The San Francisco call., 1913-11-29

The story of the Transformation of
a 10 acre field right in the city of
Oakland into a community of homes.
with its own park, railroad station
and civic center. is one of the busi-
ness romances of the west. This is
the story of Havenscourt.
one hundred and seventy acres
make a big piece of land. If Havens-
court were laid down in San Fran
cisco it would extend from the ferry
building to the St Francis hotel, and
from Market street to Bush street.
The reason that this big piece of
land in the heart of residential Oak
land was not developed before is be-
cause it was owned by an estate-the
Pope estate of San Francisco. This
estate would not sell it except as a
whole. and. naturally. it took fnan-
cially strong organization to buy it.
That is the reason that while Oak
land has grown up for miles beyond
Havenscourt This property up to a
little more than a year ago was sim
ply a high lying level field. Then
Wickham Havens, Incorporated, the
largest real estate concern on the
east side Of the bay. tackled the
proposition. and the transformation
has been marvellous.
Within the boundaries of Havens-
court there are q miles of streets
and sidewalks Where little more
than a year ago a herd of cattle
ranged over this fertile field. today
are broad, we'll built macadam ave-
nues. splendid concrete walks, beau
tfful homes springing up on every
hand, little parks filed with brilliant
flowers and well kept lawns.
During the year the Southern Pa
cife railway, recognizing the tremen-
dous future of this. the warmest. sun
niest part of Oakland, has pushed for
ward at top speed its new electric
line. giving the best possible express
train service to San Francisco and
the heart of Oakland. Eighty one
trains stop daily at Havenscourt sta
ton
Around the Havenscourt station of
the Southern Pacific electric line is
the civic center. where there will be
banks. theaters, restaurants. gro-
ceries. markets-all the busy life
needed to supply the wants of 10000
people who will occupy the sur
rounding district, which is entirely
restricted to residences. Havenscourt
alone is capable of supporting a popu-
lation of $500 people. being a mile
long and half mile in width.
Havenscourt is. in fact. city with
In a city, being complete within itself
and having within its borders all that
is necessary to make life worth while.
No houses can be built there that
are ugly or unSightly.
No African or oriental can live
within the boundaries of Havenscourt.
The task of transforming ITO acres
of land into city of homes is a
stupendous one. Every day in the
past months great gangs of men and
teams, with all sorts of excavating
machines, steam rollers and ditch
diggers have been at work.
Today there are four miles of the
finest oil-macadam pavements. There
are six miles of concrete sidewalks,
seven miles of sewers, and seven
miles of water mains have been COM
pleted-more than many large towns
and county seats in California can
boast.
And besides these there are other
large engineering features. A con-
crete aqueduct eight feet in diameter
and nearly q mile in length has been
constructed by Wfckham Havens at a
cost of $4,000 to carry off the storm
waters of East creek This shows
the big, comprehensive way that this
firm conducts its operations.
Through Havenscourt runs one of
the most famous automobile boule-
wards in California-the Foothill
boulevard And in order to give this
a worthy companion Havenscourt
boulevard. so feet wide and a mile
long, with trees and palms on each
side. has been constructed to connect
with East Fourteenth street.
Considering the improvements.
TRANSFORMATION, climate and location,
IL is no wonder that Havenscourt is
building up very rapidly with homes.
Fifty houses are already built or
building
Even a bungalow park of such pro-
portions as Havenscourt can not last
very long before the food of eager
buyers appears. which accounts for
the action of Wickham Havens in
placing on sale Havenscourt addition,
which has the same desirable fea-
lures as Havenscourt proper, and is
right on the Foothiil boulevard.
In accordance with their custom,
the developers of this property have
put special bargain prices on many
choice lots for the opening sale on
Sunday, which win be the climax of
The Calls free automobile trip to
Oakland
Don't miss this trip. -.--