There are a small handful of streets in Alameda that are just one block long, but none can beat Mozart Street for its beauty and historical significance. Stretching just one block between Lincoln and Santa Clara avenues, the 1500 block of Mozart is the only block of that street, and it contains about 24 homes—12 of them built by the prolific designer/builder team Marcuse & Remmel [1].
[2]A late blooming street
As historic and established as Mozart Street looks today, it was created relatively late in Alameda’s pioneer development period. An 1878 Thompson & West map shows that the large tract bordered by Railroad Avenue (today’s Lincoln Avenue), St. Charles Street, Santa Clara Avenue, and McPherson Street (today’s Ninth Street) was almost completely empty and undeveloped. Mozart and Verdi streets did not yet exist at that time, even though much development activity had been going on in Alameda for decades, and the population was at about 5,500.
This tract, along with three other large tracts spanning all the way from Lincoln Avenue to the bay were owned by German émigré and businessman, Emile Kower. Although speculation on its development had been going on since at least 1879, newspaper articles as late as 1884 were still hoping that Kower’s tracts would soon be developed, and expressed the desire that “…its sale will result in the improvement of what has long been a waste place.” (Alameda Times Star, May 17, 1884)
German immigrants in Alameda
Imelda Merlin’s excellent book, Alameda, a Geographical History, includes this quote: “Germans began coming in during the late sixties (1860s), partly in response to the annexation of Hanover to Prussia, and partly because of the growing objection to the compulsory military service at home. The first arrivals made stopovers in San Francisco. But once they discovered the groves of trees and the milder climate of the Encinal, many hastened to move to the East Bay.”
Emile Kower, a native of Stuttgart, Germany, was one of those German immigrants who played a significant role in Alameda’s development. In 1878 he appeared on a list of the “heaviest land-holders of the town” in the Alameda Daily Encinal. On that list of the 27 top landholders, Kower appeared at number 12, with real estate holdings totaling $35,775. The list reads like a Who’s Who of Alameda history, peppered with names like Alfred A. Cohen [4] (at the top position with $137,100 in real estate), E. B. Mastick, Mary A. Fitch, H. H. Haight, Mrs. J. W. Dwinelle (former wife of Alameda co-founder William W. Chipman [5]), G. G. Briggs, and Louis Fassking [6].
[7]New streets strike a chord
The May 17, 1884 announcement in the Alameda Times Star stated that “Emile Kower will sell at public auction Saturday, May 31, forty-five lots in the large tract lying west of Bay Street and between Santa Clara and Railroad avenues.” This is definitive evidence that Mozart Street, along with its sister street Verdi, were not cut through and developed until after 1884—relatively late in Alameda’s street building history. In a recent history walk article in the Alameda Post [8], Dennis Evanosky explains how the new streets got their names;
“Kower also ran a new street from the Bay shore north to his second tract across Santa Clara Avenue. He named this one Caroline Street for Carrie (Caroline Dwinelle, former wife of Alameda co-founder William W. Chipman). He then cut two streets north of Santa Clara to the Central Pacific Railroad tracks. He had named three streets, so he turned to Carrie and asked her to name three streets. She thought of her favorite composers. She named the street where she lived for Karl Maria von Weber. She remembered Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi in naming the streets north of Santa Clara Avenue.” We can thank Carrie’s love of classical music for the streets we know today as Mozart, Verdi and Weber.
Houses rise on Mozart
Now that we know the story of how Mozart Street came to be created and named in 1884, we can start to look at some of the houses built in this tract, including our subject today, 1528 Mozart Street. The oldest houses on the street are clustered near the south end of the street, probably to take advantage of the proximity of the electric streetcar line running on Santa Clara Avenue. These homes, at numbers 1515, 1518, 1519, and 1523, were built in 1885, except for 1515, which was built in 1888. Their architects and builders are unknown, except for number 1523, which is attributed to one of Alameda’s most prominent 19th century builders, Denis Straub.
Nothing more happened for a few years until Felix Marcuse and Julius Remmel started to buy lots in this tract. Between 1890 and 1891, the Marcuse & Remmel Company put up three houses here. In 1892 they put up three more houses, and by 1894 they were really hitting their stride when they put up six houses on Mozart Street, including the masterpiece that is our subject today, at number 1528. Of course, their company was also busy elsewhere during this building boom, putting up a total of about 60 houses per year through 1896.
Felix Marcuse had started out as a grocer, operating the Bay Station Grocery. Julius Remmel was a music teacher, specializing in pianoforte, organ, and flute. The late 1880s building boom proved irresistible to the men, though, and by 1890 they were partners in a successful home-building firm.
[9]A Queen Anne cottage
Despite the impressive size and presence of 1528 Mozart Street, it is described as a “Queen Anne cottage, high basement” by the late Alameda historian George Gunn, in his classic book on Alameda’s Victorian-era architecture [10]. Basements are not common in Alameda, due to the high water table, so these lower levels were built to provide the kind of storage that a basement would. Over time, most of these high basements were turned into living spaces or garages, often after raising the building a foot or more. Although there are two legal rental units on the lower level of 1528 Mozart Street today, the owner indicates that this building was never raised, and matches the height of its three neighbors to the left, all of them built in the same year by the same builders.
Gunn’s book goes on to describe 1528 Mozart Street as having been built in 1894 for a selling price of $2,800 to the original owner Mrs. Emma L. Gardner. We’ll learn a bit more about her later. Gunn also notes in his “Exterior Alternations” notes that the ornamental millwork had been removed (the book was published in 1985). Looking at the exterior of this beautiful home today, you’d never know that the richly decorated façade had ever been altered. The condition it’s in today is a testament to the time, effort, and money the current owners have poured into restoring this home since they purchased it in 2015.
[11]Up next
When our story of 1528 Mozart Street continues, we’ll meet the current owners, and then see what we can discover about past owners, going all the way back to 1894. We’ll also learn about major projects and improvements the current owners have taken on, and what they have planned next.
There is also a strange story related to this house, which made headlines in local newspapers in 1908 and 1909. Headlines reading, “Boy Refuses To Eat; Starving” and “Alameda Boy Loses His Mind” described the case of 12-year-old Benjamin Blotcky, who lived at 1528 Mozart Street with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. M. I. Blotcky. In a future installment, we’ll look into why the boy refused to eat, what happened at his sanity hearings before Judge Ogden, how he ended up committed to the asylum in Napa, and whether he ever came home to live on Mozart Street again.
Finally, there is a historic 1920s photo at the Alameda Museum that was likely taken as an advertisement for the High Street Ice Company, featuring one of their ice wagons that just happens to show in the background our subject today, 1528 Mozart Street. That historic photo acted as a model for the current owners to use when restoring the façade to its original state, but the photo also has some intriguing coincidences associated with it, which served as a premonition that the current owners would own this home one day, decades before they ever did.
All that, and more, when our story continues.
Contributing writer Steve Gorman has been a resident of Alameda since 2000, when he fell in love with the history and architecture of this unique town. Contact him via [email protected] [12]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Steve-Gorman [13].