Cohen Bray House

This towering Victorian house was an 1884 wedding present for Emma Bray and Alfred H. Cohen: children from prominent business families in the grain and railroad industries. In 1863, A.H Cohen's father A.A Cohen established the San Francisco & Alameda Railroad, which was the first railroad and ferry system in Alameda County. Only six years later, A.A Cohen's railroad ventures proved very successful and Cohen became a wealthy railroad attorney for the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR). The Cohen Bray House is a symbol of A.A Cohen's success in transforming the region through railroad and ferry transportation.

For many years, the Cohen Bray family used Sausal Creek in the backyard to provide all the water for this home. The water flow in the creek was strong enough to flow up to the house’s second floor water tank without any pumping mechanism. Water was then gravity-fed through an elaborate series of pipes in the kitchen’s coal-burning stove to heat it for baths. In the 1980s, years of pollution and erosion buried the creek underground in a culvert, where it remains today. You can see the buried creek in the backyard.

After Emma Cohen passed away in 1925, the house stayed in the family until 1978, when they had it added to Oakland’s list of historic landmarks. If you’d like to look inside the house, sign up on this website for a guided tour of this remarkable glimpse into the past: https://www.cohenbrayhouse.org/about-5-1