Bernie's Chapter · 1962–1973 and through the time of telling
A Love of Architecture, One House at a Time
told by Bernard James Guild
Bernard describes architecture as his greatest love and recounts buying, remodeling, decorating, and selling homes at increasing prices. A loan from Rick’s father helped with the first down payment at 248 Day Street. Successive homes included 333 Laurel Street, a house in Sausalito, and 373 Cumberland Street, where he still lives at the time of telling. The profits brought investments and a sense of financial independence, while the houses themselves deepened his enjoyment of architecture.
In the family's own words
My one true love above all else. I’d rather be sitting drawing up architectural plans than anything in the world. More than writing, more than cooking, and more than art directing. I have remodeled four houses of my own and six for other people. My first house at 248 Day Street cost eighteen thousand dollars in 1962. Rick’s father lent us the two thousand for the down payment. I fixed it up and put in a garden and sold it for thirty-two thousand. I parlayed the cash into 333 Laurel Street in 1965, fixed that up too, and sold it for fifty-five thousand. Sausalito came next. Bought it for sixty-nine and sold it six years later, in 1973, at the peak of an inflationary spiral for three hundred thousand. I put my profit into various investments, realized I was rich, decided I would no longer take crap from anyone at work ever again, and bought 373 Cumberland Street for a mere one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars. And here I sit today. The joy of these houses was in owning them, remodeling and decorating them, and along the way learning a lot about my dream profession: architecture. To this day I love, love, love to drive around San Francisco studying and just enjoying all the architectural details of the old houses.
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Bernie's Chapter, told by Bernard James GuildRelated stories
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