• House
• San Francisco University High School
• Four townhouses
• Robert Dollar Building
• Forest Hill Association clubhouse
• J. Harold Dollar Building
• Beach Chalet
• Matson Building
• 67 San Leandro Ave. house
• San Francisco Water Department
• Abbreviations

Julia Morgan designed the scruffy shingled home at 195 San Leandro Way (11) (1917) at the corner of Monterey (Wiley 2000: 384).

Katherine Delmar Burke School. Julia Morgan designed this building for Burke School. Generally of Spanish Revival stucco architecture, the tile-roofed school is built around a central patio (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 275).

An urbane row that continues the spirit of good taste and deference to its neighbor buildings (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 61).

In order to get the prestigious California Street address and preserve two landmark buildings that were headquarters for the Robert Dollar Steamship Lines, this office building/hotel was driven into the middle of the block and provided with shopping arcades that permit circulation through it. The top with its twin masts is a handsome addition to the skyline (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 30).

On the south side of the 300 block of California are the J. Harold Dollar Building (56) and the more elaborate Robert Dollar Building (57) by Charles McColl (1919) with maritime ornamentation befitting the headquarters of what was one of the city's largest shipping companies. Between the two Dollar buildings is the entrance to the California Center (58) by Skidmore Owings and Merril (1986). By building in the middle of the block during the contentious 1980s, SOM preserved a number of historic buildings. The twin towers have been renamed "the Roach Clip" (Wiley 2000: 170).

Originally designed in 1910 by W. S. Schmolle as a 5-story reinforced concrete structure, this building was greatly enlarged and entirely remodeled by Charles McCall in 1919 as the headquarters building of the Robert Dollar Steamship Lines. It was one of the first big buildings in the city to be constructed after World War I and was identified by the Architect and Engineer as inaugurating the boom that carried into the early 1920s. The building is a three part vertical block with Gothic references in its ornamentation. The terra cotta cladding of its predominantly steel frame includes representations of the company flag, marine life, and ship details. Despite the removal of its cornice, the building is an important element in a nearly continuous wall of older structures on California Street. The ground floor banking rooms of the Bank of Nova Scotia (Parkin Architects) and the Bank of Montreal (Hugh Stubbins and Rex Allen) were stylishly remodeled in the early 1970s B (Corbett and Hall 1979: 195).

Forest Hill is blessed with two houses by Bernard Maybeck, in addition to his 1919 Tudorish clubhouse for the Forest Hill Association at 381 Magellan Street (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 173).

Built by volunteers from the area, its lofty meeting room has a great exposed beam ceiling (Gebhard, Winter, and Sandweiss 1985: 113).

Forest Hill, like St. Francis Wood to the south, began in 1911 with formal Beaux Arts concepts. A grand stairway leads up the side of a steep hill to no particular destination, and here and there are scattered a dried-up fountain or two and a couple of colossal urns. The graceful, curving streets follow the contours of heavily wooded hills. Bernard Maybeck's rustic houses, like those in the Berkeley hills, seem at home in this setting (see page 268). Indeed, a fine neighborhood clubhouse and two hillside dwellings were his work (Alexander and Heig 2002: 390).

Bernard Maybeck designed the Forest Hill Club House (15) at 381 Magellan. It was built by volunteer labor on weekends. Set in a grove of lovely trees, the adjacent garden with its brick walkway was built in the 1960s (Wiley 2000: 385-86).

On the south side of the 300 block of California are the J. Harold Dollar Building (56) and the more elaborate Robert Dollar Building (57) by Charles McColl (1919) with maritime ornamentation befitting the headquarters of what was one of the city's largest shipping companies. Between the two Dollar buildings is the entrance to the California Center (58) by Skidmore Owings and Merril (1986). By building in the middle of the block during the contentious 1980s, SOM preserved a number of historic buildings. The twin towers have been renamed "the Roach Clip." (Wiley 2000: 170).

Built as the Balfour Building and now known as the J. Harold Dollar Building as part of the fine group of Dollar Lines buildings on this block. Designed by George Kelham with a handsome brick facade over a carved limestone base in a two part vertical composition. Ornamentation is restrained Renaissance/Baroque outside and in the vaulted ground floor elevator lobby. The dark textured brick wall makes a superb material for street facades on both California and Sansome streets. Steel frame construction B (Corbett and Hall 1979: 195).

A hipped-roof pavilion, which houses a remarkable set of WPA murals by Lucien Labaudt executed in 1936-37 illustrating recreational activities in San Francisco. Polk was also the architect for the Portals of the Past on Lloyd Lake, an Ionic colonnade that originally graced a Nob Hill mansion he designed. It burned in 1906 (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 166).

Willis Polk designed this simple, unadorned Spanish Revival structure with handmade roof tiles, which was restored in 1996. Originally built with a lounge and changing rooms for ocean bathers on the ground floor and a municipal restaurant on the second floor, it has also served as a tearoom, headquarters for coastal defense forces during World War II, and a Veterans of Foreign War bar. Funded by the WPA, Lucien Labaudt, the director of a successful school of fashion and design, painted the murals in 1935 and then supervised the mosaic work of Primo Caredio and the wood carving in magnolia on the columns and ballustrades by Michael Von Meyer (Wiley 2000: 372).

Now occupied by PG and E, the Matson was once the mainland headquarters for Hawaii's Big Five corporations. Like its neighbors, the building was designed to evoke the princely age of commerce embodied in the Renaissance palace. Nowadays these mercantile palaces recall the time when large office buildings lined the streets at uniform heights and spoke the same civilized language (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 35).

The Matson Building (7) at 245 Market, now owned by PG&E, is also the work of Bliss & Faville. From 1922 to 1947 it served as headquarters for the shipping company established by Captain William Matson that plied the waters between Hawaii and the West Coast. This building is a good example of the office building structured as a classical column with a four-story "base" with columns and an entry arcade, nine stories of "shaft," and a richly ornamented "capital" consisting of arched windows under a cornice (Wiley 2000: 158).

Part of a very fine pair with the old P. G. & E. Building (M2) which forms an important part of the now interrupted Market Street wall, and terminates a grand view down Pine Street. A steel frame structure richly clad in polychrome glazed terra cotta in a three part vertical composition. The typically superb detailing of Bliss and Faville is rarely better than in this building. Its columned ground floor with central arch and arcaded upper zone are especially fine. The rusticated texture of the shaft and the open tower of the roof recall similar features in many San Francisco buildings beginning with the Merchants Exchange. The classically derived interior at the ground level was partially remodeled with meaningless references to the first Bay Area tradition in the 1960s. The maps of Hawaii on the elevator door recall the building's first owner, Matson Shipping Lines, and the fact that most if not all of Hawaii's Big Five corporations once had their mainland headquarters here. The building is now occupied by P. G. & E. A (Corbett and Hall 1979: 78).

(Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 173).

A similar composition to the Native Sons Building, but with a more restrained use of materials and decorative detail. But observe that the ground floor drips with stony water which even runs over the keystone above the entrance arch. Inside on the north wall over the elevator is a mural by Maynard Dixon of the Sunol Water Temple built by the Spring Valley Water Company, the original clients for this building. The owner, William Bourn, was Willis Polk's patron. Polk designed his house at 2550 Webster Street and Filoli, his estate in Woodside (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 12).

A reinforced concrete office building with a stone base, originally designed for the Spring Valley Water Co. A three part vertical composition with Renaissance/Baroque ornamentation. The business office inside is decorated with murals by Maynard Dixon B (Corbett and Hall 1979: 145).

Abbreviations