William Westerfeld House
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
|
William Westerfeld House
|
|
 |
|
|
The William Westerfeld House in San Francisco
|
|
| Location: | 1198 Fulton St., San Francisco, California |
|---|---|
| Coordinates: | 37°46′38″N 122°26′7″W / 37.77722°N 122.43528°WCoordinates: 37°46′38″N 122°26′7″W / 37.77722°N 122.43528°W |
| Area: | 0.1 acres (0.040 ha) |
| Built: | 1889 |
| Architect: | Henry Geilfuss |
| Architectural style: | Stick/Eastlake |
| Governing body: | Private |
| NRHP Reference#: | 89000197 [1] |
| SFDL #: | 135 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP: | March 16, 1989 |
| Designated SFDL: | 1981[2] |
The William Westerfeld House sits across the street from the northwest corner of Alamo Square at 1198 Fulton Street (at Scott St.) in San Francisco. Constructed in 1889 at a cost of $9,985, the home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is San Francisco Landmark Number 135.
William Westerfeld, a German-born confectioner, arrived in San Francisco in the 1870s. By the 1880s he had established a chain of bakeries. He hired builder Henry Geilfuss to design for his family of six a 28-room mansion with an adjoining rose garden and carriage house.
When Westerfeld died in 1895, the home was sold to John Mahoney, noted for building the St. Francis Hotel and the Palace Hotel after the 1906 earthquake. Mr. Mahoney replaced the rose garden with flats to meet the city's dire need for housing.
Contents |
William Westerfeld House timeline [edit]
- 1928 -- A group of Czarist Russians buys the home. They turn the ground-floor ballroom into a nightclub called Dark Eyes and use the upper floors for meeting rooms. The house becomes known informally as the 'Russian Embassy'.
- 1948 -- The home is converted into a 14-unit apartment building. For most of the next two decades, the units are rented to African-American musicians who play in the neighborhood jazz clubs. John Handy is one of many to call the Westerfeld House his home.
- 1965 -- Charles Fracchia purchases the building to use as a residence but never occupies it. The house is mentioned in the book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The Calliope Company, a fifty-member collective, moves in.
- 1967 -- Underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger takes up residence. Anger films Invocation of My Demon Brother starring Manson family member Bobby Beausoleil, Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey, and featuring music by Mick Jagger.
- 1968 -- Members of the Family Dogg occupy the house while promoting acid rock concerts at the Avalon Ballroom. Members of the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company are frequent visitors.
- During the 1970s, the first attempts to rehabilitate the building began. Two men purchased the home for $45,000 in 1969. They remodeled the fourth floor servants' quarters beyond recognition. The house was left standing despite an urban renewal project which claimed 6,000 Victorian-era buildings over a 60-block area in the Western Addition.
- In 1986, Jim Siegel purchased the home and has since retrofitted the foundation, removed the dropped ceilings, re-wired, re-roofed, and re-plumbed, and restored the interior and exterior woodwork and the historic, ground-floor ballroom, and decorated the 25-foot ceiling with period wallpaper crafted by Bradbury & Bradbury.
References [edit]
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2009-03-13.
- ^ "City of San Francisco Designated Landmarks". City of San Francisco. Retrieved 2012-10-21.
See also [edit]
External links [edit]
- Noe Hill website - entry for Westerfeld House
|
||||||||||||||||||||
