The unusual backstory of Oakland's 60-foot-tall roadside mural

A short stretch of Highway 24 in Oakland delivers one of the finest freeway vistas in all of California. Just after you plunge out of the Caldecott Tunnel , a sweeping panorama of San Francisco Bay, Mount Tamalpais and the jagged San Francisco skyline stretches before you. Even when stuck in traffic, it's enough to make even a jaded commuter smile.

But for more than a year, something else has enhanced the view. Perched on a hillside above the freeway is a house that stands apart from the other residences crowding the wooded slope. It goes by quickly on the left, but you may catch a vibrant Oakland-themed mural on the home's backside. Parts of the mural can be difficult to make out when passing at high speed, but elements like the Bay Bridge and a trio of container cranes (resembling the real ones at the Port of Oakland in the distance) proudly welcome you to The Town.

Oakland native Sally Noma has lived in Upper Rockridge since 2016. For the first few years after she moved in, she had just another house in a scenic neighborhood that spills across the Oakland Hills between Berkeley and Piedmont . But in 2022, when she and her husband temporarily relocated to Downtown Oakland as they remodeled, she spent time exploring the murals adorning the huge walls of some of the area's commercial buildings. And it was that artwork, much of which honors Oakland, that pushed her to act on a long-held idea of adding some local love to her home.

"I had an amazing canvas that's right on the highway, and I absolutely wanted to celebrate Oakland," Noma said. "I hope that the mural will be there for many years, long after we're not in this house."

As an Oakland resident who drives this section of Highway 24 almost every day, I admire the mural each time I see it. A mural on a private home in a suburban area is an uncommon sight anywhere. But at a time when hating on Oakland is a national sport, I appreciated the unapologetic hometown pride. It's a sentiment Noma feels Oakland needs.

"We need to lift ourselves up. ... Having that pride, and trying to keep Oakland accessible for everyone, is really important," she said.

Making it happen

When I had the opportunity to meet Noma, we sat around a low counter in her sleek, modern kitchen. Outside, as fingers of afternoon clouds drifted in from the Golden Gate, rush-hour traffic crept up the freeway toward the tunnel to Orinda and beyond. It's a view I could imagine stopping to savor frequently, even if I lived with it every day.

Joining us was Andre Jahmora , the founder and executive director of the Bay Area Mural Program , the Oakland organization that designed and painted the mural. Founded in 2018, BAMP has created a number of murals around the Bay Area. It was also instrumental in creating a massive "Black Lives Matter" mural that spanned three blocks of downtown Oakland in 2020.

Noma said that after admiring BAMP's murals around the city, she knew the group was the right choice for her dream project. She first pitched the idea to Jahmora just over two years ago, fully knowing it was a rather unusual request. But she was determined to make it happen.

"It's not something a lot of people do, but it's something I wanted to do since we moved into this house," Noma said. "I just appreciate the diversity and the culture that we have [in Oakland], and I wanted to highlight that."

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But that wasn't all. She also wanted to make the freeway commuters happy, "to give them something to look at and make them smile."

After speaking with Noma, Jahmora was on board. Though the site — a private home perched on a steep hill above a busy road — would be challenging to paint, its wide exposure to both freeway commuters and other houses on the surrounding hills made it an intriguing project (Jahmora said the 60-foot-high mural is the tallest BAMP has painted). He also appreciated the wide discretion that Noma gave BAMP's team.

"It was great working with Sally because she gave us this diving board of a tribute to Oakland," Jahmora said. "But other than that, we had creative freedom, which is great when we get it, because we don't always get it."

Several BAMP muralists presented designs, with Noma ultimately selecting Zöe Boston's concept as the winner. The two then worked together to create a final version, an experience Boston described as a lot of fun.

"[Noma] wanted to be very inclusive with the design," Boston said in a phone interview with SFGATE. "She wanted to be bright and vibrant and give the essence of Oakland and that Bay Area feel. That was right in my alley. I just felt like it was very aligned."

Boston, Jahmora and another colleague got to work a few months later using the scaffolding that had already been installed by the contractor performing the home renovation project. They took about three weeks to complete the project, finishing in early June 2023. Painting high above the ground in the variable weather conditions typical of the Bay Area is all in a day's work for a muralist. But both Jahmora and Boston said they had to wrestle with a fear of heights.

"There were days when it was raining, which was actually surprisingly beautiful. If it was overcast with a sprinkling rain coming down and the cars going by, it was so relaxing and therapeutic," Boston said. "And then there were hot days that were a little less bearable."

Other things drew Boston to the project, the largest she's helmed so far. Though she wasn't born in the Bay Area, she credits Oakland with helping to shape the person she's become. She was excited by the opportunity to show her appreciation in an unconventional way.

"The thought of being able to give a marker, like a 'Welcome back to the Bay' from wherever you're coming from, just felt so right for me," she said. "And being able to paint a house is something very unique. It's technically private art, but it's in a public space. That is really cool."

Welcome home

Though officially called the " Buena Vista " mural, Boston also gave it the name "Welcome Home" — because, as Jahmora put it, "it's on a home, and it's right as you're coming into Oakland."

Dominating Welcome Home in the top right corner is a person pinching the sun as it sets behind a mountain range not too unlike the peaks in Marin County far across the bay. As they worked on the mural design, Noma and Boston agreed that they wanted to avoid using a celebrity Oaklander. The goal was not just to keep the mural timeless but also to make it accessible to everyone who sees it.

"We wanted to make sure that the figure was general enough for everyone to see themselves in this person," Boston said. "We wanted to represent the Bay Area and how eclectic it is."

It was a decision Jahmora supported.

"Is it male? Is it female? Zöe did a great job of capturing that ambiguity but still that life essence and diversity of Oakland," he said. "Are they Latino? Are they Filipino? Are they African American? Hopefully, a lot of people can see themselves."

Other elements in the mural include butterflies, a California golden poppy , the tower of the Bay Bridge's eastern span , a "Welcome to Oakland" road sign, and one of the most Oakland symbols of all: the hulking container cranes down at the port. Snaking through it all is a beam of light that starts from the figure's mouth and ends by running into the ground. As Boston described it, the beam represents "the unity and the full circle of community that resides in the Bay Area."

Noma said that once the mural was finished, she was nervous about the reaction from neighbors, but so far, it's only been positive. There was even a woman who lives across the freeway off Tunnel Road in Oakland who drove to Noma's home one day to compliment her. She's loved those effusive responses, and they've reminded her of why she wanted the mural in the first place.

"We should let [people] know that Oakland's cool," she said. "When you come through that tunnel, now you're in Oakland. We have style, and we want to be here."

In the end, though, one of the most positive reactions to the mural came from its artist. For Boston, being able to leave her mark in a place she loves, and give something back to it, are overwhelming accomplishments.

"I'm still so proud. I'm very happy with it," she said. "I can't believe I did this. I took the steps and made this happen."