News from the Heart and Soul of San Francisco
ICONS | LESLIE M. FREUDENHEIM From 1876 to 1910, a group of creative and pioneering men and women in Northern California sought an architectural expression appropriate to the region. They rejected Victorian excess, preferring simple homes of natural materials. Their aspirations went beyond architecture to advocate a sensibility and a way of life. The cradle…
LANDMARKS | ANNE BLOOMFIELD Hiding behind the trees at Pacific and Baker is a beautiful Georgian Revival house, all brick walls, white trim and fascinating roofline, the work of architects Bliss and Faville, who almost cornered the luxury market in Pacific Heights. The mansion’s trim peaks in a broad entrance with an interrupted pediment over…
It’s a secret workshop tucked behind a disappearing door at the back of the store. Inside are rows and rows of jars, metal caps and electrical sockets. But this is no mad scientist’s laboratory. From this hidden room come tasteful lamps that illuminate some of the finest homes in Pacific Heights — at prices far…
The unsightly scaffolding that surrounds Temple Sherith Israel at the corner of Webster and California streets is as repugnant to the synagogue’s leadership as it is to neighbors and passersby, they say, but it is not going away anytime soon. The scaffolding was erected to protect pedestrians from shards of sandstone falling from the facade.…
LANDMARKS | ANNE BLOOMFIELD Observe at the corner of Pine and Scott a low brick fence, a hedge and a row of cypresses. Nothing can be seen behind them except more trees and hints of a rather large white house, an excellent Italianate specimen, it develops. No, we are not out in the country, somewhere…
LANDMARKS | ANNE BLOOMFIELD A year after the Queen Anne house at Pierce and Pine was built — we’re talking 1887 — it was photographed for a newspaper series titled “Artistic Homes of California.” Except for minor details, the picture might have been taken today: It shows the same sinuous brackets at the entry and…