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About Cohen-Bray House/Victorian Preservation Center of Oakland/

Location:

1440 29th Avenue, Oakland, CA 94601, US

Mission Statement

The Victorian Preservation Center of Oakland was founded to preserve the historic Cohen-Bray House. Completed in 1884, it is still decorated with the original furnishings and and contents. It is a unique study center for Victorian life in California. We are a non profit educational institution providing tours, and opportunities for study. We are a community resource for establishing and maintaining connections between the past and the present. By sharing its historical collections and grounds, locally and globally, we reach out to higher learning institutions, and historic preservationists, and allow people to find similarities and bridge differences to create vibrant healthy communities. We depend on membership, grants, donors and volunteers to survive and thrive.

Description

We are preserving a Victorian House which was completed in 1884. This Eastlake stick house has all the original Aesthetic and anglo japanese furniture, wall paper, rugs and artifacts from the Cohen Bray Family. We educate the public about the time period from 1856 to 1940. We are open once a month for public tours. We put on various events; Private teas, Holiday fundraising teas and our October harvest festival. Experience our periodic paranormal explorations. We take local school children on tours and through hands on stations in the garden. We have work parties inside twice a week and outside twice a month. We have a large garden with original plantings that need maintenance. We provide groups with community service projects. These include garden work days, maintenance projects and more.
Inside, we have many archiving projects with our extensive collections. We are working on cataloging all of the items in the house. Our goals, small to large are; working on the front yard, safety lighting and repairing and replacing the irrigation system. Inside we are reorganizing the attic space. Long term goals are board development, fundraising, identifying donors so we can accomplish the large tasks of painting the outside of the house and replacing the foundation. We are also developing DIY workshops to build sustainable funding for house improvements, provide job training for our neighbors and we are looking for instructors to help.