An "Insouciant Boulder" and Other Rocks of a Singular Character in the City

El Cerrito has been a rock town from the start. Decades before gambling joints and a dog track brought notoriety to this little town, natural outcrops of rock adorned its landscape and boosted its economy.

Early 20th Century photos of El Cerrito's nearly treeless hills show one feature looming gloriously, even ominously, above all others, a mountain of blueschist that could be spotted from across the bay but today can scarcely be seen at all.

Early photos also show two quarries that scarred the hillsides, the Bates & Borland Company quarry at the top of the hills, and the Hutchinson Quarry, at the bottom. A third, smaller quarry, operated further north in the hills. And a quarrying firm from Sonoma opened a sales office on San Pablo Avenue, in a remarkable, stone-faced building that still stands near City Hall.

Today, despite trees that fill our once-bare hillsides and open grazing land, and despite much dynamiting, many of El Cerrito's rocks remain.

But does anyone care?

David Welch does. A landscape architect, he bought his home near Fatapple's restaurant "because I like drama." That drama is supplied by a low-lying pile of grayish rock that's probably Northbrae rhyolite, the 11 million-year-old volcanic stone that gives the North Berkeley Hills so much of their character.

"The reason I bought the house was because of the rock," he says, adding, "I wanted something exciting and different."

Welch's is one of the city's least imposing, though one of its cutest rocks, surrounded as it is with a succulents garden of his own design. The rock started out grander. Welch points to a large chunk of it that lies a bit to the side, dismembered, he believes, by the builders of his 1940 house at 319 Carmel Ave., who wanted it gone. "They gave up," he says.

Throughout town, many folks whose yards include rocks clearly love their geological specimens, often building gardens around them. One beloved rock juts from the earth at 533 Bonnie Drive near Sunset View Cemetery. Its owners, who clearly love their rock, have ornamented it with a subtle nautical scheme.

Another lovely rock garden can be spotted at 2005 Tamalpais Avenue, not far from the rock-filled hillside at Tamalpais and Fairview Drive that abuts the Hillside Nature Area. The owner has turned these natural outcropping into a Japanese garden with a bed of pebbles and angular limbs of dwarf pine.

But, truth be told, rocks don't really need adornment to cast their spell. Some of my favorites sit contentedly by their accompanying homes, all but ignored but powerful still. They've been here for millions of years and frankly, these rocks seem to be saying, they can live without us quite well.

Consider the insouciant boulder that juts its way skyward at the corner of Balra Drive and Terrace Drive, or its cousin up the hill at 1018 Contra Costa Drive. The rock that enjoys life in front of 2712 Del Monte Ave. could not be more self-assured, nor could the pile of rock that sits beneath two homes at 2218 and 2220 Humboldt St.

Not every residential rock seems pleased with its position. The immense boulder that pours onto the street in front of 2324 Tamalpais seems caged, though it's no more cowed than a lion in the zoo.

Then there are what I call "rock houses," houses that seem absolutely as one with their stones. Probably El Cerrito's most amazing rock house at 1409 Brewster Drive was designed for the Lukes family in 1967 by El Cerrito architects Don Hardison and Richard Komatsu. The Lukes have turned their immense rhyolite peak into a delightful rock garden that towers above Madera Elementary School.

An otherwise ordinary suburban home at 2256 Mira Vista Avenue, near Jordan Avenue, takes on a very special vibe thanks to the mountain of schist that leads up to its door. Shards of schist have been incorporated into a low wall, a reminder for the rock tourist to keep an eye out for the city's many charming rock walls.

The upper reaches of Terrace, above Arlington, are also prime territory for rock spotting. In this case, the outcrops are often schist. There's a beauty at 866 Kensington Road, just off Terrace.

El Cerrito's parks offer opportunities to get up close and personal with rocks. Check out the section of Hillside Nature Area that runs just north of Moeser Lane, beneath the power lines. Climb a rock and drink in the view. Huber Park has a field of boulders above Huber Creek.

The city's two largest quarries may have lost a lot of rock in their time, but both remain spectacular.

The former Bates and Borland quarry, today the Boy Scouts' Camp Herms, has as its centerpiece one of the Bay Area's most impressive buildings of undressed stone, an immense roofless structure with touches of Mayan architecture that surrounds a long-abandoned swimming pool.

And the Hutchinson quarry at the end of Schmidt Lane past Navellier Street, today the city's Recycling Center, attracts geological tourists thanks to the quarrymen, who ripped away skin to show the rocky bones beneath the surface.

Geologist Carol S. Prentice, describing the site for a 2006 Geological Society of America field trip, called it "one of the finest exposures of a major tectonic (contact) fault found anywhere in California as well as a fine exposure of a mélange of diverse blocks in a sheared up shale."

Which leaves us with El Cerrito's top rock, a pile of blueschist that was so legendary in the years before the Gold Rush it was said to have attracted none other than the bandit Joaquin Murieta. Murieta, it is supposed, hid among the rock's gray matter, soaked up power from the heated stones, and then descended with his gang on the coaches that traversed Contra Costa Road so far below.

Today this former power spot, privately owned but much visited by the public, squats beneath brush and poison oak, smeared with graffiti and decorated with broken glass for beer bottles. Stand beneath Murieta Rock, at the corner of Arlington and Cutting boulevards, and you won't see a thing. Head north a bit on Arlington, though, and look back. Astounding!

Dave Weinstein, vice president of the El Cerrito Historical Society and chairman of the El Cerrito Trail Trekkers, gets out and about in town often, and wants you to do the same. He became fascinated with urban rocks while writing the text for "Berkeley Rocks: Building with Nature," with photos by Jonathan Chester. Contact him at davidsweinstein@yahoo.com and learn more about the Historical Society at www.elcerritowire.com/history.