Berkeley Student Cooperative

During the 1980s, the permanent staff of the BSC was organized into a collective bargaining unit known as the Employee Association. The last contract expired on December 31, 2012. After tense negotiations, the board of directors approved a new contract in May 2013.

Casa Zimbabwe, commonly referred to as CZ, is located a block from the North Gate of the University of California, Berkeley campus. It sits on what is referred to as the "Holy Hill", the area surrounding a five-way intersection surrounded on all sides by churches and seminaries, such as the Graduate Theological Union. While every other BSC house was a pre-existing structure eventually converted into a co-op, CZ was built with the specific intent of being used as a cooperative living space. It houses 124 residents with BSC central office and central kitchen.

The Cloyne Court Hotel, often referred to simply as Cloyne, is located on the north side of the University of California, Berkeley campus. It is one of the biggest cooperative houses in the country with 140 residents. Cloyne was built in 1904, as a high-class hotel, named after Cloyne, the village in Ireland where George Berkeley was the bishop. The building is one of fifty-six buildings in Berkeley listed in the National Register of Historic Places as well as a City of Berkeley Landmark.

Andres Castro Arms, often referred to as simply Castro, houses 56 residents (known as "Castrati", "Castronauts," "Castruffles," "Castromboli," etc.) and is located about two blocks south-east of the University of California, Berkeley. It was originally designed as a mansion by architect Julia Morgan. Its most distinguishing external feature is the three-story red brick staircase leading up to the Warring entrance. The house was originally designed in the Mediterranean style by architect Julia Morgan for metallurgist Charles Washington Merrill.[16][17][18] The house was built in 1911 at a cost of $21,531 and originally featured an S-shaped driveway running up the steep hill to the house and the interior was elaborately decorated with redwood, pine and oak paneling, similar in many ways to the interior of another Julia Morgan-designed co-op, Davis House, however this was stripped when the house was converted to a sorority.

With the construction in 1923 by the University of California of Memorial Stadium and the International House in 1929 a few houses to the north, the neighborhood, once home to many exclusive and expensive mansions, turned into more of a student-oriented neighborhood dominated by sorority and fraternity houses. In 1939, Merrill sold the home to the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority. The eighty-four chapter sorority was founded in 1898 and the Upsilon Chapter at Cal was established in 1915 and initially located in a house on Euclid Avenue on the northside. The sorority attempted to make the house look more modernist by stripping the interiors of the woodwork and enclosing the front porch in glass. In 1957, the sorority constructed a wing addition to the house at a cost of $71,500. In the 1960s, the popularity of the Greek system declined significantly in Berkeley and many sorority and fraternity houses were forced to close for lack of membership. Unable to attract sufficient membership ZTA was forced to close its doors.

The USCA purchased the building in 1971, and decided to name the house in honor of long-time central kitchen cook Andres Castro, who was seriously ill at the time, but later recovered. The BSC initially opened the house as an all-male house, but after the first year in response to the need for more female housing and an overall trend in favor of co-ed housing, the house became co-ed.

Davis House is located at 2833 Bancroft Steps, which is a pedestrian pathway between the Alpha Phi sorority and Davis House, behind the International House and near California Memorial Stadium. The house can hold 36 residents and has always been co-ed. Residents of the house are known as Davisaurs. The house has been referred to as "the retirement home". This is because the house is mainly occupied by 4th years. As a result, the house is quiet most nights, compared to other coops.

The building was originally built in 1913 as the Richard Clark house, a single-family mansion, supposedly to house the son of one of the Hearst family's attorneys while he attended school at the University of California. The house was designed by architect Julia Morgan, who also designed two other current BSC houses, Wolf House and Andres Castro Arms. The beautiful interiors are described by Sara Holmes Boutelle in her book Julia Morgan: Architect: "Morgan gave free play to her love of complexity in the wood-paneled living room, dining room, and library, all of which have fireplaces with elaborate mantels. The living-room mantel is carved of oak, showing acorns, leaves, birds, and squirrels; another has classical details; brackets in the hall and on yet another fireplace, in the library, repeat the Tudor rose."[19]

With the completion of Memorial Stadium in 1923 and the International House in 1929, the neighborhood transferred from one of quiet, expensive mansions into a student-oriented neighborhood dominated by sorority and fraternity houses. At some point during this time, the house became a sorority (Alpha Xi Delta) and several additions were made to the building, including a sleeping porch with a deck above that features an expansive view of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.

With the 1960s, the popularity of the Greek system in Berkeley saw a steady decline. Many sorority and fraternity houses were forced to close for want of members, including this one. In 1969, BSC purchased the building from the sorority for use as a co-op, one of several former Greek houses it acquired during this era. The price was $75,000 (1969 dollars) and another $40,000 or so was spent on interior modifications, including changing the sleeping porch into private rooms. The house opened to residents in January 1970. It was established for juniors, seniors and graduate students, and was unique for its time in that members prepared all their own meals, including dinners, rather than obtaining them from the BSC's Central Kitchen on Northside. Like all co-ops, each member had a five-hour workshift every week, and for seven of the members, cooking dinner was the shift. They were free to select what would be served. Breakfasts and lunches were prepared individually by the residents, and at holidays such as Thanksgiving sumptuous meals would be created for which all the students wore their finest.

Three marriages resulted from the first 34 charter members.

The area has seen much change in the past year. California Memorial Stadium has been renovated to its original 1920s condition. The houses surrounding Davis house were retrofitted over the summer of 2012. During this same summer Davis house was repainted. The entire area has been restored to mid century look.

Hillegass/Parker House is a student housing cooperative in Berkeley, California. It is part of the BSC coop system.

From the 1970s until 2005, Hillegass/Parker (AKA HiP House) was the site of Le Chateau, a large undergraduate co-op for 90 residents. After Barrington Hall closed, Le Chateau became "the black sheep" of the BSC system.[20] Housing values rose in the southside neighborhood it occupied, and neighbors organized to file 20 small claims court cases at once against BSC. BSC offered to evict everybody and install new undergraduates if the neighbors would drop the suits, but they refused. BSC decided to meet the neighbors' request to convert the building into a graduate/re-entry co-op, which opened in Fall 2005.

HiP House consists of three large houses, with a large kitchen in the central Main house. Additionally, it has a large backyard which was re-landscaped during the conversion. One of the house's major perks, the swimming pool in the backyard, was cemented over in order to appease neighbors. There is also a large roof deck on top of Main house. Residents of this house are known as HiPpos.

Hoyt Hall was purchased by the USCA in 1953.[8] It is located on the Northside of the UC Berkeley campus, on a block which holds four other BSC properties. Hoyt is one of two women-only houses in BSC, and houses 60 women during the school year. During the summer, the house becomes coed.

Here is a description about the house from a Hoytian who lived there for roughly two years (Spring 2012-Summer 2013): "From hippy to preppy to everything in between, there is no dominant house culture or lifestyle here. Everyone is welcome. We have well-kept couches, an enormous TV, one of the best free piles in the co-op system, two roofs (one complete with a laundry line, the other with a view of the bay), 25-cent laundry, an in-house store with snacks and green books, a study room with cheap printing, an urban garden with herbs and strawberries and poppies, and a popcorn machine (for those of you addicted to nutritional yeast popcorn). We have a semesterly wine and cheese night, silly song and story night, weekly study halls, and fancy, delicious special dinners! But it's the people that make Hoyt. Our community provides love and support for each other and upholds a safe and empowering space. This is not just another place to stay. This is Hoyt. Welcome to our home."

Kingman Hall is located near the northeast corner of the University of California, Berkeley campus. It houses 50 residents, known as Kingmanites or Toadies. Originally, it was built in 1914, as a chapter house for the Theta Xi engineering fraternity. The house was designated a City of Berkeley Landmark in January 1999.[21]

Lothlorien, known by residents as "Loth", is the BSC's vegetarian theme house. It houses 57 residents. As such, all house-bought food is vegetarian and house bylaws prohibit the preparation, storage, or consumption of meat in common space. Because of this, many residents of Lothlorien are vegetarians and vegans, but diet is not a condition of residence and meat-eating members are quite common. All house voting is done through consensus.

The Oscar Wilde House, often referred to simply as Wilde House, is located on Warring Street, in the heart of UC Berkeley's fraternity row, and was a former fraternity house. Its residents have chosen the nickname, "wildebeests". Opened in 1999, Wilde House was one of the first gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender-themed (LGBT) student housing cooperative in the United States. It houses 38 residents. It is named after Oscar Wilde.

Wilde house was a major source of inspiration for Ant Hill Cooperative in upstate New York.

Ridge House is a converted mansion, now affiliated with the Berkeley Student cooperative. The House is co-ed and houses 38 university students (also known as 'Scorpions'). Located at 2420 Ridge Road, one block North of the UC Berkeley Campus, it is bordered to the west by the library of the Graduate Theological Union and greater "God Quad," as the neighborhood is often irreverently called. Surrounded mostly by brown-stone and slate roofed churches dating to the late 19th century, Ridge House has an expansive view of the Bay and San Francisco. Immediately adjacent to Ridge is Casa Zimbabwe. The two houses are joined at the hip by a structure added to the house in the mid 1960s, built at the time of CZ, (Casa Zimbabwe's) (then Ridge Project). The addition of this structure, which residents have affectionately dubbed the air-lock, expanded the capacity of Ridge from 28 residents to 38. Ridge House had also been modified during its conversion to a Co-op, by expanding the second floor onto what had formerly been the veranda, thereby moving the expansive deck to what is now the third floor.

The picturesque interior of Ridge House frequently serves as host to the BSC alumni association (BSCAA) as well as BSC functions and reunions.

History:

The co-op is a faux Tudor mansion built in 1906 during the Decorative Art's Movement by John Galen Howard, noted architect of Doe Library and Sather Tower. Ridge House was commissioned by the University of California Berkeley for a prospective faculty member, who ultimately turned down the offer and the estate. The land, and historic Ridge House remained in University hands for a time, during which it was the temporary private residence of the Hearst children during their undergraduate years at U.C. Berkeley. Following its use by the Hearst family, the house became a sorority house for the University. As a co-op, Ridge House, purchased by the Berkeley Student Cooperative, (formerly the University Student Cooperative Association) in 1944, was originally all-male, but was later opened to all gender identities. Although now retrofitted for the purposes of student housing, there are still four working Rumford fireplaces, exposed, half-timber redwood beams, a secret passageways and the remnants of an archaic subterranean speaker system used to pipe chamber music into various rooms of the house. The Second floor of the house has retained most of the original features of the home. This included the Ballroom, which has remained largely intact and now serves as the Dining room for the Ridgelings. The former dining room, found on the same floor was converted into an extension of the kitchen following a remodeling of this space in 1989. This reutilization included the construction of a second door to the kitchen and the concealment of the dining room fireplace behind a false wall. Changes to this floor also included the conversion of the balcony on this floor into an additional room, with the balcony elevated to the third-floor. While the library and drawing room have been both converted into living spaces, Ridge House none-the-less maintains the greatest ratio of common space to numbers of residents, per capita, of houses in the BSC. Ridge currently sits on roughly 1/2 acre of land, all that remains of the original parcel that once span from Euclid Avenue to Scenic. While the land to the east is now occupied by Casa Zimbabwe (formerly known as Ridge Project), the two houses share a common courtyard and Ridge maintains an ample garden, which services both as a respite from urban living and a way of growing fresh fruits and veggies for its members.

In 2012, Ridge House celebrated its 75-year of affiliation with the Berkeley Student Cooperative. In 2014, Ridge House was structurally retrofitted to enable it to better withstand seismic stress. The short film "Peep Show" (originally produced for Campus Moviefest by Ridgeling Kyan Krumdieck and shown at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival) was in part filmed at Ridge House.

Prominent alums of Ridge House include:

• Charles Furguson III, Oscar-winning filmmaker and documentarian.
• William Randolph Hearst Jr. (son of the prominent newspaper baron)
• Norman Mineta, former US Secretary of Transportation.

Sherman Hall houses 40 women (called Shermaids, Shermanites, or Shermanistas) and is one of the two women-only houses in BSC. Sherman is located on the South Side of Berkeley near the California Memorial Stadium and IHouse on 2250 Prospect Street. Nearby co-ops include Davis (next-door), Castro, Afro, and Loth. Many vegan or vegetarian Shermanites board at Loth (the vegetarian-themed house) in order to have both a high standard of living (Sherman is not known for its cleanliness) while simultaneously meeting their dietary needs.

Sherman was originally a sorority house, but was purchased by the BSC in the 1940s. Since then it has housed all women, except during the summer, when it is open to men as well. Sherman Hall will be undergoing a retrofit during the summer of 2012.

Stebbins Hall is located on the north side of the University of California, Berkeley campus. The University Student Cooperative Association purchased a hotel in 1950 as a site for the first all-women cooperative house, and it remained this way until 1971 when Stebbins became coed.[22] Stebbins Hall houses 64 students during the school year and 41 or more in the summer.[23] The green hands on the front of the building were painted by residents of Cloyne as a prank, when Cloyne was all men and Stebbins was all women. Residents refer to themselves as "Stebbinites," and claim the lizard as their mascot.

The African American Theme House is located close to the University of California, Berkeley, near Memorial Stadium and the International House. It is the second smallest house in the BSC and houses 21 residents (11 during summer). The house is open to all students, not just African American students. House members promote the theme by doing community service and hosting student group events. The building was originally the Slavic House for the University of California, Berkeley. BSC bought the house in 1997 and converted it to an African American themed cooperative.

The African American Theme House is one of two themed houses in BSC.

African-American Theme House members affectionately call each other "Afros" and the house "Afro House."

The Convent is located at 1601 Allston Street, about a mile from the UC Campus. Because it is located on University of California property, all residents are required to be UC students (as is also true of Cloyne Court).

Until the opening of the Hillegass/Parker House coop in 2005, The Convent was the only BSC coop housing only graduate and re-entry students, and the only coop in which all residents had single rooms. With an older resident population and a more isolated location, it has a reputation for being quieter and cleaner than other coops.

The Convent gets its name from the fact that it occupies a former convent. Its rec room is a converted chapel, and like the building, has kept the name.

Euclid is one of the smaller BSC houses, with 24 residents. The residents of Euclid Hall are affectionately referred to as Euclidians. It is named after Euclid Avenue, the main street leading north into the hills above the Berkeley campus.

Euclid Hall was originally the University of California Japanese Students' Club, built after the 1923 Berkeley fire destroyed the building which previously stood on the location. During World War II, when Japanese and Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from the west coast, the building was leased to BSC, which returned it to a JSC alumni group, the Nisei Alumni of the University of California, in 1947. The building reopened in the spring semester of 1948 as Euclid Hall, and was open to students of any background, with preference given to Nisei students without housing. In 1967, faced with declining occupancy, Euclid Hall was re-leased to BSC, which eventually purchased it in 1972.

• Euclid Hall at bsc.coop
• California Japanese American Alumni Association

Alexander Mardsen Kidd Hall houses 17 students; the smallest house in BSC. Located in a wooded neighborhood two blocks north of the UC Berkeley campus, Kidd Hall features a backyard redwood forest-niche intersected by Strawberry Creek. The house also features a basketball court and one of few wheelchair accessible rooms in BSC.

Kidd Hall has 7 double rooms and 3 highly prized single rooms after reconstruction in 1989 which converted two triple rooms into three singles and a double.

Wolf House houses 29 residents, known as wolves. The house is located one house down from Piedmont Avenue between the Wright Institute and Kappa Kappa Gamma, and two blocks from the University of California. This is part of the Southside area of Berkeley, an area dominated by sororities and fraternities.

The house was built by Julia Morgan for the Rector of St. Mark's Church, the Rev. Edward L. Parsons, in 1905 and originally situated just above Telegraph Avenue on Durant at 2532. In 1915, with the commercialization of the neighborhood, the family of Rev. Parsons decided to have the house moved up Durant Avenue to 2732, next to the corner of Piedmont. At that time the front porch was enclosed and the location of the front door changed to fit the lot, under the supervision of the architect. When Rev. Parsons became the Episcopal Bishop of California, the family moved to San Francisco. The house was first rented and then sold. The house was the location of a sorority before being bought by BSC in 1974.

In 2002, to make the building accessible to disabled residents, BSC added a ramp that ran the length of the house along Durant to the front door, bisecting the front stairs.

State Historical Resources Inventory, August 15, 1978, compiled by Sara Holmes Boutelle (author – Julia Morgan, Architect). Her sources include:

• Julia Morgan's client notations, 1905 and 1915
• Building Permit, April 8, 1905
• Correspondence with Miss Harriet T. Parsons, daughter of the Bishop

The Fenwick Weaver's Village, commonly known as Fenwick, is an apartment complex located on the Southside of the UC Berkeley campus. Fenwick houses 102 residents in one-bedroom to four-bedroom apartments.

The Northside Apartments are an apartment complex in Berkeley, California, which are part of the BSC co-op system. All the apartments are studios or one-bedroom apartments, and are highly prized in BSC. Due to BSC's seniority system for allocating apartments, most of the inhabitants of the Northside Apartments are graduate students or long-term (more than 4-year) undergrads who've been members of BSC for most of their time at Berkeley.

Unlike the other BSC houses, which are more like student-run dorms, BSC's three apartment complexes have no food service, and much lighter workshift requirements.

The Rochdale Apartments is an apartment complex in Berkeley, California, which is part of the BSC coop system. Rochdale Village was named after the English town of Rochdale, Greater Manchester, where the Rochdale Pioneers developed the Rochdale Principles of cooperation

In 1970, the City of Berkeley, the University of California, and the Berkeley Student Cooperative (BSC) entered into a visionary collaborative to expand the supply of low-cost housing for University students. The result was the financing and construction of Rochdale Village, one of the first student housing projects in the nation to receive HUD (United States Department of Housing and Urban Development) financing under the sponsorship of an independent nonprofit student housing organization.

The apartments were constructed in 1971 on the site of a former Berkeley public school, the McKinley Continuation School which closed down in the late 1960s, and except for its Haste Street Annex building (now restored, but moved to a new location), was razed.

Almost forty years later, Rochdale Village still plays a critical role in the supply of low-cost apartment housing for an ethnically and economically diverse group of UC Berkeley students. Rents are as low as $1,788 per member per semester, qualifying Rochdale Village as perhaps the most affordable student housing in the City. Almost 80% of the 259 current residents of Rochdale Village participate in the University's Educational Opportunity Program,[24] reserved for students of a low-income or educationally disadvantaged background.

Rochdale Village also serves as a lynchpin of the University's support system for disabled students. For disabled students on SSI, Rochdale Village is virtually the only affordable housing near campus. Each year BSC continues to add additional disabled accessible units to the seven that already exist at Rochdale Village.

Governed and run by UC students according to cooperative principles, Rochdale Village also serves as a community center and leadership development hub for a number of student organizations, including Hermanos Unidos and Raza.

In addition to paying off the HUD loan of more than $2 million without default, BSC has invested several million more in maintaining and improving Rochdale Village. Among these investments are "energy saving" improvements, including an extensive array of solar panels on the roof and high-efficiency furnaces and water heaters.

At the end of the Spring Semester of 2009, the ground lease between the UC Regents and the Berkeley Student Cooperative will end. The land and all of the improvements will then revert to the University. The student residents of Rochdale formed a "Save Rochdale; Save our Home" campaign in November 2009 and renewed the lease for 10 years under the same conditions.

The following facilities were once owned and/or operated by the BSC, but are now closed or otherwise defunct.

• Unnamed(?) rooming house in the Southside neighborhood (Spring 1933)[13]
• The first Barrington Hall (1933–1935)[13]
• Second Barrington Hall (1935–1943; 1950–1989)[25]
• Sheridan Hall (1934–1943)[13]
• Atherton (1937–~1942)[13]
• Oxford Hall (1938–1977), original location of Central Kitchen (CK), leased until purchase in 1963[13][8]
• The first Kingman Hall (Likely the late 1930s–1946) (same location as the first Barrington Hall)[13]
• Lexington Hall (~1942–1948), leased from the Japanese Students Club in response to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II; building later purchased and became Euclid Hall[13]
• The first Rochdale (1943–1945), a 16-woman leasehold house[13]
• House in San Francisco's Buena Vista neighborhood (~1944–1957)[13]
• Eisenfitz, Clod-haven, and Ridge Annex (1959–1960)[13]
• Le Chateau (1977–2005), converted to Hillegass-Parker House in response to lawsuit[26]