The Ladies Protection and Relief Society commissioned the architect to design the Heritage Retirement Community at 3400 Laguna Street as a residential facility for older women. The Tudoresque facility is made of reinforced concrete with red-brick facing and salmon terra-cotta trim.

The YWCA Residence Hall on Powell Street recalls a Tuscan villa and adjoins the Chinese YWCA, also by Morgan. Crenellation (with special tiles imported from China) and three towers with wooden spires give interest to the roofline.

A third YWCA commision was the Japanese YWCA (now the Western Addition YWCA). The rooflines, the stone wall and gates surmounted by iron lanterns, and the cutout screen over the auditorium stage, all suggest Japan.

A sixth project was the combination residence, workshop and exhibition space designed for the Swiss artisan, Jules Suppo, who collaborated with the architect on the Hearst Castle at San Simion. A classical frieze featuring the shields of Switzerland and of Suppo's canton runs under the cornice. The whole building is a Crafts gem, an affectionate tribute to a fine artisan.

Morgan remodeled two Victorian houses on Divisadero Street to serve as her own residence, converting one into a kind of Italian villa, which served her as a rental property.

The architect's last surviving work in the City were the alterations she effected on the San Francisco Hearst building, which entailed the addition of a spacious marble lobby and a decorative façade.

• Heritage Retirement Community (formerly, Ladies Protection and Relief Society)
• Jules Suppo house and studio
• Julia Morgan houses
• Native Daughters of the Golden West building
• Mrs. Henry Marcus penthouse apartment
• Selfridge house
• YWCA Residence Hall
• Chinese Community Center (formerly, Chinese YWCA)
• Western Addition YWCA (formerly, Japanese YWCA)
• San Francisco Hearst Building: alterations

Julia Morgan designed a number of buildings for benevolent organizations; they are notable for their logical plans and quiet dignity. The Heritage organization, originally a refuge for homeless Gold Rush children, has an L-plan with a pleasant and protected south-facing garden court (Woodridge and Woodridge 1992: 43).

In 1924-25 Morgan designed another important service institution, this time in the English style, on land that had once been part of the Panama-Pacific Exposition. The Ladies Protection and Relief Society (established in 1853) had acquired the land at Laguna and Bay streets as a gift in 1922. The society had originally helped homeless women and cared for orphans, but by the 1920s foster homes had replaced orphanages, and the group was ready to assume new responsibilities. They soon realized that the kind of protection and relief most needed by ladies in modern San Francisco was attractive housing and permanent care for the elderly. Morgan was commissioned to design a residential facility for older women; the plans for a building to cost $50,000 were approved in 1924, and the board met in the new building in March 1925.

The Heritage, as it is now called, is made of reinforced concrete with red-brick facing and salmon terra-cotta trim. (Note 9: Walter Steilberg, Morgan's engineer on the Heritage and on the Berkeley Baptist Divinity School of 1918, said that she had wanted terra-cotta trim on the latter, but her clients had preferred stone ornamentation. Morgan's love of color was not inconsistent with the English Free Style as revived in the early part of the century, notably by the Arts and Crafts architect Halsey Ricardo in England and Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow.) The elevation reveals the interior plan by two large bays of seven windows, which mark the principal public rooms. The original plan, which covered a large city block, was for a long rectangle under one roof. A richly planted formal garden around a fountain was a major part of the project, with a gardener's cottage to one side. Much of the garden was absorbed by an insensitive addition to the original building made by Warren Perry in 1958. The gardener's cottage was upgraded to superintendent's home and finally became an apartment connected with the institution.

The concrete of the interior is unfurred and cast in forms suggesting a Tudor arch, with squared pillars. Oriental carpets on the tile floors and screens, paintings, and antique furniture fit the manorial atmosphere, as does the cast stonework of the main fireplace, with its wide arch and quatrefoils in four square panels. A small chapel, a library, a health-care wing, and a beauty shop (all in the original plan) add to the quality of life in this retirement community, now home to more than a hundred residents, both men and women. The enthusiasm of the residents and the long waiting list testify to a carefully conceived and executed environment for the aged that has rarely been equaled (Boutelle 1988: 120-21, 259).

The moral fervor relating to nature extended to near fanaticism about health. Raising vegetables at home, maintaining a vegetarian diet, drinking coffee substitutes, taking ice-cold showers, sleeping in the open air (hence the need for "sleeping porches"), and pursuing fitness through jogging, swimming, hiking, and dress reform-all became part of the crusade. Julia Morgan knew the Maybecks and other members of the Hillside Club and shared many of their aesthetic ideas, if not the related moral commitments (she was reported by her wood-carver Jules Suppo to prefer lamb chops for dinner and to drink coffee morning and night).

Morgan was the only prominent member of the group of architects interested in the Crafts movement who was born in California; the others all arrived as adults: Mullgardt from Saint Louis, Maybeck from New York, Ernest Coxhead from England, Polk from Kansas City, and the Greene brothers from Ohio. Her own deep response to nature and to the local environment reinforced her interest in the Crafts principles of building simply and in harmony with the site. While she was in Paris, from 1896 to 1902, she had a subscription to The Architect magazine and also had access to British architectural periodicals, which must have familiarized her with what Morris's followers were doing. At the same time, her interest in medieval guilds, the Italian hill towns, and Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc's medievalism was as important a part of her education as the rational theory of the Beaux-Arts course. Thus, she was not unprepared for building in the Crafts tradition, although her engineering background and classical training made her aware how difficult it was to achieve a "simple" building (Boutelle 1988: 10).

Morgan designed quite a different kind of structure in 1925 for one of her favorite workmen, Swiss wood-carver Jules Suppo. Suppo refused to leave San Francisco and his family for commissions at San Simeon and Wyntoo9n, so Morgan arranged for him to do the work in the city and ship it to the sites. She designed a two-story house for him on Polk Street, with the ground floor serving as shop and workroom; the apartments above (later enlarged by a penthouse) were entered by a separate door. The two doorways gave Suppo an opportunity to flaunt his wood-carving skills. The door to the shop shows consummate skill in combining a frank advertisement at the bottom with densely carved figures inhabiting the sea, the forests, and the skies, the whole surmounted by an ornamental presentation of Suppo's name and business under a basket of flowers. The other door, of matching wood, has more restrained, classical ornamentation-above the door are flowers and fluttering birds perched on a dish of fruit. A balcony serving three tall windows with ornamented shutters has richly carved spindles and corner pieces, while the brackets are in the form of childlike figures biting into the fruit. Just under the cornice is a classical frieze featuring the shields of Switzerland and of Suppo's canton. The whole building is a Crafts gem, an affectionate tribute to a fine artisan (Boutelle 1988: 143).

Some of Morgan's Italianate designs were achieved by remodeling. When her mother's illness made it impractical to keep up the family house in Oakland, in the mid-1920s Morgan bought two Victorian two-story houses (with attics and basements) on Divisadero Street in San Francisco, remodeling one into an apartment for herself plus two apartments to rent. The second house, actually a rusticated stone foundation and "piano nobile," became a kind of Italian villa, which she rented after taking off the two top floors in order to give more light to the apartments (Boutelle 1988: 160, 259).

(Boutelle 1988: 260).

(Boutelle 1988: 260).

Selfridge was the builder of 2603-13 California as well as this fine Stick Style mansion (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 88).

Designed concurrently with the Clay Street Center, the Residence Hall is a severe, elongated Tuscan villa. Morgan was the official YWCA architect for the western region for some years (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 43).

A women's hotel called the Residence (1929-30) on Nob Hill in San Francisco was Morgan's last major building for the YWCA. Its formal exterior of brick with tile decoration is well suited to the Powell Street site; the building turns the corner to adjoin the Chinese YWCA, also designed by Morgan. Tall arched windows along the front illuminate formal public rooms, a paneled library with a fireplace imported from France, and a large assembly room. Originally located along the axis to the large formal living room (40 by 60 feet) were a central dining room and kitchen on one side and smaller dining and sitting rooms on the other. The living room's tall windows look out on Chinatown, and its long interior wall, which Morgan had decorated with a silk wall covering, now has a Chinese mural.

Morgan wanted this building to signify the importance of working women, and she sought to provide them with amenities that at times seemed excessive to the YWCA board. Her determination to provide private dining rooms and kitchenettes for the young women, so they could occasionally entertain friends for meals, met with opposition. "But these are minimum-wage girls," was the protest, "why spoil them?" To which the architect replied: "That's just the reason." (Note 8: Hettie Belle Marcus, in Suzanne B. Riess, ed., "The Julia Morgan Architectural History Project" (Berkeley: Bancroft Library, Regional Oral History Office, University of California, 1976), vol. 2. p. 138) (Boutelle 1988: 116, 118, 260).

Designed concurrently with the Residence Hall, the Clay Street Center is more stylistically adventuresome and has an urbane yet residential scale and plan (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 43).

While the Residence was under construction, Morgan designed the adjoining Chinese YWCA down the hill behind it. That recreation center, designed for a complex program of sports and education, presents a discreet Chinese face to the street. Within are sequestered a quiet private garden, a bustling gymnasium, and many other facilities. The building varies from one to three stories on the steep slope, with its most conspicuous section the large gymnasium. This in itself is evidence of the acceptance by Chinese women of certain American traditions, as physical exercise for girls had not been acceptable to most earlier generations. Crenellation (with special tiles imported from China) and three towers with wooden spires give interest to the roofline. A cast stone arch over the double doors has leaded glazing, and above it is a circular cast-stone window with steel sash. Presently called the Chinese Community Center (although the YWCA sign remains to speak of its history) and sensitively remodeled on the interior by architect Philip Choy, the building continues to function as it was designed, though now serving both men and women (Boutelle 1988: 118, 260).

Morgan designed the Japanese YWCA (1930) on Sutter Street in San Francisco to recall elements of Japanese culture. The rooflines, the stone wall and gates surmounted by iron lanterns, and the interior details, especially the cutout screen over the auditorium stage, all suggest Japan. After the demographic and economic upheavals of World War II led to a change in the composition of the neighborhood, the building was renamed the Western Addition YWCA, which it remains today (Boutelle 1988: 118, 260).

Morgan's commercial commissions for the Hearsts included a major remodeling of the San Francisco Hearst Building in 1937, which entailed adding a spacious marble lobby and a decorative façade, along with improvements in office space and a radio broadcasting studio. She also built radio transmitting-and-receiving stations for the Hearst Globe Wireless Company. Two of these "news-forwarding stations" were near San Francisco-at Bayshore, Redwood City, and at Cahill Ridge, San Mateo.(Boutelle 1988: 234, 261).