• Eli T. Sheppard house
• St. John's Episcopal Church
• David Greenleaf house
• Mills Building
• Chapel of St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church
• James McGauley house
• St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church
• St. Peter's Episcopal Church
• Horatio Livermore house
• Mrs Virgil Williams-W.W. Polk house
• Abbreviations

This steep block is an architectural treasure trove. Nowhere else in the city is there such a harmonious stand of houses from what has been termed the First Bay Tradition, a west coast "Shingle style" that mixes elegance of detail with informality in materials and form--don't miss the back side for real vernacular informality. The designers' names are a roster of the turn-of-the-century group of eastern immigrants who brought forth a first flowering of regional design (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 97-98).

Bruce Porter, Polk's artist friend, ... had a hand in designing 3203 Pacific, across the street from this wedge-shaped row [3232 and 3234 Pacific]. Eli Sheppard, owner of the House of the Flag on Russian Hill, built this house as a wedding present for his daughter. When the engagement was broken, Sheppard sold the house to Bruce Porter, who in turn commissioned Willis Polk to remodel it. Polk changed the entire structure while maintaining its rustic appearance. Later Sheppard's daughter became Mrs. William Hilbert, and with the help of Bruce Porter designed her own rustic house at 3343 Pacific. Bernard Maybeck designed 3233 Pacific a few years later. This block of houses facing one another across Pacific Avenue is one of the most arresting areas in San Francisco. Most of the houses predate the 1906 fire, and thus dramatically mark the end of the eclectic Queen Anne style, dominant in San Francisco architecture until the turn of the century (Alexander and Heig 2002: 336-37).

Directly across the street from the wedge-sahped row on Pacific are three more unusually handsome shingled houses. At the corner, 3203 Pacific Avenue, is the house designed and built in 1902 by E. T. Sheppard, a retired diplomat, as a wedding present to his daughter. The engagement was broken and Sheppard sold the house to the Porters, who commissioned Willis Polk to enlarge and remodel it. Polk moved the entrance around to the Pacific Avenue side, jacked up the house and added a full story underneath--and otherwise completely remade it.

The resulting three-story house has floor-to-ceiling windows and two decks, one of them off the dining room. The front door is particularly noteworthy, with its broken pediment and urn-shaped finial over which is placed a small arched window with its own balustrade, wrought iron grill, and pediment. Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 144).

In his St. John's Episcopal Church in Petaluma (c. 1890) he created an entrance screen composed of a pair of tiny Ionic columns, set on a single one below, and above the arched entrance is a curved broken pediment (Baroque?) in the middle of which he set a Mission Revival quatrefoil window. Now all of these historic rummagings which Coxhead used were being used elsewhere in the East and Midwest, in the early work of Ralph Adams Cram in and around Boston, or in the Midwestern work of Cass Gilbert. But what separates Coxhead's work from the others is the open contradiction of these elements, a contradiction which constitues the building's basic visual statement (Beach 1988: 10).

One of the Bay Area's architectural landmarks and one of the finest of Coxhead's many Episcopal churches, this one displays his distinctive way of wrapping shingles around forms. The interior is as good as the exterior (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 252).

Coxhead, who might be called the official Episcopalian architect in the late 80s and early 90s, worked his usual magic here. The feeling is a fairy-tale church out of an imaginary English countryside. The entrance porch should be particularly noted since it is a playful interpretation of English Queen Anne decoration. One wishes that the shingles had not been painted (Gebhard, Winter and Sandweiss 1985: 374; Longstreth 1998: 422).

The interior of this house has been altered, but the entrance sequence and first floor hall are intact. It is open to the public (Gebhard, Winter and Sandweiss 1985: 315).

An even greater affinity [cf. Churchill house, c.1892] exists with the David Greenleaf house in Alameda (ca. 1892), illustrated in Sally Woodbridge, ed., Bay Area Houses (New York, 1976), pp. 30-31 (there it is incorrectly spelled Greenlease). Indeed, the two houses are identical, save for details and a few aspects of their plans. Yet no written documentation exists for the Greenleaf house either. The closest thing to proof is contained in J. Cather Newsom's Modern Homes of California (San Francisco, 1893), where he cites Coxhead as among the architects whose work is illustrated and where a photograph of the Greenleaf house is included. It is the only house in Newsom's book that could possibly have been designed by Coxhead. The Greenleaf house is also too individual a solution and bears too many of Coxhead's stylistic traits to suggest that it was designed by another architect copying the Churchill house (Longstreth 1998: 378 n.11, 379 n.15, 423)

This [spatial qualities which seem derived specifically from the stairwell spaces of some of the grander Queen Anne/Shingle Style houses of the East Coast] is clearly seen in two of Coxhead's houses from the early 1890's which are essentially expanded stairways: Coxhead's own second house in San Mateo and the Greenlease (sic) house in Alameda. The Greenlease (sic) house is a more ample version than Coxhead's own, but they are basically identical in spatial concept. Each is entered through a low enclosed space which is in fact tucked beneath a stairlanding (a frequent device of Coxhead's). From there a series of steps leads through a brightly lit, open space to a landing which is extended to become the main living space. Then the stair turns and continues its interrupted flight to the platform which defines the ceiling of the low entrance space. In Coxhead's house this landing is simply that; a landing. In the Greenlease (sic) house the platform is again expanded, into a sitting area and gallery overlooking the main space. In both cases the stair continues its journey from this second platform to the second floor (Beach 1988: 27, 30, 31).

The only surviving pre-fire skyscraper that clearly reflects the great Chicago School tradition from which it sprang; the wall composition recalls Adler and Sullivan's Auditorium Building of 1888. Damaged but structurally intact after the 1906 earthquake and fire, the building was restored and twice enlarged by Willis Polk, who headed the local D.H. Burnham & Co. office. Lewis Hobart's tower respects the original design. The arched entrance with its fine detail leads to a restrained lobby with a graceful branching stair and unusual foliated balusters (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 27).

An excellent example of Chicago School design by one of Chicago's most important firms during the heyday of the early skyscraper. Also, the earliest entirely steel frame building in San Francisco. The Mills Building was one of the tallest in the city at the time it was built and for many years afterwards. Seriously burned in the fire, it was rebuilt and enlarged in 1908 by D. H. Burnham and Co., with Willis Polk in charge. The building was extended again by Polk in 1914 and 1918. In 1931, the 22-story Mills Tower by Lewis Hobart was erected at the rear of the building in an excellent adaptation of the original design. In composition, the building is a three part vertical block with differentiated end bays. Ornamentation is Romanesque, including the very fine massive round entrance arch. Brick walls are ornamented in terra cotta, some of which has been replaced in recent years with stucco in a mutilation of the original. The base, including the arch, is clad in Inyo County white marble. Built around a large central light court, and with continuous corridors on each floor, the building represented the latest in efficient office building planning and was a model for later downtown construction. The building was built by Darius Ogden Mills, founder of the first bank in the West and later of the Bank of California. This is one of the major architectural landmarks of the city. A (Corbett 1979: 205).

The outstanding pre-fire building of the financial district is the Mills Building, 220 Montgomery Street, designed by the famous Chicago firm of Burnham & Root and erected in 1891-92. This ten-story, foursquare brick structure picks up the Richardson Romanesque style in its massive, intricately-carved, arched entrance, in the arches crowning the modified Corinthian pilasters that delineate the vertical line of the building, in the repetition of the Romanesque arches in the ninth-floor frieze, and in the squat columns between the windows of the top story. Yet the building as a whole is a powerful expression of the style that was developing in Chicago in the heyday of Burnham and Sullivan and the young Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Mills Building was built by Darius Ogden Mills, a Forty-niner who parlayed a Sacramento shop into a partnership in William C. Ralston's Bank of California, and went on to become one of the authentic financial moguls of late-nineteenth-century America.

Willis Polk supervised the reconstruction of the Mills Building after the fire of 1906, and was also in charge of the additions to the rear of the building, which he executed in the same style as the original. In 1931 the adjacent twenty-two-story Mills Tower was completed to the design of Lewis Hobart (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 79).

This small church is one of the great Shingle Style buildings in California, and it is unquestionably one of the most enticing of Coxhead's churches. The surface pattern of the shingles changes and varies, sometimes curving up and over to emphasize a window or a door, or an occasion to draw attention to dormers and windowhoods. The scale of the church is that of the perfect doll house (even though it was cut in two and extended). This is best seen on the south side of the building where the roof is brought close to the ground, and the door and window protrude into the low roof. The child-like quality of the exterior is equally realized within, where space and details are reduced to an Alice in Wonderland world. The building was moved to its present site and at that time a new entrance vestibule was added. The present composition shingle roof unfortunately destroys the continuity of surface which originally existed, for the wood shingles were carried around the curved eave line tying the walls and roof surfaces together (Gebhard, Winter and Sandweiss 1985: 460, 565).

His St. John's Episcopal Church in Monterey (1891) carries its surface pattern of straight and wavy shingles down over the roof and the eaves onto the walls, and, like the bark of a tree, right down to the ground (Beach 1988: 10, 11).

Coxhead also exhibited a new flexibility in dealing with buildings of different size. Many of his commissions from the early 1890s were for small parish churches and chapels, where he avoided the complexities of form, space, and historical allusion present in bigger work. The finest example of the modest projects is the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist near Monterey (1890-1891) (Fig. 54). Originally located on the grounds of the Del Monte Hotel, one of the West Coast's most fashionable resorts, the building was erected at the initiative of the rector of St. John's, San Francisco, as part of his drive to regain the parish's former stature. In form, the chapel is little more than a barn, and the tower and facade treatment are the principal indicators of its function. Contributing to this simplicity is the coat of shingels draped over the mass like rolled thatch. This treatment, combined with the miniature scale of the elements, introduces a sense of fantasy that is more pronounced than in most ecclesiastical designs of the period. Like Coxhead's quick sketches of English hamlets, the church is an idealized depiction of pastoral innocence--imagery quite appropriate to the carefree atmoshpere of an exclusive watering place. The interior is equally simple and consistent in its allusions, creating an effect at once straightforward and slightly unreal (Fig. 55). Here is a storybook vision of the archetypal English country church, an interpretation strikingly similar to that of the English cottage then emerging in the work of Charles Voysey.

For a history of the parish, see Rev. D. O. Kelley, History of the Diocese in California (San Francisco, 1915), pp. 343, 356, which notes that the church was built largely on the initiative of its rector, E. B. Spaulding. Spaulding subsequently commissioned Coxhead to design the chapels for two new missions: Holy Innocents in San Francisco and St. John the Evangelist, Del Monte. St. John's cost around $45,000 (Longstreth 1998: 104-05; 374 n.30).

St. John the Evangelist, 1890, dubbed "St. Roofus" by the public because of the near-enveloping shingled roof that spilled down from a massive central tower (Weinstein 2004).

Coxhead began to receive commissions for small houses in Pacific Heights at about the time of Polk's first work on Russian Hill. Coxhead's earliest designs, such as that for friend James McGauley (1891), adhere to the prevailing pattern in their use of suburban imagery. McGauley's house is, in effect, a transplanted English cottage (Longstreth 1998: 128).

The Coxheads built this English cottage for their friend, James F. McGauley, next door to their home. The house has been rmodeled by Francis McCarthy, who fortunately maintained the home's charm--a result of the use of half-timbering, leaded windows, brick work and a rippled roof (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 270).

The courtyard fountain is fed by one of the springs that nourished Cow Hollow's early dairies. The informal shingled church also reflects the area's pastoral past. Warren Perry's sympathetic remodeling shifted the entrance from Steiner to Union Street (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 80).

The Episcopal Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, 2301 Union Street, was built in 1891 to house the small Pacific Heights congregation led by the Reverend William Bolton.

The fountain in the brick-lined courtyard rises from an artesian spring, supposedly an Indian watering place with curative powers which drew people from miles around. The gurgling of the undergroud brook can still be heard near the altar. The church proper is a simple late Victorian Gothic wood structure with shingled sides; during remodeling in 1953, Warren Perry changed the entrance from Steiner to Union Street (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 19).

A delightful, characteristic Coxhead church, dollhouse in scale, sheathed in shingles and topped by a witchhat shingle tower. Minimal remodeling inside and out has not interfered with the original conception (Gebhard, Winter and Sandweiss 1985: 347, 515; Longstreth 1998: 423).

The Horace Livermore house (top) was remodeled by Willis Polk, who then built his own house (above) just behind it. Two of the four Worcester cottages (center left) complete an exclusive enclave on Vallejo Street at the top of Russian Hill, one of the most historic sites in the city (Alexander and Heig 2002: 142).

The 1906 Fire was halted along the Broadway side of Russian Hill, leaving an unobstructed view of this cluster of rustic houses. From left: the two Marshall cottages, and the Livermore house with the 1853 Atkinson house just below it. Willis Polk and Mrs. Virgil Williams had apartments in the next house on the upper ridge. Right, fronting on Taylor Street, is the Verdier mansion, which was almost complete when the earthquake struck (Alexander and Heig 2002: 110).

The third contractor to make his home on Russian Hill, David M. Morrison, built his own home on the south side of Vallejo, between Florence and Taylor. Although part of the partnership of Homer, Ranlett and Morrison, David Morrison seems to have not utilized Ranlett's expertise in the design of his modest, thirty-foot square cottage. This dwelling still exists, although not recognizable as such, having been absorbed into the Livermore Residence at 40 Florence.

Horatio G. Livermore had made his fame and fortune developing logging and electrical power (the original Folsom dam) between 1867 and 1892. His son, Horatio P. joined that business and continued with it his father's death in 1892. In 1897, the business had serious cash flow problems, draining the family financial reserves. That year, to stem the drain, Horatio P. Livermore sold his Rockridge Park estate in Oakland, and moved to 40 Florence with his second wife, Helen Ells Livermore and their children.

Livermore had purchased 40 Florence in 1889 and had engaged Willis Polk to remodel the interior in exchange for rent. Livermore had additions made in 1897-1898 and again in 1903. By 1903, when he had returned the business to profitability, he turned his attention to improving the neighborhood. That included two major projects - improving the Vallejo Street access to the Summit and replacing the small 1850's and 1860's houses between Florence and Jones Streets (Russian Hill Summit Walk: Early Residents).

After meeting local business magnate and Russian Hill property owner Horatio P. Livermore, Willis Polk moved to leased quarters in Livermore's vacant residence at 1023 Vallejo Street (now 40 Florence Street) in 1891. Polk quickly set to work remodeling the interior of the already much altered house originally built in 1854 by contractor David Morrison. Polk's remodel of the first floor soon attracted the attention of San Francisco's high society for its grace and avoidance of cheap Victorian frippery. Polk soon began to attract a social circle to events at 1023 Vallejo, including other rising architects such as Ernest Coxhead and John Galen Howard (VerPlanck 2003).

The Livermore house dates from 1865. Willis Polk remodeled it c. 1891, and The New York architect Robert A. M. Stern, who served on The Walt Disney Company Board of Directors from 1992 to 2003 and has designed many buildings for The Walt Disney Company, designed significant additions and alterations in 1990--the entrance is now on Florence (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 67).

The Horatio P. Livermore home, at 1045 Vallejo street and 40-42 Florence Street, is a grand shingled house built around 1860, and later remodeled by Willis Polk. At the height of its glory this country house on the highest nob of Russian Hill was situated on an exceptionally large lot, planted with fruit trees to provide a park-like setting.

In 1917, shortly after the death of Livermore, his widow decided to turn over the main house to the Norman Livermores and build another house on the eastern edge of the property. Julia Morgan was comissioned to design this home, perhaps the best example of her residential work in San Francisco (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 49).

A landmark of the Second Bay Region Tradition is the Polk-Williams house... Willis Polk designed it for his family, which, at the time it was built in 1892, included his father, mother, brother, and wife. The client for this double house was a painter, Mrs. Virgil Williams, whose husband had founded the California Institute of Design. Polk apparently waived the commission in exchange for the eastern frontage of the lot. The shingled facade does not divide neatly in two parts, but rather suggests a street row in a medieval village. The old saw about the house with the Queen Anne front and the Mary Ann behind fits well here. The back tumbles down the hillside, taking advantage of the slope to add layers of space. Polk's studio was on a lower rear level. The interior of the house is a remarkable sequence of vertically organized spaces (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 67-68).

Willis Polk's own home was the romantic shingled house just beyond the circle at 1013-1015-1017 Vallejo Street. It is said that when Mrs. Virgil Williams commissioned her house in 1892, Polk agreed to do the job for the eastern twenty of the sixty-foot lot. The result was two houses under one roof--the Williams house, 1019 Vallejo Street, being the larger, western portion of what appears to be a single building. Polk's house was much bigger than it appears, as the hill drops off so steeply that it is seven stories high in the rear. It would also seem that Polk got the better part of the bargain so far as the view was concerned (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 49).

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