Unlike so many of today’s best-selling children’s book authors, whose writing careers are launched simply by virtue of them being celebrities (lookin’ at you, Channing Tatum, Kristen Bell, Jimmy Fallon, Jim Carrey, Hilary Duff, Mario Lopez. Et tu, Madonna!), Beverly Cleary became a celebrity in the children’s book world by virtue of her writing scores of classic books.
Born on a farm in Yamhill, Oregon, in 1916, Cleary struggled with reading as a child, finding the books on offer to kids dull and unrelatable. In her memoir “My Own Two Feet,” Cleary wrote, “I wanted to read funny stories about the sort of children I knew, and I decided that someday when I grew up I would write them.” And that she did, though it wouldn’t be until 1950, when Cleary was in her mid-30s and working as a children’s librarian, that her first book, “Henry Huggins,” was published.
It proved immediately popular, generating numerous sequels and spinoffs, most notably “Beezus and Ramona,” the book that introduced what would become Cleary’s most popular fictional creation, Ramona Quimby. In 1955, the same year “Beezus and Ramona” was published, Cleary and her husband Clarance, who’d met when both were students at U.C. Berkeley, welcomed two children of their own, twins Malcolm and Marianne.
To build a new home to accommodate their expanded family, the Clearys commissioned local architect Roger Lee, who came through with a splendid California modern in the Berkeley Hills. A two-story post and beam, the 2,056-square-foot home’s upper level contains three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and an open-plan living room/dining area/kitchen, with a spacious family room, garage, and storage area found in the lower level.
Along with tongue-and-groove wood-beam ceilings, grey-stained redwood paneled walls, built-in bookshelves, desks and vanities, a brick fireplace, and formica countertops, the well-preserved home was also endowed with numerous sliding glass doors…