Henry Mohns was an architect and builder making a living in Alameda and San Francisco. He was born in Germany in 1845 and immigrated to the U.S. in 1866. He held many positions related to the building trade, including President of the Alameda Building and Loan Association, and member of the Alameda Improvement Association, and worked as a partner in the firm Mueke & Co. — agents of the Sven Fire Insurance Company. In the beginning, Mohns privately bought and sold property that he developed with cottages and two story houses.

In 1893 he opened an office in Alameda at Mastick Station, Henry Mohns & Co., which handled general real estate, building, renting homes, collecting rent, and issuing insurance. On February 23, 1893 the Alameda Argus noted that Mohns was “one of the best known and most esteemed citizens of Alameda, and has long been identified with the material growth and progress of our city of beautiful homes.”

That year Mohns built this home for John F. Kessing hailing from Prussia. Born in 1830, he immigrated to the U.S. as a young man of fourteen. He was married to Marie Karrenberg, also a native of Prussia, in 1858.

Kessing and his wife were in their later years when they moved into the house. Their children Annie J., Cornelia M., John F., Jr., and Alice, were adults. The youngest child was Lawrence, aged ten. Previously residing in San Francisco, the Kessing family wanted a large city-style house with wide hallways, 12-foot ceilings and larger rooms.

This lovely home on its dominant corner lot is a textbook example of the Queen Anne style — asymmetrical shape with entrance porch on the right, a veneer of rustic siding and notched shingles, ornamental spindles and brackets, and a tower. The tower begins with a rectangular base culminating in a curved second level with a witch’s cap roof.

The front of the house has an array of pattern in the dentils, decorative friezes, reeded columns at the windows, and a neo-classical swag decoration that was coming into favor in the 1890s. All of these detailed ornaments have been highlighted with a well-planned color scheme.

The eastern side of the house features a large square bay topped by an arched attic gable. Decoration abounds in the trim, window frames, and brackets. The porch is adorned with sets of classical reeded columns leading to the double door entrance. It retains its original cast iron cresting, which is mimicked in the fence around the property.