• Mission San Francisco de Asis (Mission Dolores)
• Presidio Gate Canons
• Union Square
• Charles Warren Stoddard house
• Cooney house
• Terraced houses
• Abner Phelps house
• Jackson Square
• Genella Building/Belli Annex
• Seawall Warehouse
• Abbreviations

Powerfully crude, stumpy columns march up and down the gable. The interior should be seen. At the rear the peaceful, timeworn cemetery with its lush vegetation blurs the harsh existence of the original mission population: 5,000 Indians were buried here. The original cemetery extended beyond what is now Dolores St. (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 138).

In 1916 architect Willis Polk carried out a restoration of Mission Dolores, so meticulous that today it is difficult to determine which details are original and which have been restored. Besides reinforcing the walls with steel girders, Polk may have added support for the heavy rafters, which are still held in place by their original rawhide thongs. The chevron decoration on the rafters may have been restored, but the confessional doors that line the wall to the left of the entrance are original, as are the three bronze bells which came from Mexico more than two hundred years ago (Alexander and Heig 2002: 23).

Polk carefully studied the techniques in which the mission Indians had been trained to build the California missions--the old ways of making roof tiles and fashioning the ancient beams. In those days, when restoration was done at all, it generally followed the whims of the restorers, who often cared little for authenticity. Polk employed a method of proper, even scientific restoration. So subtle was his work that the mission's biographers often claimed that it had never been restored at all. If he had done nothing else, Willis Polk's preservation of some of the city's most treasured landmarks deserves the highest commendation and gratitude (Alexander and Heig 2002: 338).

Appropriately, the Mission district contains San Francisco's oldest building, Mission Dolores at Sixteenth and Dolores Streets. The cornerstone of the church was laid by Father Palou in 1782, and the building completed in 1791. An excellent example of the late Baroque ecclesiastical style of Mexico, with intimations of Classical Revival, the old church building appears today much as it did at the time of its construction--when Indian neophytes laid up its adobe bricks, shaped fastenings out of tough manzanita, and lashed the redwood roof trusses together with rawhide strips.

Indian artisans, using reds made from cinnabar and yellows from ochre clays of the Peninsula, executed much of the interior decoration, including the lively ceiling. The elegant carved wood and painted canvas retablos (screens behind the altars) were imported from Mexico. The church bells, presented by Mexican Viceroy Mendoza, are dated 1792 and 1797. The church has withstood three major earthquakes, and not until 1920 was major renovation necessary. Fortunately, Willis Polk was retained to handle this job; he accomplished such things as reconstruction of the roof without finding it necessary to throw away the old trusses and tiles. Further, Polk restored architectural details which had been altered previously (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 102-04).

The history of the San Francisco Presidio only begins with the Spanish occupation of California. In 1848, the adobe Comandancia with its adjoining chapel and officers' quarters were incorporated into an American officer's club, which stands today. Two of the original Spanish cannons, cast in 1673, now guard the entrance to the club. The touchhole of one still contains fragments of the file thrust in by Captain John C. Fremont in 1846. Two others cannos from the Castillo are located elsewhere on the grounds: one, cast in 1628, stands before the Presidio Army Museum, and the other, cast in 1684, is at Fort Point. Another pair flank the Lyon Street entrance to the Presidio, while two more flank the flagpole just 400 feet from the entrance of the Officers' Club. (Alexander and Heig 2002: 17).

Union Square has been the heart of San Francisco's shopping and hotel district since well before the 1906 earthquake leveled its first commercial buildings. Laid out in 1850 during the mayoralty of John W. Geary, the informal grassy plot, then the heart of a residential district, acquired its name in the 1860s when pro-Union rallies were held there. Its civic status was further assured by the erection of the monument to Admiral Dewey's 1898 victory over the Spanish at Manila Bay. The 95-foot high column was designed in 1901 by Robert Aitken, sculptor, and Newton Tharp, architect. The monument survived both the 1906 disaster and the 1942 transformation of the square into the first-ever, under-a-park garage, designed by Timothy Pflueger in cooperation with the city park department. Built in wartime, the concrete structure was meant to double as a bomb shelter. Its covering has minimal but effective landscaping and room for people and for seasonal floral displays that contribute to the square's festiveness (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 5).

Although most of Telegraph Hill's buildings are post-1906, two clusters of houses on the eastern flank of the hill reveal what it looked like in its early period. The simple wood-frame buildings of almost miniature scale resemble the prefabs shipped from New England to this Yankee outpost. Few have escaped alterations, but they have a time-bound quality that matches their setting (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 50).

The houses at 9 Calhoun Terrace, 287-89 Union Street, and 291 Union Street all date from the late 1850's and early 1860's and are part of this early heritage of Telegraph Hill. They will be discussed more fully in the Appendix.

Now somewhat modernized, these two similar houses apparently date from the early '50's. Popular writer Charles Warren Stoddard is believed to have lived in 287, and it was in this house that Stoddard gave Robert Louis Stevenson a copy of his South Sea Idylls, thereby inspiring Stevenson's interest in that area (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 63; 302).

Although most of Telegraph Hill's buildings are post-1906, two clusters of houses on the eastern flank of the hill reveal what it looked like in its early period. The simple wood-frame buildings of almost miniature scale resemble the prefabs shipped from New England to this Yankee outpost. Few have escaped alterations, but they have a time-bound quality that matches their setting (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 50).

Some of San Francisco's oldest houses, like the Cooney house at 291 Union Street, are in the four or five hilltop blocks that escaped destruction in 1906. Several cottages with high-peaked Gothic Revival roofs and gingerbread fretwork under the eaves show their 1850s origins. Others have been remodeled and modernized during their 140 years of occupancy, but the careful observer can still identify them by their shape and their proximity to other old houses (Alexander and Heig 2002: 89).

The ... group is beautifully sited to step down the hill. All are deceptively simple early Wurster (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 72).

Set far back from the street, almost hidden from view, the house at 765 Bay Street is reputed to date from the year before the gold discovery at Sutter's Mill. Originally a simple vertical board-and-batten house, it was moved twice (presumably during the decade of the 1850's), winding up on its present site enlarged and remodeled with a front and decorative details sent out from Salem, Massachusetts. In the 1930's, the present owner extensively remodeled the interior consistent with the old architecture. The charm of this interesting antique was heightened by the skillful landscaping of Thomas Church, who planned the garden around existing old fruit trees (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 44-45).

The Abner Phelps house was long thought to have been prefabricated and shipped from New Orleans, but in the course of restoration it was found to be of local construction. Originally a farmhouse and probably built from a carpenter's plan book, it was moved more than once, ending up in the middle of this block, where for years it was invisible from the street. Now turned to face Oak Street and given a front yard, the house can be appreciated for its early Gothic Revival style, unique in the city (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 128).

The oldest residence in San Francisco may be the Abner Phelps House at 329 Divisadero Street. As with all very early San Francisco houses, the date of construction cannot be positively ascertained; it is generally believed to date from about 1850 (though some say 1860). The earliest published account of the history of the house states that it was "built in 1850 by John Middleton & Sons, one of the first real estate concerns in this city; and constructed of lumber framed into sections brought around the Horn from Maine, there being no sawmills here at the time."

However, a direct descendant of Abner Phelps declared in 1961 that the house had been purchased in New Orleans in 1850 and shipped around the Horn in sections to ease the homesickness of Phelps' bride, the former Augusta Roussell of New Orleans. This latter explanation seems more reasonable as the house is raised on a high foundation, in the manner of southern river-front cottages of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and has the two-story facade veranda often seen in Louisiana at that time.

It is certain that Phelps, who had been a colonel in the Mexican War, lived in the house with his family around 1851, and it is possible that John Middleton put the house together when it arrived. Phelps chose as a setting a 160-acre plot at the foot of Buena Vista Hill, a part of which is now the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park. Phelps traveled from here to his law office on Montgomery Street through Hayes Valley. Divisadero Street was then a cow path to pastures in the Mission district.

The house has been moved twice: first, from its site facing east on the western side of Divisadero to a much smaller lot farther west, then to its present location, facing south. Despite the Divisadero Street address, the house is actually situated in the middle of the square block and today can be glimpsed only from Oak Street (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 125-6).

The city's first official Historic District and the only group of downtown business buildings to survive the 1906 earthquake and fire. Except for the elaborate, prefabricated cast-iron and cast-stone facades of the Hotaling buildings, which housed a wholesale liquor business, the buildings are relatively simple; the sharp change in scale from the adjacent financial district buildings heightens the 19th-century character of the historic district (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 46).

The city's first officially designated Historic District [Jackson Square], this is the only group of downtown business buildings to survive the 1906 earthquake and fire. Restored as a center for furniture and fabric showrooms, it has successfully (with a few exceptions) withstood new building pressures, even serving as the nucleus and inspiration for the now quite widespread practice of restoring old brick loft buildings for modern shop and office space (Gebhard, Winter and Sandweiss 1985: 62).

San Francisco is richer for having one historic district of around three blocks, which escaped the 1906 devastation and the developers as well. Known today as Jackson Square, this district is centered around Jackson Street and extends to the north side of Washington and the south side of Pacific. Montgomery and Sansome Streets are the western and eastern boundaries. Thanks to the efforts of Percy Stidger, manager of the old Montgomery Block, and tenants of the Block, this area was rescued from the flames of 1906. Spared were the pioneer brick structures fronting Washington and Jackson Streets, including Jim Flood's old Auction Lunch Saloon on Washington, and one of the fancy boarding houses run by Mammy Pleasant in the 1850s. For years the notorious Barbary Coast on Pacific Street kept developers away, even after World War II, when the Barbary Coast faded into memory. As a result this little area, built over the landfills of the 1850s, might be compared to a fly in amber.

Built in the decade between 1854 and 1864, the buildings in Jackson Square show a natural cohesiveness. They somehow survived the earthquake of 1868, which put an end to brick construction in most of San Francisco; all these structures are of brick, with here and there a fling at granite rustication on the lower floors. Most are in the Italianate style, or what was then known as the "English RomanStyle." The windows and doors are extremely tall and narrow, and are usually crowned with pediments (Alexander and Heig 2002: 367-69).

In the bohemian restaurant run by Poppa Coppa in the basement of the Montgomery Block, these young men [Willis Polk, Bruce Porter] and a score of other local artists met to toast the great city which all believed would soon arise from the ruins left by the 1906 disaster. Many of these same men, led by Percy Stidger, the Block's manager, had helped to save the Montgomery Block from the dynamiters, and to protect those historic structures lining Jackson and Pacific Streets, many of which were later restored to become today's Jackson Square (Alexander and Heig 2002: 57).

Like most of the crest of the hill, the old warehouse district at the foot of Telegraph Hill escaped the flames of 1906. In the 1850's and '60's this small area had been one of the most desirable dock and warehouse locations on the waterfront, for here was good, solid land close to deep water. Hence the big warehouses associated with Lombard Dock, Greenwich Dock, and India Dock were almost alongside the famous clipper ships that called here.

Only one of the famous brick warehouses of this period still stands in more or less pristine condition--the North Point Dock Warehouse (later, and currently, known as the Seawall warehouse) at 1501 Sansome Street. It was built around 1853, and soon became the favorite berth for such famous clipper ships as the giant Great Republic.

The Seawall Warehouse, with its broad arched doorways and windows (and original iron fire shutters), is a particularly handsome example of heavy commercial architecture. In over a century of active use, the great weights placed on the foundation have caused the building to sag a bit here and there, but it would be good for another hundred years were it not scheduled to become a victim of redevelopment (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 65).

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