• George W. Gibbs residence
• Mechanic's Monument
• Alfred Moore house
• Admission Day Fountain
• Bourn house
• Robert Louis Stevenson fountain
• Barreda house
• Lloyd Osborne house
• Fannie Osborne Stevenson house
• City Warehouse Company Building
• Abbreviations

Probably Polk's first major independent commission, this sandstone house has his characteristic rather heavy, spare application of Classical detailing (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 84).

Polk's initial oportunity to design a large city house suffered from his lack of experience in such projects, yet the solution set a new standard for subsequent work in the city. The commission came from George W. Gibbs, one of the leading producers of iron and steel on the West Coast and a prominent figure in philanthropic affairs. Gibbs, upon retirement at age seventy, decided to erect a house that would rival those of his eastern peers--elaborate, dignified, but not ostentatious. Polk drew largely from Italian Renaissance sources, then at the height of fashion in New York. The massing recalls that of a Tuscan villa, with details adapted from Raphael's Palazzo Pandolfini and a portico inspired by the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli. But the elementary composition and the particularizing of its components make the facade seem more akin to mid-nineteenth-century Italianate houses than to McKim, Mead and White's work. The plan is equally conservative, with large, boxy rooms opening off a long central corridor.

Nevertheless, the Gibbs house generated a flurry of excitement. The San Francisco Examiner pronounced it to be "the first classical residence in San Francisco." Enthusiasm also centered on the fact that this was among the city's earliest houses constructed entirely of stone and that almost no dwelling of comparable size matched the restraint of its exterior. The Wave summarized prevailing opinion, remarking that the house's "unpretentious solidity ... cheapens the much gabled and turreted mansions surrounding it." In a metropolis of wood, the Gibbs house became an instant symbol of grandeur and permanency. The scheme further set an important local precedent for the collaboration of architect and artist in developing the decorative program. Polk had Douglas Tilden design the Medusa heads for the portico--the sculptor's first commission following his return from Paris earlier that year. Bruce Porter was brought in to create the huge stained-glass window in the stair-hall landing. Lockwood de Forest, who had been a partner in one of the country's first decorative-arts studios, prepared plans for the ornamentation of some of the principal rooms. De Forest's work may not have been executed, and the whole scheme fell far short of the exquisite interiors of McKim, Mead and White's houses, which served as its conceptual model. Still, the work demonstrated to rich San Franciscans that they need not entrust room design strictly to decorators, who often had little concern for architectural cohesiveness (Longstreth 1998: 193-95).

Willis Polk's first grand San Francisco house was the Italian mansion he designed in 1894 for George Gibbs at 2622 Jackson Street. For decades it housed the San Francisco Music and Arts Institute; it has recently been carefully restored, and is again a private home. Its beautifully detailed façade and interiors indicate Polk's ability to work in an academic style equal to that of any finished Beaux Arts graduate, which of course Polk was not (Alexander and Heig 2002: 337).

Designed by Willis Polk for capitalist George Gibbs, this handsome Italian-style mansion was built in 1894. With stone walls and a semi-circular portico, it is beautifully proportioned and was one of Polk's first San Francisco dwellings. It bears no resemblance to the rustic city houses which he would design later. Some people argue that the inspiration for its round porch came from a design by Raphael for the Temple of Vesta. The true inspiration, however, was the work of McKim, Mead and White, and the years Polk spent in New York. The house for many years served as headquarters for the San Francisco Institute of Music and Arts (Alexander and Heig 2002: 304-305).

The Music and Art Institute, 2622 Jackson Street, is reputed to have been Willis Polk's first major commission. Polk came to California in 1889 and designed this two-story Period house five years later as a "country" home for industrialist George W. Gibbs. By the time it was finished in 1894, the surrounding area was already so developed that no rural atmosphere existed (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 26).

Polk designed the base of this heroic sculpture by Tilden, a deaf mute who was an internationally known artist. James Donahue gave the monument in memory of his father, Peter, who in 1850 started the state's first ironworks and machine shop, established the first gas company for street lighting in the city in 1852, and later initiated the first streetcar line. Bronze sidewalk plaques note the original shoreline of Yerba Buena Cove (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 32).

Several months after the unveiling [of the Admission Day Monument], Tilden was entrusted with a much larger commission from James Donohue for a monument in memory of his father, which [James] Phelan administered. After about a year's worth of preliminary studies, Tilden again sought Polk's assistance. Phelan was skeptical: "That agreement with Polk is all right," he advised the sculptor, "if his services are worth Two Hundred and Fifty Dollars..., but I would not pay it until his work is performed." Phelan's response may have stemmed from an animosity toward Polk. But the civic leader also seems to have believed that an architect's talents were unnecessary for such work, and he was probably oblivious to the academic movement's idea that a union of allied arts was essential to creating monuments of aesthetic integrity. The personal and conceptual gap that existed between the businessman-politician, who so ardently crusaded for civic improvements, and the architects, who were the most capable of embodying his vision, was San Francisco's misfortune (Longstreth 1998: 231-32).

This group of houses on Golden Gate Avenue is representative of the first wave of settlement on Belvedere, before it became fashionable to cling to the steep slopes craning for a view. Most of these houses are Shingle Style and, handsome as they are, could have been built anywhere. A notable exception is Polk's wonderful English Tudor Moore house at 416 (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 220).

The cottage built for Alfred Moore, president of the Pacific Mining Exchange, located next to [Valentine] Rey's house, has a living hall occupying almost the entire main floor. The idea of the tiny house as a big room may have been inspired by romantic notions of the all-purpose chamber in some pioneer cabins, but most published examples of comparably sized houses at that time divided the space into diminutive parcels. Polk's solution reflects a new concern for the special conditions of a very small dwelling. After the turn of the century, similar arrangements would become quite popular for both summer cottages and suburban residences in the region. However straightforward in concept, the Moore house contains a rich collection of images. The exterior is a hybrid of an English cottage and a Swiss chalet, with the kitchen ell resembling a homesteader's cabin. Aside from this appendage, the house is symmetrical, its plan ordered by cross-axes, and many of its details inspired by late Georgian work (Longstreth 1998: 169).

Designed by Willis Polk for Mrs. Florence Cornwall Moore, this house started out as a cottage and was enlarged over the years. The exterior is half-timbered and multi-gabled (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 315).

[James] Phelan's attitude toward architecture is revealed by his role in erecting two commemorative monuments. The first he financed himself in 1896 to honor California's admission to the Union and to demonstrate locally the virtues of civic art. Douglas Tilden, recognized as the region's most talented sculptor, was charged with the design. Tilden asked Polk to collaborate, and Phelan acquisced to the partnership but gave Polk scarcely any credit for his contribution (Longstreth 1998: 231).

Another grand town house by Polk is the William Bourn house, built in 1894 at 2550 Webster Street. This massive Georgian style house shows Polk's astonishing versatility. The Georgian style town house of klinker brick, with massive chimneys, seems a bit ponderous by modern-day standards, but it makes an impressive statement. Obviously the Bourns liked his work, for they commissioned him to design a stone house at the Empire Mine, which they owned, near Nevada City, as well as a large country house, "Madrono." Finally they called him in as a consultant for their magnificent country house, Filoli, built in Woodside in 1917, now the property of the National Trust. At about the same time (1916) Polk was busy with the design of Carolands, the enormous mansion built by Harriet Pullman in Hillsborough, which has perhaps the grandest stair hall in the Bay Area (Alexander and Heig 2002: 337).

William Bourn, who was head of the Spring Valley Water Company, had made a fortune from his Empire Mine near Grass Valley. In 1897 he commissioned young Willis Polk to design this handsome town house in the Carolingian style, at 2550 Webster Street. It is a masterpiece of the bricklayers' and stonemasons' arts, with beautifully carved decorations and fine fixtures, such as the bronze lantern... Nothing like it was being built in the city in 1897. Polk also designed the offices and main residence at the Empire Mine, and contributed much of the design for Bourn's magnificent estate, Filoli, on the Peninsula (Alexander and Heig 2002: 258).

A compact clinker-brick block with Willis Polk's bold Classical detailing, this was designed for the president of the Spring Valley Water Company for whom Polk also designed two great estates: Filoli, near woodside, a few miles from the city, and the so-called Empire Cottage at his Empire mine near Grass Valley (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 84).

Following the [George W.] Gibbs house, the one opportunity Polk had to realize such a project was for William Bourn's residence in Pacific Heights. The budget was generous, over $50,000, but the site still presented a challenge. Bourn had purchased a relatively small and inexpensive lot on a side street, where far more modest dwellings and service buildings normally were located. In response to this situation, Polk designed the house with an English basement, which eliminated the need for extensive excavation and allowed the principal rooms to be placed well above the street, thus receiving more natural light and better views. The arrangement, similar to that of many larges houses in eastern cities, fills almost the entire property in front and on both sides. However, since the lot abuts the rear yards of neighboring residences, three elevations are visible from the street. The exterior thus needed to have both a formal facade and an overall treatment that acknowledged its freestanding position.

Polk's design reflects this dual role, with front and side elevations that are differentiated from, but also complementary to, one another. The facade is rigorously ordered, but in contrast to many urban houses of comparable size, the order is implied. The repertoire of classical devices often used to achieve continuity from one zone to the next is minimal. The main floor is enunciated by a single, very large window ornately enframed; above, there is a triad of openings rendered like sharp incisions in the wall surface. These opposing strata are sandwiched between a heavily rusticated basement story and an equally pronounced cornice and attic. Contrasting materials enliven the play. Delicately carved sandstone trim rests amid expanses of rough clinker brick, which transposes the animated surface effects of shingles in rustic buildings to a monumental context. Clinker bricks afford a rich, durable veneer that was also cheap, for the standard practice at that time was to discard them after firing. Rather than using an expensive material on the facade and turning to a less costly one for the sides, Polk employed these bricks on the whole exterior. Their textural qualities are as appropriate to the picturesque side elevations as they are to the symmetrical street front, and thus give a rare sense of cohesiveness to the entire building. The studied, but seemingly casual, relationship between these elevations is equally unconventional for a house of this type. The idea may well have come from postmedieval vernacular precedent, in particular from the Eastgate House in Kent, a work Polk was familiar with from publications.

Passage into and through the house conveys a sense of its owner's prominence and love of power. Set beneath the living room window, the entrance is subordinated to the point of imparting an act of submission. The front door is deeply recessed and flanked by striated courses of brick that appear to eat into the sandstone trim, turning inward toward the vestibule. Beyond lies a low, lavishly decorated corridor extending to the rear hall, where the main stair is situated in dim light. Right by the entry are two reception rooms, one vaguely Georgian, the other aggressively rustic. A third, more private, upstairs reception room was for friends, but other visitors were kept entirely apart from the principal rooms of the house.

In contrast to the warren at ground level, the main floor is unusually open for a city house of the period. The central hall affords the essential unifying element, with wide thresholds connecting to each room so that the entire layout can be perceived at once. Wood trim painted ivory forms a visual frame, defining the boundaries of the space. The wall surfaces are covered with a dreamlike landscape mural by Bruce Porter, which creates an ethereal interplay between spatial progression and pictorial illusion. The other rooms are given a strong architectural order. elaborate, large-scale elements are accentuated by contrasts of light and dark zones. The effect is especially pronounced in the dining room, with all the natural light concentrated at one end where a wall of glass surrounds a massive freestanding fireplace. The space recalls Stanford White's dining room at Kingscote in Newport, Rhode Island, updated with a contemporary taste for classical order, yet retaining a sense of freedom and of being integrated into a sequence of spaces that characterizes the best Shingle Style work (Longstreth 1998: 211-17).

The massive brick structure at 2550 Webster Street was built in 1896 for William B. Bourn, President of the Spring Valley Water Company. Architect Willis Polk, who also designed Bourn's palatial Peninsula estate, Filoli, created a powerful variant of Georgian forms for this residence on property which then embraced the entire block. The house has been maintained in superior condition perhaps because it has had so few owners during its life (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 24).

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).

Fernando Barreda was minister from both Spain and Peru to the Court of St. James and the U.S. This house was remodeled by Polk when the architect married Barreda's daughter (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 87).

Of particular interest to this brief account of Polk's life and work is the house which still stands at 2139-2141 Buchanan Street, which he remodeled at the turn of the century for his new in-laws, the Frederico Barredas.

Gertrude Atherton, in Golden Gate Country, devotes pages to the "romantic Barredas." Señor Barreda had brought his family to the U.S. when he had been appointed the minister from Peru. He had also served as Peruvian minister to Spain, France and England. After his retirement, Barreda had built a great house on Madison Avenue, New York, and a great country house, "Beaulieu," at Newport.

In the 1870s some colossal debacle wiped out Barreda's fortune, and he moved his family to San Francisco, where he felt he might better recoup his losses. The New York mansion was sold at a profit, and "Beaulieu" was purchased by Mrs. Astor, a close friend of Madame Barreda, "for sentiment's sake."

Of course, the remarkable Barredas were lionized by San Francisco society. There were four beautiful daughters and a son. Christina, the youngest daughter, became Mrs. Willis Polk in 1900. She was to share Polk's triumphs and frequent vicissitudes until her husband's death in 1924 (Alexander and Heig 2002: 338).

This finely detailed Italianate was the setting for many lavish parties when it was owned by Federico Barreda, Minister Plenipotentiary from Spain and Peru to the Court of Sant James and the United States. After 1904 Willis Polk married the Barreda's daughter, Christine Barreda Moore, and Polk proceeded to remodel the house, making it into two flats. The upper flat was used by Madame Barreda and her daughter, while the Polks lived in the lower (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 253).

By 1899, Polk was rebounding from bankruptcy when a chance came to expand his operations. In December he entered an association with George Washington Percy, a venerable member of the old guard, replacing Percy's design partner, F.F. Hamilton, who had died a few weeks earlier. Overnight, Polk took charge of a sizable staff and plans for numerous commercial and institutional buildings...Percy managed the firm and attended to technical matters, but his conservative nature no doubt influenced Polk's work. Most schemes were quite conventional; Polk's personality emerged only in some details.⁹(Longstreth 1998:298-99)

9. Two exceptions were the original designs for the Alexander Young Building in Honolulu and a double house for Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne in San Francisco (Longstreth 1998: 392 n.9; 433).

Additions have made a hodgepodge of this house, but the client, widow of Robert Louis Stevenson, and the architect, a staunch member of San Francisco's Bohemia, validate its claim to importance (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 70).

At the northwest corner of Hyde and Lombard Streets, Fanny Osborne, widow of Robert Louis Stevenson, built this fine Mediterranean villa, designed by Willis Polk. It was later enlarged and used as a convent, and is now an apartment house (Alexander and Heig 2002: 141).

There are far too many examples of Polk's work to enumerate them all, but one of his most successful projects was the handsome Mediterranean style house he designed in 1900 for Fanny Osborne, widow of Robert Louis Stevenson, on the northwest corner of Hyde and Lombard Streets. Although considerably enlarged, it has not been altered beyond recognition. Its arched entry and paired, arched windows are Polk's signature details (Alexander and Heig 2002: 337-38).

(1100 Lombard Street.) This stucco residence, often called the "Stevenson House," was built for the widow of Robert Louis Stevenson, perhaps to the designs of Willis Polk. Originally the house was two instead of four storeis at the Hyde-Lombard corner and had the air of a Tudor-Baroque country manor rather than that of a Mediterranean villa as now (Olmsted and Watkins 1969: 274).

Originally designed by Willis Polk in 1900 and built in 1901, this building underwent extensive interior remodeling by Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum in 1980 and represents one of the fine warehouse buildings in the north Embarcadero district (Woodbridge and Woodbridge 1992: 53; Longstreth 1998: 432).

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