Bringing baby back home
AT THE TOP of Fillmore Street, the renovation of a penthouse is nearly complete. An art treasure is coming home. VIDEO by Jonathan Pontell for The New Fillmore.
Category: Home & Garden
A tiny plant store on tony Fillmore
A NEIGHBOR, out for a walk one night soon after Plants and Friends opened its new shop at 1906 Fillmore in early October, stopped to admire the greenery in the window. “It’s fun,” she said to another neighbor walking by. “It makes you smile.” And so it does. Who would think — in the age…
She rose to the occasion
STORY & PHOTOGRAPHS BY BARBARA WYETH From the first step into the garden behind a welcoming house on Clay Street, I was enchanted — and surprised, too, by its size and parklike feeling. This is not a manicured plot behind a single home, but a meandering landscape of many levels that extends the length of…
He scraped the gingerbread off
ARCHITECTURE | BRIDGET MALEY “For some 14 months now the normally placid Pacific Heights intersection of Washington and Maple Street has been host to what might be described as a perpetual traffic jam,” reported a Chronicle article on June 17, 1951, headlined “A King-Size House That Floats on Stilts: Mendelsohn Creates a Landmark.” Architect Erich…
Bloomers turns 40
FIRST PERSON | BARBARA WYETH The flower business is an early morning affair. My morning usually starts with an espresso at Jackson and Fillmore, then a short hop past Alta Plaza Park to work at Bloomers at 2975 Washington Street. Opening the door, I’m met with the fragrance of fresh flowers and the aroma of…
Bringing the outside in
GARDENS | JOAN HOCKADAY At the corner of Jackson and Steiner Streets, atop a garage once filled with rooms for servants, rests a handsome experiment in rooftop garden design created by John Wheatman, San Francisco’s eminent emeritus designer. “I am as old as this building,” Wheatman declares, gesturing skyward at the elegant 12-story apartment tower built…
New life for an old garden
GARDENS | JOAN HOCKADAY The cow is gone, the windmill torn down, the pharmacy delivery trucks missing from the garage behind the house. The gas pump and the water well no longer pump at all. But some reminders of the storied past of the historic Shumate house and garden at the corner of Pine and…
Benevolent spinsters’ home now Allyne Park
LANDMARKS | BRIDGET MALEY A llyne Park, at the corner of Green and Gough Streets, is a San Francisco gem for which I have a strong affection. It’s across the street from our home. The park, adjacent to the historic Octagon House, is a little plot of green that is a daily gathering place for neighborhood…
Alta Plaza Park readies for a makeover
LOCALS AGREE there are problems with Alta Plaza Park, situated atop a former rock quarry and bounded by Scott, Clay, Steiner and Jackson Streets. Among them: decayed columns, stairs, walls and pathways; haphazard and incongruous plantings; outdated and ineffective lighting; and drainage and irrigation issues. So far, the fixes have been piecemeal — and ineffective,…
Empty lot becomes an orchard
“LET A thousand flowers blossom,” Chairman Mao supposedly said. Kaiser Permanente has taken a similar approach with the block-long empty lot at Divisadero and Geary it fought — and paid dearly — to clear for a new medical building, now delayed. Just beginning to bear first fruit in the summer sun is a new orchard…