This was the home that Alfred Henry (A.H.) Cohen's father,  Alfred Andrew (A. A.) built with the fortune he amassed after he sold the San Francisco ferries and Oakland/ Alameda railroad to the railroad tycoons  who brought the transcontinental R.R. to the West Coast. Later he became their chief attorney .

These photos are the houses that A.A. Cohen built on the Fernside property in Alameda.

The second house, built  in 1870, was a more elaborate 70-room Italianate mansion; it burned down in 1898 while they were remodeling the interiors for the wedding reception of the youngest daughter Edith. Thus many of the furnishings  were safe in storage. Some of those items and furnishings from from A.A.'s law office for the Central Pacific in S.F. can be found in the Cohen Bray House.