• Brown-Knight Smith house
• Julian Sonntag house
• James Ferguson house
• 3100 Clay St. house
• Robert Louis Stevenson fountain
• Floyd Spreckels Mansion
• Florence Ward house
• St. Luke's Church
• Warehouse
• Former Unitarian Church
• Abbreviations

The soaring red brick Jacobean-Georgian manor house at 2600 Jackson Street reflects the generosity of Irving Murray Scott, a pioneer design engineer. Scott commissioned Ernest Coxhead to design this residence for his daughter Alice in 1895 upon her marriage to Dr. Reginald Knight Smith, and members of the same family occupy the house today.

This was one of the first houses wired exclusively for electric light in San Francisco. The style is modified seventeenth century English. A long low dormer window, and chimneys on the north and south, break the line of the steep roof. All windows are composed of small leaded panes, while a three-foot-thick brick wall with an arched entrance over the gate extends from the glassed-in portion of the living room on the Jackson Street side (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 26, 29).

Among Coxhead's best-known works of the decade was a house commissioned by Irving Scott as a wedding present for his daughter, Alice, and her fiancé, James Brown. Scott was almost as important a client for Coxhead as Bourn was for Polk. The two patrons had much in common. Scott's ancestors had been members of Maryland's landed gentry since Colonial times. Scott moved to San Francisco in 1860, where he played a central role in building the Union Iron Works into the West Coast's largest shipyard. He also served as president of the Art Association and of the Mechanics Institute, as a regent of the University of California, and as a trustee of Stanford University. Scott was seen as the epitome of the induswtrial titan and the munificent civic leader, but he was never afraid to defy convention. An avid connoisseur of art, Scott collected works by Rembrandt, Murillo, Holbein, and Hogarth, beside which he hung canvases by Virgil Williams, Jules Tavernier, Julian Rix, and other San Franciscans. He chastised fellow citizens for indifference to local painters and to American art in general. To Scott, Coxhead was more than a provider of plans, he was an artist who deserved support. The patrician and his architect became friends, and Coxhead produced some of his most imaginative work for Scott.¹⁴

Scott was a hard-nosed pragmatist as well as a sophisticated patron, and Alice, who shared her father's devotion to art, was no less demanding. At least seven preliminary schemes were developed before one was finally accepted in mid-1895.¹⁵ Initially, Alice wanted to have the design look like an English half-timber house, but after several studies this idea was abandoned when her father insisted that masonry construction be used to safeguard against fire. A series of new proposals was developed, and the house was reduced in size to compensate for the added expense of the materials. Scott then demanded that the stair hall be eliminated--a difficult stipulation, since in order to utilize the sloping site to best advantage, Coxhead's design placed the floors at levels different from the fronting street. Still later changes were made when Scott decided that his daughter's choice of exterior treatment would cost too much. Coxhead used these constraints to his advantage. The final scheme is by far the strongest and most original.

The exterior combines some of the informal, picturesque qualities of English Queen Anne with the mannered exuberance of contemporary English work (Fig. 154). A few boldly scaled elements stand out amid the placid elevations to make the house seem grand. Between rows of small, leaded windows a heavy cornice gives horizontal emphasis to an otherwise unadorned, vertical mass. A large corner bay protrudes as if it were added at the last moment, yet it also expands the perceived size of the house. On the side elevation the bay wall continues, dipping to enclose a service court where the main entrance and stair hall were originally to have been. The composition is fragmentary, offering a subtle allusion to the changes that occurred during the design's development, as if the imposing facade had been chewed away bit by bit to leave a craggy residue (Fig. 155). Coxhead indulged in similar play on the east front, which was to have been the side elevation. Here the entrance is heralded by a huge Carolean portal, whose appearance and placement are unrelated to the other elements nearby (Fig. 156). The portal is at once a centerpiece and and an afterthought, as if to expreess defiance at having been relegated to the side street. The ambiguity is furthered by having this element enframe an open vestibule, with the front door placed to one side. The configuration is borrowed directly from Shaw's 42 Netherhall Gardens, as it was at the Murdock house, but the contrast between void and elaborate surround is new.

Inside, the layout of major spaces did not change significantly during the course of development, except for the removal of the stair hall and the reduction in room size. However, these modifications were sufficient to alter the initial straightforward sequence of spaces, so Coxhead employed devices he often used in his rustic city houses--circuitous movement, abrupt changes in dark and light zones, and elements set at a small scale--to create a sense of expansiveness. The stairs rest in a barrel-vaulted tunnel enframed with heavy plaster garlands, affording a dramatic transition from the entry level to the main floor. A window floods the small landing with light near the top, where the stair then turns and spills into the living room. Here, the atmosphere is dim, restrained, and tranquil, with dignified Georgian paneling to complement the eighteenth-century furnishings. On one side, however, light pours in through two bay windows, and a great fireplace enframed by panels with carving done in the manner of Grindling Gibbons stands right in the middle (Fig. 157). The chimneypiece itself is unorthodox, with floral carving around the hearth, a carved drop placed in the middle of each panel, and a small, conventional center panel that is entirely out of scale with the rest of the ensemble. The oversized hearth, which suggests medieval precedents more than classical ones, scale to create a context quite different from that found in either historical or contemporary English work. (Longstreth 1998: 198-202).

Just east of the [George] Gibbs house, on the northwest corner of Jackson and Pierce, stands one of the most arresting dwellings in Pacific Heights. Built in 1896, it was one of the first houses to create a mood of "countrified elegance" in the city. Irving Scott, president of the Union Ironworks, commissioned Ernest Coxhead to design this house as a wedding present for his daughter, Elizabeth.

Although the term "Queen Anne" was tossed about loosely in Victorian times, this house is an example of the true English Queen Anne style of the early 18th century. Of tapestried red brick, it commands the corner with a high gabled roof and towering chimneys. On the view side, overlooking the Bay, is a huge bay window; the other windows on the street sides are smaller, grouped in pairs, with lead mullioned panes. In contrast to this rustic informality, the massive front entry, with clusters of Corinthian columns, upholds a handsome curved pediment and an elaborate carved cartouche overhead. The lack of any further embellishments on the entire façade, other than a heavy stone cornice above, further dramatizes the effect. (See page 259)

Within, handsomely paneled rooms are dimly lit by the grouped windows, creating a tranquil mood. In the living room is a huge open hearth, surrounded by panels bearing carved Grinling Gibbons garlands. The fine collection of 18th-century paintings and antiques further heightens the feeling of an ancient English country house. Here one sees the happy result of cooperation between an excellent, innovative architect and a client with good taste (Alexander and Heig 2002: 305; 307).

(Longstreth 1998: 425).

Coxhead and Coxhead were the architects for this Classic Revival house rendered rather monumentally and impressively in stucco (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 294).

(Longstreth 1998: 425).

An elaborate towered Queen Anne house in transition to the Colonial Revival style. Across the street at 3101 Clay is an apartment house with an amazing cornice (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 103).

An exuberant use of Queen Anne details and form is manifested in this large corner house (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 259).

Polk and [Bruce] Porter involved the Guild [for Arts and Crafts] in sponsoring a fountain dedicated to Robert Louis Stevenson, a project patterned after those of the Fairmount Park Association in Philadelphia (1871) and the New York Municipal Art Society (1893), organizations established to donate works of civic art to their respective cities.

The fountain was conceived by Bruce Porter upon hearing of the writer's death. Porter took the idea to Polk and shortly thereafter sculptor George Piper was brought in to collaborate on the project. In the tradition of the best commemorative work by McKim, Mead and White and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the monument gives focus to its setting without being obtrusive. It also avoids the appearance of an architectural fragment, achieving an active interplay among the pedestal, inscription, and sculpture, between the broad, low basin of water in front and the ellipse of poplar trees that enframes the ensemble. The proposed location in Portsmouth Square, amid the tawdry Latin Quarter once frequented by Stevenson, was intended to demonstrate the relatively new idea of adorning many portions of the city rather than just a few select places. Some observers felt that this would be the most artistic monument ever erected on the West Coast. Although the cost was only $2,000, to be raised through public subscription, it took more than three years to reach that goal. Many San Franciscans refused to donate unless the monument was erected in Golden Gate Park, defeating one of its primary purposes. A major portion of the funding was eventually secured from Stevenson admirers in the East. Adding insult to injury, the board of supervisors then rejected the design on aesthetic grounds. Infuriated, Polk introduced minor revisions and succeeded in gaining the board's approval. Sixteen months later, in October 1897, the monument was unveiled (Longstreth 1998: 233).

In one of the Montgomery Block's rooms, architect Willis Polk and artist Bruce Porter designed the memorial to Robert Louis Stevenson which stands today in Portsmouth Square. They first sketched the plan on a tablecloth during lunch at the Palace Hotel, and then took the tablecloth with them to Porter's studio to finish the concept (Alexander and Heig 2002: 57).

A more imposing Queen Anne-Colonial Revival house than Vogel's other work in the neighborhood, but also with literary associations: both Ambrose Bierce and Jack London stayed here. (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 131).

The Richard Spreckels Mansion (10) (1897) at 737 Buena Vista West is the work of Edward Vogel. Spreckels was a nephew of Claus Spreckels, the sugar baron. Ambrose Pierce (sic) and Jack London are said to have lived in apartments on the top floor, London while writing White Fang. The house was owned by Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young and then by Danny Glover, who performed with the San Frincisco Mime Troupe before going to Hollywood (Wiley 2000: 322).

Easily the most ornate structure in the Buena Vista Park area--markedly similar to 1901 Page Street--is the mansion at 737 Buena Vista West, built in 1897 or 1898 for Floyd Spreckels. The top floor for a time provided studios for authors Ambrose Bierce and Jack London. The house, of wood on a stone foundation, is laced all around with a garland just beneath the roof; an imposing rounded entranceway, with four composite columns, is crowned with a balustrade. The style is exuberant, freely-interpreted (fan-lighted windows, round windows with garlands below) Colonial Revival (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 130).

Houses for Florence Ward on the SW corner of Broadway and Laguna streets were demolished; the house on the adjacent Laguna Street property possibly by Coxhead (cf. California Architect and Building News, July 1898) (Longstreth 1998: 426).

Dr. Florence Ward, one of the city's first female physicians, bought the large corner lot at Laguna and Broadway and commissioned Coxhead and Coxhead to design three houses as an income venture. This redwood shingle house is the only one remaining (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 277).

Project designed by Ernest Coxhead between 1894 and approximately 1896 and built in 1898 by Albert Sutton (Longstreth 1998: 425).

Another very strong brick warehouse, dating from about 1898, is at 1265 Battery Street. Like the Merchants building, this structure is characterized by the repetition of massive arches. But the use of pilasters with Ionic capitals and other "downtown" architectural devices robs it of some of the elegant simplicity of the former building (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 65).

A notable relic of the First Bay Region Tradition originally not part of the University (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 209).

Not designed for University use, this church is a landmark in the history of Bay Area architecture. The most distinctive elements of this low, shingled structure with broad gabled roof are the large circular window on the west end and the porches on the north and south ends supported by unpeeled redwood logs (Gebhard Winter and Sandweiss 1985: 272).

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