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The roses of Rose Court

Posted on June 13, 2008 by editors

Photograph of Rose Court by Alvin Johnson

In the springtime, a few weeks after the cherry trees blossom and the air turns fragrant with rosemary, the roses of Rose Court begin to bloom.

There are roses of many colors and kinds, some brought from the altar of nearby St. Dominic’s Church. They’ve been given a chance to live on in the garden hidden behind the apartments and convents at Pine and Pierce. It is an oasis of flowers and trees and birds and bees nurtured by Sister Cathryn deBack, the manager of Rose Court.

“Somehow, magically, some of them make it in the out-of-doors,” she says. “I personally wanted something lower maintenance. But someone said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have roses?’ It has been a great challenge to me.”

In the center of the garden stands a chapel, open to the residents and the nuns as a contemplative space. Growing all around it are plants offered up by the sisters and the residents — and for a few weeks in the late spring, the sweet smell of roses.

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She made her mark

Posted on June 5, 2008 by editors

Marie Cleasby and her graffiti squad.

By Don Langley

While helping to form the Webster Street Historic District in the late ’70s,
Marie Cleasby insisted she wanted to paint her house purple.

Like her neighbors, she wanted to form the district as a hedge against further expansion of the California Pacific Medical Center, which abutted the back of her property. But she was adamant that the district’s restrictions not include color control. When the enabling legislation was passed by the Board of Supervisors in 1981, after an eight-year effort, it said nothing about color. Soon 2373 Washington Street was painted purple, with fuchsia trim.

Throughout many confrontations between neighbors and the hospital’s administrators, Marie was never bothered by the fact that her husband, Gil, was a prominent ophthalmologist affiliated with the hospital.
Read more »

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‘A force of nature’

Posted on June 2, 2008 by editors

Actress Halle Berry was among those who honored
Fillmore's Ruth Dewson.

Fillmore milliner Ruth Garland Dewson took a stroll down the red carpet in the heart of Hollywood on April 27, 2008, when she was honored for her ceaseless — and ultimately successful — efforts to free a woman imprisoned for more than two decades.

On an evening of Tinseltown glitter in the grand ballroom of the Beverly Hills Hotel, Dewson was honored by the Jenesse Center, an organization that helps women and children hurt by domestic violence.

Earlier this year, Dewson rallied public and political opinion to persuade Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant parole to Flozelle Woodmore, a 39-year-old woman she’d never met who had spent more than half of her life in jail for killing an abusive boyfriend when she was 18. Woodmore had repeatedly been denied parole until Dewson took up her cause.

In presenting the award, state Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas — an ally in the fight to free Flozelle Woodmore — called Dewson “a change maker, a one-woman show and a force of nature.”

“People said to me, ‘You didn’t know Flozelle, how could you help her?’ ” Dewson told a sold-out audience that included actress Halle Berry, talk show host Jay Leno and singer Jennifer Hudson, as well as a contingent from the Fillmore. “I said to them: I know her and you know her. You see her in the eyes of your children and your grandchildren.”

Dewson, the proprietor of Mrs. Dewson’s Hats on Fillmore, also heads the Western Addition Foundation for Girls.

Photograph of Flozelle Woodmore (left) and Ruth Dewson by Donna Casey

UPDATE: Flozelle Woodmore, recently paroled after more than 20 years in prison for killing an abusive boyfriend when she was 18, was in the Fillmore on March 29, 2009. She came to say thank you to people who helped free her — chief among them Ruth Dewson, owner of Mrs. Dewson’s Hats. It was Dewson’s ceaseless efforts to rally public and political opinion that shined the spotlight on Woodmore and eventually led to her freedom. Yet this was the first time they had met.

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Merrily we roll along

Posted on May 1, 2008 by editors

The historic Presidio Wall.

Observing the local market, you would never guess the national real estate market is in a much different state. We’ve recently had a large influx of properties on the high end, and many of them have gone sold quickly.

We are also seeing homes being quietly shown before going onto the multiple listing service, two of them on the Presidio Wall. The first, One Locust, is a contemporary 4-bedroom, 4.5-bath house that was extensively remodeled in 2005. It will be priced near $6 million. The other is the 4-bedroom, 3-bath historically significant home of the artist Bruce Porter at 3234 Pacific, which was designed by Porter’s friend, the esteemed architect Ernest Coxhead. It is largely in original condition and will be coming on the market at just above $3 million.

— John Fitzgerald, Pacific Union Real Estate

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The quote heard ’round the country

Posted on April 10, 2008 by editors

Obama spoke at a fundraiser at the home of Alex Mehran in Presidio Heights.

Perhaps the last word to come to mind on the leafy outer blocks of Jackson Street is “bitter.” Yet it was here, at 3680 Jackson — during an afternoon of fund-raising in the neighborhood on April 6 that included an earlier stop at the Getty mansion on Broadway — that Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama offered his observations about embittered blue-collar workers.

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them,” Obama said. “So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them, or anti-imigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment, as a way to explain their frustrations.”

His comments stoked political debate around the country and gave Obama’s critics fresh ammunition to accuse him of being an elitist — and gave the chattering classes fresh opportunity to rail against ultraliberal out-of-touch San Franciscans.

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Up on the rooftop, a succulent garden

Posted on April 3, 2008 by editors

Diana Arsham's succulents are thriving on her rooftop.


Diana Arsham’s rooftop garden has changed considerably in the 25 years since she grew her first crop of pole beans and saw them eaten by the birds.

Vegetables take far more vigilance — and water — than other plants she has embraced as her ecological consciousness has grown and she has become ever more committed to permaculture — sustainable permanent agriculture that requires little water.

“I’ve been blessed by happening onto succulents,” she says. “They take very little water, and they have such interesting shapes. They add visual interest even without showy flowers.”

She waters only once a week, except in the rainy season, when she doesn’t water at all. And she waters by hand, rather than with the automated drip system many gardeners prefer, maintaining that it results in a closer connection with her plants and water.

A visit to her rooftop garden on a sunny afternoon in early March reveals a riot of succulents in variegated colors, shapes and sizes — and not a few showy flowers, including blazing orange blooms on ice plants and yellow spikes on chocolate colored aeoniums.

“We pretty much bloom in the winter,” she says. “Summer blooms take
too much water.”

Many of her plants are in fact summer bloomers from the southern hemisphere — especially Australia, Chile and South Africa. They do well in San Francisco’s temperate climate. Native California plants also naturally do well in the city’s wet winters and dry summers.

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At Aqua Forest, underwater gardening

Posted on April 3, 2008 by editors

Tropical fish are merely inhabitants of a lush submerged landscape at Aqua Forest Aquarium.

FIRST PERSON | Gary Neatherlin

Years ago I began experimenting with aquariums.

I have several — freshwater and saltwater — in my apartment above Fillmore Street.
So I was pleasantly surprised when a friend told me about an unusual aquarium display at a relatively new store, Aqua Forest Aquarium, located just down the street at 1718 Fillmore, near Japantown.

I walked in and was amazed to see the number and variety of underwater plants, some growing from the aquarium floor above the water line.
Read more »

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The Heidi Chronicles

Posted on March 1, 2008 by editors

With three stores on Fillmore, Heidi Sabelhaus is the Queen of Retail.

By Barbara Kate Repa

In a city not shy about renaming its streets, Fillmore Street may soon stand in jeopardy of being redubbed HeidiSays Way.

In just over six years, Heidi Sabelhaus, who exudes a mix of serenity and style, has built a mini-empire covering the fashion gamut — from sophisticated day-to-evening collections to casual wear to shoes. Her offerings fill three shops, all located on Fillmore.

The newest store, HeidiSays Casual, sprung up last month [February 2008] at 2416 Fillmore in the space vacated by the Yountville children’s clothing store just a few weeks earlier.
Read more »

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The simple secrets of lasting love

Posted on February 14, 2008 by editors

Spanish Dancer, 1971, by Ruth Bernhard

By Brooke Welch

For the last six years, I have been working at Toujours, the petite lingerie
shop on Sacramento Street just around the corner from Fillmore. I’ve been a salesclerk and bra-fitter, but also a therapist and a shoulder to cry on.

Perhaps the best perk of working in a classy little neighborhood lingerie shop is the opportunity to meet lots of people who have loving, lasting romances — not just relationships, not just marriages, but actual romances — the kind we all long for and dream about, the blushing, giggling, toe-curling, hot, satisfying relationships that last.

In my first year in the shop, I met a man who was shopping for his wife. He had a smile on his face as he handed me a simple cotton gown and fleecy robe and said, “Wrap it up.”

“What’s the occasion?” I asked. He answered, “We’ve been married for 25 years, and our anniversary is coming up.”

“Wow,” I said, “what’s the secret?”
Read more »

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Blue bridge will remain and be repaired again

Posted on February 1, 2008 by editors

The often vandalized blue glass panels will remain on the bridge at Geary and Fillmore.

Despite an earlier recommendation that it be removed and relocated or put into storage, “Blue,” the public artwork on the bridge at Fillmore and Geary, will remain in place.

At a recent meeting, the citizens advisory council was told by officials from the Redevelopment Agency, which commissioned the artwork, that it would be too expensive to take it down. “It will cost at least $300,000 and perhaps as much as $500,000 to remove it,” the Redevelopment Agency’s Gaynelle Armstrong told the group. “And that doesn’t include storage.”

Instead, Armstrong said, it will cost about $20,000 to repair the glass panels and another $20,000 each year to maintain them. She noted the bridge may be changed as part of a new Geary transit plan.

The blue glass panels etched with words reflecting the area’s disparate ethnic groups have been repeatedly vandalized since the artwork was installed a decade ago. Some of the glass panels have already been replaced, some more than once.

“This thing is an eyesore,” said Barbara Meskunas, vice chair of the advisory council. “If we’re not going to take it down, it needs to be fixed.”

Rev. Arnold Townsend, who chairs the council, said the problems are caused by rowdy fans attending concerts next door at the Fillmore auditorium. “As long as it’s there, it’s going to be vandalized,” he said.

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