Pictures of early Oakland neighborhoods are immensely appealing. Larger homes were set in sumptuous gardens, and even ordinary cottages are built along handsome tree-lines streets. A substantial picket fence or a low wall topped with decorative iron defined nearly every property. The more grand among them featured cast-stone pillars with wrought iron gates, like those at Preservation Park.

On the north side of 13th Street, five fine historic buildings stand in their original locations. Beginning in the 1970's, eleven compatible Oakland houses facing demolition were moved to the vacant block across the street. The earliest "move-ons" had been in the path of the nearby freeway that severed the natural street grid. The houses were arranged to suggest a late 19th century Oakland neighborhood, with typical fences, curving walks, and colorful plants, necessarily condensed on the limited site.

Preservation Park provides a forty-year window on Oakland architectural history. It was a particularly rich period in local building design, starting with the exuberant Victorian styles - Italianate, Stick and Queen Anne - followed by the classical refinements of the Colonial Revival, and concluding with the rustic simplicity of Craftsman architecture. Seven distinct styles are on view, dating from 1870 to 1911.

Who lived in these houses? Oaklanders, in all their diversity. From governor to saloonkeeper, painter to professor, their stories revel much about the city of the day. As downtown overtook the neighborhood, these homes were converted to rooming houses, accommodating a new generation of arrivals.

In 1988, reversing decades of neglect, the buildings were renovated and the facades restored. Preservation Park is now an innovative office center for nonprofit organizations and small businesses that further cultural, social, and environmental aims. Alive with new use, the houses continue to play a vital part in the city's history, as they have for a hundred years. The important work accomplished here by some 45 different tenants will be a force for progress well into the next century.

Preservation Park welcomes community use. Beyond its appeal as a destination and educational tool, may fine public spaces attract business gathering and classes, performances, festive occasions. The Nile Hall auditorium, several meeting rooms and even the grounds with bandstand and plaza are available for special events.

The Remillard Brick Company held a near monopoly on supplying bricks to the western states and Pacific Islands. In the late 19th century, it supplied material for nearly every brick building in Alameda County.

Oakland was alive with enterprise and expansion on the strength of self-made men like Pierre Remillard, from Montreal, who rose from hired hand to brickyard owner in just five years. But Pierre Remillard did not choose brick for the gracious family home. Instead, he built an ultra-modern house in the fashionable Queen Anne style that celebrates the expressiveness of wood.

Most Queen Anne houses have two parlors separated by a sliding pocket-door. The Remillards added a second pair of public rooms in a new tower wing in the 1890s. In all, twenty rooms were arranged on three floors around a central, skylit stairwell, itself a sculpture in natural oak.

Could a visit to the Remillard home have influenced Jack London's Martin Eden? A salty London, back in school at nearby Oakland High, was tutored in French by demure young Lillian Remillard.

Lillian became the Countess Dandini, but she carried on the family business into the 1960s. Unlike her father, the countess chose a house made of Remillard brick. Brick was little used for homes, but hers was a monumental residence - the 92-room chateau called The Carolands in Hillsborough. The family had left 13th Street after Pierre's death in 1904.

You can see Remillard bricks around the corner from the Remillard House in the First Unitarian Church (1890), at 14th and Castro. It is a significant work of massive Romanesque architecture. Pierre Remillard was among its founding members.