Warner’s combination home and office.

In 1909, he designed the three-story Colonial Revival style Masonic Building on the flagpole corner at First and Lizzie (now North Livermore Avenue) Streets; after viewing his plans, the Herald noted, "It will undoubtedly be the show building of the town.” Weilby in that same year designed a “large modem cottage” at North Livermore Avenue and Walnut Street for Frank Gomes. He also drew plans for a six-room cottage for John Flynn up in the Altamont hills.

After Julius’s death in 1911, Molly Weilbye left Livermore and lived with her son in Palo Alto until her death in 1916. The S Street bungalow was torn down in 1978.

Even though Weilbye designed and built so many varied early structures in the Tri-Valley and Sunol, he is largely unknown— perhaps because his stepson lived in Palo Alto, too far away to celebrate his life and keep his memory alive. No known clues to his personality exist except for his artistry and that crotchety letter to the editor.

The main sources for this article are early Livermore newspapers: the Enterprise, the Herald, and the Echo. Only a few copies of the Pleasanton newspapers have survived. If you know of anyone with copies of the Pleasanton Times squirreled away in an attic or garage, let me know'. I cannot emphasize how important those newspapers are — just one copy can reveal many interesting facts.