Introduction

The Greenwood Common began with the construction of a summerhouse by John Galen Howard for the prominent San Francisco attorney Warren Gregory and his wife Sadie. In 1906, following the San Francisco earthquake and fire, what had been a seasonal retreat became the Gregorys' permanent home and was extended to its present size. Their property also included a tennis court, stable, and guest house. Warren Gregory died in 1927, and a year later Sadie Gregory returned to live permanently in San Francisco. Elizabeth Ellis, Sadie’s friend occupied the house until she died in 1950.

In 1951, William Wurster, who was renting in north Berkeley, purchased an R. M. Schindler-remodeled house facing Le Roy Avenue and began negotiations with Sadie Gregory for the purchase of her open lot on Greenwood Terrace. 

Wurster graduated in Architecture from Berkeley in 1919, and while a student had become familiar with the area and became a close personal friend of the Gregory’s son, Donald. In fact, it was through the Scott’s Valley house he designed for Warren Gregory in 1926 that Wurster achieved national prominence. He had also become close friends of the senior Gregorys and later named his daughter Sadie after Mrs. Gregory.

Wurster's intent was to subdivide and develop the parcel of land and to design a house on one of the lots for his family. According to a reminiscence Wurster wrote in 1962, “The Gregorys had suggested that if I could gather a group together and present an imaginative scheme, the big lot (now the Common) would be for sale at the appraised value.” The appraisal of the Gregory property determined that the undeveloped parcel of land held considerable value but that the Gregory House, due to its current physical condition, had little financial worth. According to Wurster, following her review of the appraisal, Sadie said, “Isn’t that wonderful. We’ll give Bill the house. So they literally gave me this house, and I bought the land.”  Although he had planned to build a house on one of the Greenwood Common lots, in the end he lived in the large Gregory house and sold the Schindler house and all the lots.