Estates Drive Reservoir
Oakland, California
Related Resource
Garden Excursion: Royston's Public and Private Landscapes of Northern California
References
Postwar Portfolio- Robert Royston
University of California, Berkeley College of Environmental Design Archives
About the Author
Valerie K. Garry has a M.S in historic preservation from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and is a preservation consultant in the East Bay. She is currently President of the Oakland Heritage Association.
By Valerie K. Garry
Completed in 1966, the Estates Drive Reservoir landscape feature, designed by Robert Royston, one of the most important and influential landscape architects of the 20th century, is threatened with demolition due to policy changes made by the East Bay Municipal Utilities District (EBMUD) in northern California.
EBMUD serves water to over 1.2 million customers in the eastern portion of the San Francisco Bay Area. Citing concerns over water quality and seismic safety, EBMUD intends to replace the existing open cut reservoir, which is covered by Royston’s landscape design, with a pair of 1.75 MG concrete storage tanks within the footprint of the original reservoir.
Residents of the Montclair neighborhood in Oakland, which surrounds Estates Drive Reservoir, oppose the plans and have mounted a vigorous campaign to preserve the landscape (see www.saveestatesfountains.org). They have collected hundreds of signatures to save the fountains and are also hoping that the City of Oakland will designate Royston’s unique landscape design as a local historic landmark. To that end, Joan Ruderman, a local resident who has spearheaded the effort, filed a Notice of Intent with the City of Oakland in January to landmark Estates Drive Reservoir. The Oakland Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board (LPAB) has reviewed the application and determined that it may be eligible for Landmark status. However, EBMUD, which owns the property, has asked the LPAB to take no further action which suggests that they oppose the landmark designation.
History
In the early 1960s, concerned about preserving the integrity of the district’s water supply in the East Bay, EBMUD established a stringent policy requiring all open water storage reservoirs be covered in order to prevent contaminants—everything from rats, seagulls, air-blown pollutants and Botulism—from getting into the open reservoirs. The policy was adopted in accordance with recommendations from the State Department of Public Health and the American Water Works Association.
When the local residents whose homes overlooked the reservoir learned of the plan, their reaction was swift and vehement: “Quite naturally,” a neighborhood group wrote to EMUD, “owners of property surrounding this most attractive reservoir became deeply concerned over the obvious deteriorating effect a cover on the reservoir would have to the entire area.” Hoping to placate the neighbors, EBMUD set up a series of meetings. Eventually, an informal committee of residents was formed to consult with EBMUD’s engineers and its landscape architectural firm, Royston Hanamoto Mayes and Beck, to come up with a satisfactory solution that would comply with policy yet provide an aesthetic balance to the loss of the open reservoir.
In a March 16, 1966 letter to local residents, EBMUD’s general manager, John McFarland, sought to reassure residents that Robert Royston’s design “accomplishes both the primary objectives and at the same time creates a park-like setting that will complement the lovely neighborhood in the vicinity of the reservoir.” Shortly thereafter, residents withdrew their resistance, the City of Oakland Planning Commission unanimously approved Royston’s design and construction began. Now, over forty years later, it is regarded as a beloved, peaceful and integral landscape feature of the hilly Oakland neighborhood.
Robert Royston and the Estates Drive Reservoir
A detailed profile of Royston by Reuben Rainey and JC Miller, which appears on The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s website, notes that Royston helped define and establish California Modernism in the post war period. Royston first worked with Thomas Church while in college at University of California, Berkeley’s landscape design program. Over the course of his long career, Royston garnered many professional awards including recognition as a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, The American Institute of Architects Medal, the Bradford Williams Award, and the American Society of Landscape Architectural Medal, the highest award offered by the society.
While not considered one of the most important examples of Royston’s work, the Estates Drive Reservoir nevertheless accomplished something technically innovative—a roof-top cover for an entire open-cut reservoir—while at the same time creating a decidedly un-engineered appearing, free-flowing modernist abstract design, one that could have been inspired by a Joan Miro painting. It has been described as “a composition of biomorphic ground planes juxtaposed against smaller rectilinear forms,” a characteristic of Royston’s work. The landscape feature provides an undulating visual peacefulness, suggestive of lapping water, which compensates for the loss of open water views. The vertical elements, the two fountains, seem to energize the landscape design and add sensory stimulus to it.
For local residents, however, the significance and importance of Estates Drive Reservoir is usually described in more intimate, practical and personal terms—as a peaceful place enjoyed by joggers, strollers, dog walkers, and children. It is a place where neighbors can hear the tranquil sound of the fountains when their windows are open in the summer. “It would be a tragic loss to destroy such a sanctuary and replace it with ugly, industrial water tanks,” comments Joan Ruderman, who has spearheaded efforts to preserve the Estates Drive Reservoir.
The Threat
EBMUD maintains that the Estates Fountain Reservoir is simply too large for the area it serves, that it creates operational and water quality issues, and is due for rehabilitation. The proposal is part of their Pressure Zone Improvements Project, which includes 13 planned improvements over the next 20 years for water distribution facilities in the Oakland Hills. EBMUD studies have concluded that the most cost-effective solution is to replace the Estates Drive Reservoir with smaller facilities —two concrete water storage tanks—which they consider to be the most cost-effective means of improving water quality while meeting current seismic standards. Moreover, they argue, the two fountains, are too expensive to continue to operate and maintain (averaging about $72,000 a year) and lose about a million gallons of water each year due to evaporation and wind losses—a statistic that is troubling in water-thirsty California.
Although an uphill battle for concerned residents and preservationists, local supporters of Royston’s historic designed landscape believe the import and integrity of this rare, surviving Post War design should trump the exigencies of long-range concerns over safe water quality and the destructive force of the next big earthquake. Yet neighbors and preservationists still hold out hope that a suitable compromise may be found that will allow EBMUD to meet its functional objectives without having to sacrifice Royston’s landscape design which, ironically, was created to address similar water safety issues of over 40 years ago.
In what might be described as déjà vu, EBMUD has retained the architectural firm of Royston Hanamoto Alley and Abbey—the firm Robert Royston started in 1945 when he teamed with fellow landscape architects Garrett Eckbo and Ed Williams—to come up with alternative designs that meets their functional objectives yet satisfy the aesthetic concerns of the neighbors seeking to stymie the potential loss of the Royston landscape. The firm is now soliciting ideas from the neighborhood and, at the next community meeting to be held in May 2008, they will present five alternatives representing three categories: 1) preserving the present design without alteration; 2) adapting the present design with some alteration that would retaining some existing features but removing, changing or adding others; and 3) complete alteration of Royston’s original design and replacing it with a new design.
How to Help
The community can help bring attention to this historic resource in hopes of educating EBMUD about the significance of both the design and designer.
Contacts
East Bay Municipal Utility District
Oakland Administration Center and Business Office
Write to: P.O. Box 24055, Oakland, CA 94623
Phone toll free: 1-866-40-EBMUD (1-866-403-2683)
Email: EBMUD Directors
All correspondence should be CC:ed to Lesa R. McIntosh, EBMUD President, at lmcintos@ebmud.com or at the address above.