News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
LANDMARKS | BRIDGET MALEY Long owned by the California Pacific Medical Center, the house at 2018 Webster Street has remained vacant for almost 25 years. It was recently sold and will be returned to residential use, after a rear addition and interior upgrades, as three housing units. The history of this Victorian house is intertwined…
CRIME | BARBARA KATE REPA A federal appellate court has denied the latest challenge to a second-degree murder conviction in a case that rocked the neighborhood 15 years ago when a horrific attack by two large dogs in a Pacific Avenue apartment building left one local resident dead and landed two others in prison. A three-judge…
By BARBARA KATE REPA When David Lawrence and Monetta White announced plans to open their high end but homey restaurant, 1300 on Fillmore, eight years ago, friends cautioned against it. “They said, ‘You’re going down to lower Fillmore? Are you nuts?’ ” says White, whose mother and grandmother both grew up in the neighborhood. But soon…
A NEW MARQUEE is in the works for the legendary Fillmore Auditorium at Geary and Fillmore. The Planning Commission has unanimously approved changes to the city’s sign ordinance that would permit a 60-foot-tall vertical blade proclaiming both the storied rock ’n’ roll venue and the surrounding neighborhood. Currently signs can be no higher than 24 feet.…
FIRST PERSON | ROGER BOAS I’ve been a resident of Pacific Heights for almost a century. I grew up in the 1920s, living with my folks in an apartment on Pacific Avenue. Then I bought my own place on Washington Street in 1959, raised four kids there with my wife Nancy — and we’ve lived…
SHE’D WORKED FOR THE RITZ in Paris and other international corporations, mostly designing hotels, but French designer Isabelle McGee wanted something different — something more intimate — when she set out to establish her interior design atelier in San Francisco. One day she was walking on Sutter Street, just a block from Fillmore, when she struck…
THE HAAS-LILIENTHAL HOUSE at 2005 Franklin Street has a new paint job that returns the historic Victorian to its original, more subdued color palette. To restore the historic integrity of the house, which now serves as its headquarters, San Francisco Heritage commissioned architectural conservator Molly Lambert to conduct a paint study to determine the original colors,…
LANDMARKS | BRIDGET MALEY Constructed in 1927 by insurance executive Henry Foster Dutton for his second wife, Violet, the classically inspired house at 3400 Washington Street was acquired by the Imperial Government of Iran to serve as its official San Francisco consulate in the mid-1950s. The house was designed by architect Erle J. Osborne, who…
IN THE SPRING of 1985, the Clay Theatre on Fillmore hosted the premiere of the spaghetti western parody Lust in the Dust. It starred Tab Hunter, Divine and Cesar Romero, who were at the Clay for the screening. After years of tales about the event, photographic evidence has now surfaced, courtesy of Tab Hunter’s partner,…
A NEW PLAN is in the works to remodel the historic Clay Theatre on Fillmore Street by expanding the concession area in the lobby and offering additional food and beverage options, including beer and wine. The plan abandons earlier efforts to carve the Clay into three smaller screening rooms and build townhouses above the theater and…