{"nrhp_refnum":"72000213","name":"Cameron-Stanford House","other_names":["Old Oakland Public Museum"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1426 Lakeside Dr.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Oakland","county":"Alameda County","state":"CA","lat":37.80139729500007,"lon":-122.26206687899997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1972-06-13","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story wood-frame Italianate Victorian mansion at 1426 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, overlooking Lake Merritt. It was built in 1871 by Will W. Cameron and later served as Oakland's public museum.","why_significant":"The nomination cites the house's architecture as an elegant Italianate Victorian home and its associations with the Cameron and Stanford families. It also notes its use from 1910 to 1967 as the Oakland Public Museum, built around the collections of curator Charles P. Wilcomb. The nomination proposes a new use for the building.","narrative":"Overlooking Lake Merritt near downtown Oakland, this Italianate Victorian mansion was built in 1871 by Will W. Cameron for his bride, Alice Marsh. The wood-frame house has two stories, a basement and attic, a bracketed cornice, an ornate wraparound porch, and octagonal bays. Interior trim in the principal rooms is mahogany. The Camerons sold it in 1880 to Josiah Stanford, brother of Leland Stanford, and the house hosted social events, including a visit by President Rutherford B. Hayes. The City of Oakland bought the property in 1907 and opened it as the public museum in 1910 under curator Charles P. Wilcomb, who gathered ethnological and colonial-era collections. Architects Frederick Soderberg and John J. Donovan altered the rear spaces in 1909 and 1913 and added a lecture hall. The museum collections outgrew the building, and it closed to the public in 1967 when a new museum complex opened. Its floors were described as in bad condition.","period_of_significance":"19th Century","architect_builder":"Built by Will W. Cameron (1871); later alterations by architects Frederick Soderberg (1909) and John J. Donovan (1913)","architectural_style":"Italianate Victorian","criteria":[],"status_note":"Listed as unoccupied and in fair to deteriorated condition, with altered fabric; the museum closed to the public in January 1967. The site is owned by the City of Oakland.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:31.539639-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/72000213.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/72000213/16cd68dbfa-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/72000213/16cd68dbfa-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Sanfranman59","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cameron-Stanford_House_(Oakland,_CA).JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Sanfranman59</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cameron-Stanford_House_(Oakland,_CA).JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123858175","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camron-Stanford_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60750538"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/alameda-county/cameron-stanford-house-72000213/"}