The Cohen Family Adorned East End with Palatial Estate

Cohen-Bray House &nbsp&nbsp This portrait of A.A. Cohen hangs in Oakland’s Cohen-Bray house. A.A., the family patriarch, arrived in California by way of Jamaica, where his late grandfather had harvested coffee beans using slave labor.

The Cohen Family Adorned East End with Palatial Estate

Thursday, June 25, 2020
Eadweard Muybridge    This view, part of an Eadweard Muybridge stereoscopic pair, shows the approach to the Fernside mansion’s double porte-cochere from Versailles Avenue. The entrance to the estate was near the intersection of today’s Versailles and Buena Vista avenues.
Edgar Cohen    A. A. and Emilie Cohen’s son Edgar, who lived in the Cohen mansion as a child, photographed the house after the devastating 1897 fire. A.A. had passed away 10 years earlier. Emilie was living with Edgar and his family in their home on the site of today’s Edison Elementary School when the fire destroyed the mansion.