Walking Tour: Wilson Avenue (Fresno, California)
Gilbert Jertberg Adobe (1936)
3917 North Wilson Avenue
Charles H. Franklin, Architect
Ernest J. Kump, Jr., designer
Early
California Adobe Ranch
The Jertbergs asked Ernest Kump to design a traditional Early California Adobe style house. Though this was out of character for his modernist preferences, Kump approached the commission by building the house “honestly” in the traditional method: unstabilized adobe made on the site by Hispanic craftsmen.
This house became famous in a national news photo on March 5, 1938, after floods of March 1-4 inundated the house. The lower sections of unstabilized adobe literally melted, and the house had to be substantially rebuilt.
Gilbert Jertberg was an attorney. He was appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to the federal bench in 1955, and later became the senior member of the Federal Appellate Court. Mrs. Jertberg was a music teacher in the Fresno County Schools and a member of the old Fresno Civic Symphony.
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