News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
DESIGN | DIANE DORRANS SAEKS Twenty years ago, interior designer Ann Getty began a large-scale redecoration of the Pacific Heights residence where she lives with her husband, Gordon, a composer. It was built in 1906 to a classic design by architect Willis Polk and offers an entry hall with collections as opulent as any London…
By CHRISTINE LUNDE On their honeymoon in Italy, neighborhood residents Olivia Dillan and Ben Balzer floated by Marco Polo’s house on a canal in Venice, which inspired Dillan to leave the tech industry behind. Then serendipity took charge. Three weeks after Dillan and Balzer decided to start a shop of their own, the space at…
By Kathi O’Leary ON A CHARMING block of Sutter Street that narrowly missed the wrecking ball of redevelopment 50 years ago, Sidney Hair Care sits among Victorian homes, small shops and the Macedonia Baptist Church. Sidney, the professional name of Betty Jean Macklin, has cared for clients of all races and walks of life at…
By BARBARA KATE REPA FOR MANY YEARS, John Gaul has been a fixture on Fillmore. Strolling and bussing through the neighborhood, he has been a dapper presence, doling out advice and good cheer along the way. But just lately, his gait has slowed. He is getting about now with the help of a walker since…
By Julia Irwin NEIGHBORHOOD RESIDENT and fencing champion Alexander Massialas is realizing a dream — and continuing a family legacy — by competing in the summer Olympics in London. His father and coach, Greg Massialas, also fenced in the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games and qualified for the 1980 games in Moscow, which the U.S.…
By Marjorie Leet Ford MIMI LAWRENCE ALWAYS wanted to have her own store. “I started in retail when I was six,” she says, recalling her childhood in New Jersey. “I loaded an ice chest of soda pop into a little rowboat with a one-and-a-half horsepower motor, like an eggbeater, and rode around the harbor selling…
IT BEGAN in a former dry cleaners on Pine Street in 1999. “I just have this thing about bread,” said Pascal Rigo, the Frenchman realizing his dream by launching his own boulangerie and living upstairs above the shop. “The flavor, the smell, the texture. I can’t tell you why. It wasn’t as if I came…
Story and Photographs by Carina Woudenberg FOR JUDY GILMAN and her daughter Marcella Madsen, owners of Nest, the eclectic gift shop at 2300 Fillmore, a shared love of art and eye for snagging old and new treasures has enabled them to nurture a loyal following over the past 17 years. “I’ve been going to the…
Legendary filmmaker Philip Kaufman — director of The Right Stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and many others — has lived in Pacific Heights for years. His latest film premieres on May 28 at 9 p.m. when HBO broadcasts Hemingway & Gellhorn, starring Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen. Hemingway & Gellhorn is a love story…
By THOMAS REYNOLDS For the first time in almost four decades, Mrs. Dewson’s Hats at 2050 Fillmore Street wasn’t open in the days leading up to Easter, which is typically prime time for hat buyers. A few days later a sign went up in the window telling the news: After 37 years, Mrs. Dewson’s Hats…