Who was R.H. Cheda anyway?
Cheda Building, 1915
Cheda Building, 2011
The Cheda Building, across from Town Hall on the corner of San Anselmo and Tunstead Avenues, was designed by Thomas O’Connor of San Rafael and constructed in 1911 for Silvio H. and Virgilio J. B. Cheda of San Rafael. The two-story red brick building with grey trim had 22 rooms upstairs and five storefronts downstairs – one on the west side, one on the corner and three fronted the San Anselmo Depot platform.
The handsome Cheda Building was the second building on the site. The first, Hotel Rossi, catered to weekend and summer visitors who disembarked at the depot. It burned down in December 1910.
Gaudenzio Cheda originally came to Marin from Switzerland in 1851 and was a dairy farmer in West Marin. In 1878, he settled in San Rafael and purchased a feed and fuel business. After Gaudenzio’s death, his eldest sons, Silvio and Virgilio, expanded the business, opening a feed lot in San Anselmo where St. Anselmo School is now located. Silvio Cheda went on to found the prosperous Marin County Bank in San Rafael. Richard H. Cheda (Silvio’s son) and his wife, Mabel, became longtime owners of the San Anselmo building, and Richard’s name still prominently appears on the southeast corner.
The Cheda Building housed the town’s first movie theater, which opened in 1914. In the photograph shown here, admission is 5 cents to see the movie “Special Messenger.” Dentist Robert L. Taylor was a tenant on the second floor.
In 1921, the theater was remodeled and became the first theater in Marin to show films with a mercury arc lamp. It was called the Strand. Old-timers recalled that the upstairs projection room, with its big mercury arc that supplied light, was lit up for all to see. There was a little ice cream parlor downstairs. The Strand closed when the Tamalpais Theater opened on Sir Francis Drake in 1924.
Drugstores were then tenants of the Tunstead and San Anselmo Avenues corner of the Cheda Building for many years. Phelan’s Pharmacy opened in 1925 and was sold to Eddie DeLong in 1927. DeLong’s flourished for years before it was replaced by Jack’s Drug Store in 1948. Jack’s remained on the corner until it moved to Tunstead Avenue in 1962.
The San Anselmo Barber Shop, located in the Cheda Building, has been in business for over 80 years. Mel Bridges, the current owner, began working there in 1945. It’s hard to imagine how many heads of hair Mel has cut over the years!