Murphy House restored in Burlingame

Originally built on Burlingame Avenue, it was transported to a new home at 1128 Douglas Ave. to make room for more development in 1914. 

After a successful campaign to save the house and designate the front exterior a historic resource, it was then moved again in 2020 to make way for the construction of a five-story apartment complex — a detailed and delicate process, contractor William Fisher said. While that apartment complex was never built, Fisher said, the renovation of the Murphy House is now essentially complete. 

Rather than go through the expensive undertaking of raising power lines to take the two-story Murphy home to its new Oak Grove Location a half-mile away, the contracting and design team worked with a heavy mover company to fold the house into pieces. 

“We basically had to chop the house into the pieces. We had to remove the roof and fold down the upper floors of the house,” Fisher said. “We folded down all the exterior walls in the house, and cut the house right down the middle, so it could fit on a couple of trailers.” 

The transition also involved serious coordination with Caltrain, who had to delay trains for the house to cross the tracks. The actual moving occurred at around 1 a.m., Fisher said, in what was one of the most unique experiences of his career. 

“We were all stacked up, waiting for this moment. It was the middle of the night when we’re actually initially placing the house onto the lot, so it was probably a year of preparatory work for that ... couple hours worth of work,” he said. “It was certainly the best story of a house I’ve been involved in.” 

Once it was placed, the renovation inside the house began, designer Anne Poon said. 

“It’s a tricky position that we are in. We want to do something new, at the same time reflecting the history and being respectful to the neighborhood. That’s a careful, fine line we are stepping on,” she said. 

The compromise between old and new was also something with which the city of Burlingame was concerned, Fisher said, predominantly when it came to the front and exterior. Ultimately, it was important to the Planning Department that one could visually differentiate between those new and old components. 

“The city wasn’t too concerned about how it was to be used. It still needs to be a useful house. It’s not a museum,” Fisher said. “What was important is the siding. The siding is what makes it look like it looks, and that was not to be touched.” 

When it came to the interior, Poon had room for creative discretion, but was careful to use it intentionally to style a simple, natural home. There was a focus on real stone, natural materials and restoration of the original wood-burning fireplace, she said. 

“I want the house to feel natural,” Poon said. “Hopefully this is the final home, and no need to do another round of relocation.” 

The goal of the renovation was not to do a completely modern makeover — a trendy style Poon is often asked to design, she said. Instead, it’s a restoration that will bring the Murphy House into modern life. 

While it might not be the fanciest or most ornamental home, its understated elegance and the principle of historical preservation makes the project worthwhile, Fisher said. 

“The ‘worth it,’ I guess, is just saving our heritage,” he said. “This was important to the city of Burlingame. If we start tearing down all these things that meant something, what’s left?”

While the house is slated to be sold to new owners, Poon said she hoped the original ones — particularly Jessie Murphy, with her affinity for trees — would be happy with the new location, which is full of foliage. 

“I hope she would be happy to see, if she stepped off the porch, the trees are really growing nicely and maturely,” she said. “I hope she would be proud.”

The project's general contractor was Xanadu Construction, Inc. The project architect was Dreiling Terrones Architecture, Inc. The interior architect was Anne Poon.