For many years the charming dollhouselike structure with bracketed eaves, dark brown bargeboard trim and cookie-cutter folk art-style attachments has stood on the corner of Fifth and Brush streets, sandwiched between a freeway offramp and the BART tracks. Many remember it as the home of the popular Gingerbread House and Tea Garden, owned and operated by T.J. Robinson, a Louisiana transplant who for more than 30 years served a smorgasbord of Cajun and Creole cuisine. Her biography states that she used her grandmother’s recipes as inspiration for her cooking. In the 1990s, she was named one of America’s Top Black Chefs.

Ill health forced Robinson to close her popular eatery in 2007, and she passed away in 2011. Many wondered what would happen to the quirky building, and nearly a decade would pass with no answers forthcoming.

The good news is starting this month a new business will fill the former Gingerbread House. According to news reports Angel Cakes cupcake shop is opening a retail location in the renovated space. With the help of Indiegogo crowdfunding, Jen Angel, a baker who has been using commercial kitchens in the area for the past several years to make her unique confection creations featuring fresh, local ingredients, will make a go of it. Testimonials to her creations on her website http://angelcakessf.com attest to her popularity and fan loyalty.

Checking the history files, I learned there are actually two buildings on that corner lot. The two little houses were estimated to have been built in the post-1906 earthquake era when Oakland experienced a building boom due to an influx of people leaving what was left of San Francisco. It is not easy to picture it now (with freeway and BART construction predominating), but this area along Fifth Street was at that time mostly residential.

There is another remnant from Oakland’s early past nearby.

A block or two further south on Fifth Street stands a cluster of Victorian period buildings, dating from the slightly earlier pre-1900 era. Today this cluster is known as Bret Harte Boardwalk, for the colorful Gold Rush chronicler Bret Harte (1836-1902). Files reveal that as a young man, Bret Harte once lived nearby in a home with his mother and his stepfather. Bret Harte’s stepfather happened to be Oakland’s fourth mayor.

A contemporary of fellow essayist and novelist Mark Twain, Harte is best remembered for stories and poems featuring miners, gamblers and scoundrels from the 1848-49 California gold rush. Later he would become well known nationally as an editor and literary critic.

Although Harte’s actual Oakland residence is no longer standing, the idea of developing a commercial destination named for him evidently occurred in the 1970s. The growing popularity of nearby Jack London Square may have had something to do with it. Bret Harte and Jack London did know each other, although London, born in 1876, was a generation younger than Harte. Like his predecessor, London made use of the tales and legends of another gold rush — the Klondike Gold Rush of 1893 — as inspiration for his many stories and novels.

It’s good to see fragments from Oakland’s past such as the Gingerbread House and the Bret Harte Boardwalk coming back to life. The hours open at the cupcake store vary, so check the website for days and times.