The Kelsey Ranch

On a once rural site now bordered by Russell Street, College Avenue, and Stuart Street, the Kelsey family planted orchards and grew ornamental plants on land they purchased in 1860. The 24-acre Kelsey Ranch supplied trees and plants for the grounds of the new University of California campus as well as the elms which later gave the Elmwood neighborhood its name.<br><br> The land was subdivided after John Kelsey’s death in 1880 and new streets, including Cherry, Kelsey, and Hazel (now a part of Piedmont Avenue) were laid out. The construction of a streetcar line on College Avenue in 1903, and Berkeley’s rapid growth following the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, spurred Kelsey Tract development. In 1906 a cluster of brown shingle houses on Palm Court was connected with a public path and stairway to what is now Avalon Court, where a private water company had built a reservoir on the hilltop.<br><br> By the 1920s the neighborhood was largely developed. Some out-buildings and portions of structures from the original ranch were reused as parts of small homes. Larger and grander new homes were designed by prominent architects.