Cohen-Bray House/Victorian Preservation Center of Oakland/

Description

We are preserving a Victorian House which was completed in 1884. This Eastlake stick house has all the original Aesthetic and anglo japanese furniture, wall paper, rugs and artifacts from the Cohen Bray Family. We educate the public about the time period from 1856 to 1940. We are open once a month for public tours. We put on various events; Private teas, Holiday fundraising teas and our October harvest festival. Experience our periodic paranormal explorations. We take local school children on tours and through hands on stations in the garden. We have work parties inside twice a week and outside twice a month. We have a large garden with original plantings that need maintenance. We provide groups with community service projects. These include garden work days, maintenance projects and more.
Inside, we have many archiving projects with our extensive collections. We are working on cataloging all of the items in the house. Our goals, small to large are; working on the front yard, safety lighting and repairing and replacing the irrigation system. Inside we are reorganizing the attic space. Long term goals are board development, fundraising, identifying donors so we can accomplish the large tasks of painting the outside of the house and replacing the foundation. We are also developing DIY workshops to build sustainable funding for house improvements, provide job training for our neighbors and we are looking for instructors to help.