Please note that our website will be moving to join the College of Environmental Design's new web platform. We are working to make sure that our content follows us to our new home!
Blake Garden will be CLOSED on Monday, May 29th, 2023
Next Blake Garden tour: Thursday, June 15th, 2023 at 2pm.
This free general interest tour meets at the 70 Rincon Road pedestrian entrance and lasts approximately one hour.
To register or for more information, please contact meghanray@berkeley.edu
Next Bird Walk- Tuesday June 20th, 2023 from 8:30am to 11:30am
Please bring binoculars if you have them. Scopes are also welcome. We will meet in the parking lot (free parking) at 70 Rincon Rd., Kensington, 94707 at 9am. We will bird for approximately two and a half hours.
Please register and sign the release form on the Golden Gate Audubon Society’s
website:
https://goldengateaudubon.org/field-trips-info
Historical Images + Maps now available online
Photo: Back in the days when College of Environmental Design faculty wore suits! Meeting with Mrs. Scott in the garden.
ABOUT THE VIRTUAL BLAKE ESTATE COLLECTION:
The Blake Estate Virtual Collection, created by the College of Environmental Design Archives includes a number of historic images and maps of Blake Garden. It also includes a collection of photographs, documents, surveys and site plans, and landscape architecture students design projects documenting the gardent, and the estate's history as the private residence of Anson S. and Anita Blake and later as a teaching resource owned and managed by the University of California, Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental.
ABOUT BLAKE GARDEN:
Blake Garden lies in Kensington, CA an unincorporated residential community of approximately 5,000 persons within the jurisdiction of Contra Costa County. The garden’s main entrance is off Rincon Road, just northwest of Arlington Avenue, the primary north-south road leading from Berkeley’s Marin Circle through Kensington, El Cerrito and into Richmond.
Like many Kensington sites, the Blake property offers a spectacular panoramic view of the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. The 10.5-acre university property includes the Blake House, currently designated as the residence for the president of the University of California, and the Blake Garden, owned by the university and managed as a teaching facility by the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning (LAEP). The garden is a regional resource that is open to the public on weekdays and known for its outstanding collection of plants assembled by the Blake family between 1922 and 1962 and augmented by the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning (LAEP) since its acquisition in 1957.
This collection, created by the College of Environmental Design Archives is available online.
