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Palo Alto Historic Buildings Inventory

1445 Bryant Street

inventory photo location map
Photo taken in 1978. Location map

The following is from the Historic Buildings Inventory as revised in 1985:

Physical Appearance: This large two–story shingle-style Tudor Revival house devotes an unusually extensive part of its wall area to fenestration. The original garage has been remodeled and a new garage added (1985) as an extension of the southwest frontage.

Significance: The architect was an important Bay Area designer and William R. Eckart, for whom he designed the house, is said to have built it. He was a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford whose parents came to the city in 1904 and who was on the university faculty until 1926. George F. Fry, a mining engineer, next owned the house from 1926 to I960. His successors were Edward G. and Elsie Begle (1961–1981), Begle was a professor of Education at Stanford, specializing in mathematics. Coming to Stanford from Yale, where he had established the School Mathematics Study Group in 1958, he developed the "New Math" (SMSG) approach to the teaching of mathematics in primary and secondary schools throughout the nation. When the Study Group closed down in 1972, it was estimated that ten million school children had been introduced to the "New Math" system at a cost of $10,000,000 from National Science Foundation funds.

The owner at the time of the Inventory was Lee N. Price.

This house was built in 1912 and is a Category 4 on the Historic Buildings Inventory. The architect was William Knowles and the builder likely to have been William R. Eckart. The property measures 100 by 200 feet.

 

Sources: Palo Alto City Directories; Palo Alto Times 11/6/24; interview 1985 Elsie Begle, Janet London, Mrs. L.N. Price; Plans drawn by William Knowles for the carriage house, dated June 10, 1912, survive. [1985]

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