Temple of Wings is a historic

Greco-Roman The Greco-Roman world , also Greco-Roman civilization, Greco-Roman culture or Greco-Latin culture (spelled Græco-Roman or Graeco-Roman in British English), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and co ...

style private estate located at 2800 Buena Vista Way in the

La Loma Park La Loma Park is a neighborhood and tract of land located in the Berkeley Hills section of the city of Berkeley, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. The land had been the property of Captain Richard Parks Thomas, a veteran of the America ...

neighborhood of

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

. The main structure was designed by

Bernard Maybeck Bernard Ralph Maybeck (February 7, 1862 – October 3, 1957) was an American architect. He worked primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area, designing public buildings, including the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and also private houses, ...

and completed by A. Randolph Monro. It was originally designed as an open-air private home dedicated to modern and contemporary dance. It has been listed by the city as a

Berkeley Landmark This is a list of landmarks in Berkeley, California. "Berkeley Landmarks", "Structures of Merit", and "Historic Districts" are a classification given by the City of Berkeley for buildings or areas of local historic importance. As of 2022, there ar ...

(no. 173) since January 6, 1992, and is listed in the California State Historic Resources Inventory. It is sometimes known as the Temple of Wings, the Boynton House, and the Charles C. Boynton House.

History

Temple of Wings was originally the home of attorney Charles Calvin Boynton, his wife Florence Treadwell Boynton, and their eight children. Florence Treadwell Boynton was "California's chief exponent of rhythmic gymnastics,"Wales, R. Ellis
"Allow Us to Introduce: Florence Treadwell Boynton"
''Good Housekeeping'' 52(4) (April 1911): 449-452; quote on 449. and promoted "open air motherhood," a parenting philosophy that maximized children's outdoor time. She was a childhood friend and admirer of

Isadora Duncan Angela Isadora Duncan (May 26, 1877, or May 27, 1878 – September 14, 1927) was an American-born dancer and choreographer, who was a pioneer of modern contemporary dance and performed to great acclaim throughout Europe and the United States. Bor ...

. Boynton created a home and a dance school that reflected Duncan’s philosophies. The estate was passed down for at least four generations of the Boynton family (later known as the Quitzow and Braun family), and was last sold in 1994 to the Getty family. It was originally designed and constructed as a Greco-Roman colonnaded open-air private residence by architect

in 1911. The project was completed in 1914 by Arthur Randolph Monro, and it featured hung canvas in lieu of walls. Clarence Dakin and Edna Deakin remodeled the building in 1924, after the building had caught fire the year prior. During the remodel, they added an enclosed house inside of the colonnade with two levels, and the first level had multiple rooms dedicated as dance studios. Billionaire heir and philanthropist

Gordon Getty Gordon Peter Getty (born December 20, 1933) is an American businessman and classical music composer, the fourth child of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty. His mother, Ann Rork Light, Ann Rork, was his father's fourth wife. When his father died in 1976, G ...

and his wife Ann Getty acquired the Temple of Wings property in 1994 and furnished it with antique British and American

Arts and Crafts movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...

furniture and

Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB), later known as the Pre-Raphaelites, was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, ...

paintings.

Legacy

From 1914 until 1985, an annual summer dance event was held at the estate called The Festival. In 1973, the

Regional Oral History Office The Oral History Center is part of The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. The office was founded in 1954. OHC conducts, analyzes, teaches about, and preserves oral history interviews on a wide range of topics related to the ...

at U.C. Berkeley interviewed Sulgwynn Boynton Quitzow (the daughter of Charles and Florence) and her husband Charles Quitzow about the estate. The Temple of Wings estate was also featured in the photography portfolio ''Dance for Life'' (1985) by

Margaretta Mitchell Margaretta Mitchell (née Kuhlthau, born May 27, 1935) is an American photographer and writer who lives in Berkeley, California. As a photographer, she is known for her portraits and still lifes. She has authored art criticism, biographies of women ...

. In 2023, the Getty family announced an auction of all of the estate furnishings and art; this was following the death of Ann Getty in 2020 and the first series of 10 auctions in 2022 from their Pacific Heights estate.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Houses completed in 1914 Buildings and structures in Berkeley, California Neoclassical architecture in California Greek Revival architecture in California Modern dance Contemporary dance Bernard Maybeck buildings Getty family residences Berkeley landmarks in Berkeley, California

History

Legacy

See also

References

Further reading

External links