Ernest Albert Coxhead was born in East Sussex, England. He became an architect through apprenticeship rather than academic training.

When he was fifteen, he began working for a civil engineer who designed public projects and residential developments. After five years, he moved to London where he restored Gothic churches.

In 1886, Albert and his brother Almeric moved to Los Angeles. They established an independent practice and designed several Episcopal Churches in Southern California.

In 1890, the brothers moved to San Francisco. Their firm, Coxhead & Coxhead, built seventeen churches of which eleven are extant. Ernest designed the buildings, and Almeric managed the construction.

After the death of Coxhead's client, Episcopal Bishop William Kip, in 1893, Coxhead & Coxhead turned to residential work in San Francisco, Palo Alto, Alameda and Berkeley.

Coxhead's shingled Arts and Crafts buildings influenced Bay Area architects Bernard Maybeck, Willis Polk, A. Page Brown, John Galen Howard, Julia Morgan, Edgar Mathews, Albert Farr, Joseph Worcester, A. C. Schweinfurth, Louis Christian Mullgardt and other practitioners of the First Bay Tradition.

You can view Coxhead's buildings in chronological order here, or use a link in the following table to visit a specific property.