A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF TRYGVE RONNEBERG
(1880-1942)
Written by Terres Ronneberg on September 11, 2007
and updated on June 18, 2012
Trygve Ronneberg was born to Tørres Ronneberg
(1845-1913) and Thomine "Zilla" Thorsen Kortvold (1847-1920) on 27
September 1880 in Stavanger, Norway.
His baptism took place in the Stavanger Cathedral on 22 October
1880. Trygve was the fourth of nine
children.
He received his primary education in his native
land, Norway. Then, he attended Porsgrunn
Technical School in Norway for two years.
Thereafter, he continued his education in two German technical schools:
first he attended technical school in Ilmenau, Thuringen, Germany, then he went
to northern Germany and finished his technical schooling in Neustadt,
Mecklinburg, Germany in 1902 becoming a civil engineer specializing in
structural engineering.
Engineer Ronneberg immigrated to the United States
in 1900 aboard the ship, St. Paul, and then he traveled to Chicago to work with
his brother, Nathal Ronneberg, in the firm of D.H.Burnham Construction
Company. In 1902, Trygve returned to
Norway for a visit and to Neustadt, Germany where, I believe, he submitted his
final drawings for his technical degree.
There is a photograph, taken in 1902 in Germany, with Trygve in a large
group of people who were, perhaps, members of a fraternal organization. Also, I have the drawings that Trygve
submitted to Neustadt Technical School dated 1902.
The Hamburg Passenger List shows that Trygve
returned to New York on 16 August 1902 aboard the ship--Blucher. His passage took him from Hamburg, Germany to
Boulogne, France, to Southampton, England and finally to New York. Again, in 1905, Trygve traveled to Norway for
a visit--this time returning via Ellis Island, New York on 15 September 1905
aboard the ship Campania. He returned to
Chicago, Illinois with two hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket--quite a sum
of money in those days.
In 1907, Trygve was sent by the firm, D.H. Burnham
Construction Company ( Offices were located at 1915 Van Ness Ave., San
Francisco), and he remained with the firm until approximately 1910. He worked for the Willis Polk Company to San
Francisco to be the head supervisor of the twenty floor "Hobart
Building" located on Market Street in San Francisco. He remained with the Polk firm until
1916. It was the Willis Polk firm who
did much of the work for the 1915 Pan American Exposition in San Francisco. From 1916 to 1919, Trygve Ronneberg was the
engineer and business manager for Louis P.Hobart. Sometime around 1918 he established his own
business with his office located in the Crocker Building in San Francisco.
Trygve was the structural engineer for the following buildings in San
Francisco: the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph (a twenty-six story, 500 ft.
building, built in 1924, which was the tallest building of the time in San
Francisco, the Hobart Building, which has twenty stories, and is still
considered one of the most handsome office buildings in the world, the Union
Oil Building; the California Bank Building, the O'Connor & Moffitt
Building, the Steinhart Aquarium, part of the California Academy of Sciences in
Golden Gate Park, and the Legion of Honor Building, overlooking the Golden Gate
and presented to the city of San Francisco by Mrs. Adolph Spreckles-considered
one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. He was also the structural
engineer for the Crocker Estate and Crocker First National Bank Building, as
well as the Post Office in Portland,Oregon.
He was the assistant architect of the Army and Navy YMCA Building (on
the Embarcadero in San Francisco), and he planned the foundation and steel
frame for the reconstruction of the San Francisco Chronicle Building. Trygve also helped design the unique high
steel arch feature of the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in New York City, which
was also known as Penn Station. It is
believed that Trygve worked with Willis Polk when he designed the Willis
Polk/Sunol Water Temple in 1910.
Before leaving Chicago for San Francisco, Trygve
married Wilhelmina Emilia Anderson of Chicago on 30 January 1907. They lived at 1278 Sacramento Street in San
Francisco, California until approximately 1912 when the family moved to
Berkeley, California. Trygve had a house
built at 38 Tunnel Rd. Berkeley,which was designed by Willis Polk, the famous
architect. In 1938, Trygve and
Wilhelmina moved to their summer home in Inverness, California where he lived
until his death.
Trygve and Wilhelmina had three children, Terres
Albert (1911-1985), Janet Madeline (1914-2006) and Warren Anderson
(1917-1986). Terres was born in San
Francisco. Janet and Warren were born in
Berkeley, California.
Trygve received his Naturalization papers on 20
November 1911 from the Superior Court of San Francisco, California.
In 1920, for a third and final time, Trygve went
to Norway to visit his family. He
returned to San Francisco, California aboard the ship Mauretania on 13 March
1920, which left from Southampton, England.
A pocket
watch, owned by Warren Anderson (Skip) Ronneberg, was given to Trygve Ronneberg
by M.H. DeYoung with an engraving on the back watch cover that reads: “M.H. DeYoung in appreciation of services as
Superintendent of Construction of the Chronicle Building, 1909.” This watch is engraved with the initials “TR”
on the front cover.
Trygve died in Los Angeles, California on 3
November 1942 of pulmonary edema and a cerebral hemorrhage. He and his wife, Wilhelmina, are interred in
the mausoleum, which is located in the Sunset View Cemetery in Kensington,
California.