2006/11: Queen for a Day – A Romp Through Victorian San Francisco
contributed by Amy Johnson [style dominatrix / idea machine / sidekick]
Gobble Gobble, my petite Cornish game hens! I’ve been off on yet another edu-taining adventure, and I can’t wait to fill you in on the Victorian side of life as I learned about it in that most fabulous City by the Bay, San Francisco. Today I’m chatting about a particular era and area of “The City” (as it’s known to all Northern Californians) – the historic Victorian homes of Pacific Heights.
Let’s start with time and place. The Victorian era essentially ran from 1837 to 1901, and was named for Queen Victoria of Britain, who ruled during that period. This was the height of the Industrial Revolution. Thanks to the California Gold Rush, the city’s population swelled with fortune-seekers during the last half of the 1800’s, many of whom relocated to the city permanently. This influx of money and people eventually turned San Francisco into the major cultural, finance and banking center of the west coast – and one of my favorite cities. The wealthiest and most prominent citizens of that period lived in the very lovely Pacific Heights neighborhood – oh, and they still do.
A Height of Fancy
Situated on top of a hill at 370 feet above sea level, Pacific Heights has amazing views and, frankly, one of the best booty-workouts you can find – just walk the hilly streets for an hour. (When your thighs and glutes start burning, turn around and walk backward up the hills. Oh, it feels so much better! And that’s my exercise tip of the day year.)
Architecture varies from Victorian to Mission Revival to Edwardian to Chateau style. We’re focusing on the Victorian style today. You’ve most likely seen a photo of the famous Painted Ladies on a postcard or website about San Francisco – or in the opening credits of Full House. The neighborhood has also been featured in many flicks such as The Princess Diaries, The Wedding Planner, and the Mike Meyers cult classic, So I Married an Axe Murderer. Bounded by Presidio Ave, Van Ness Ave, California St and Broadway and boasting 2 lush parks, this 130-city block area is still primarily residential and affluent. Sharon Stone and Francis Ford Coppola have both lived here, while Senator Dianne Feinstein and author Danielle Steele are current residents.
You won’t find many starving students living here unless they’re the great-great-grandchildren of some of the city’s first wealthy families. There are a few consular residences in the neighborhood as well. (Hey, if you happen to run into the Norwegian Consular General be sure to tell him, “Morn!”)
Okay, back on track here. We’re in Pacific Heights and my glutes are screaming. Ah yes, this is the point when we simply happened to run across the Haas-Lilienthal House on Franklin Street. Labeled as San Francisco’s ONLY Victorian house museum, we decided to get all tourist-geeky and check it out for the educational aspect (and maybe to ask if they had a public restroom, but that’s between us).
The ballroom/lobby has displays of photographs from the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire and quite a few handy brochures about various San Francisco Architectural Heritage activities. Just as I was finally realizing that the Great Quake of 1906 was what caused the Great San Francisco Fire (was anyone else confused about these two catastrophic events?), my companion got suckered into buying tour tickets by the slick saleswoman of a docent. But, you know, it was totally worth it. For only $8 each we got an hour-long tour of this incredibly well-preserved Victorian home whose only damage in that Great Quake was a single crack in one wall between the first and second floors. Wow.
Finding Fault in a Perfect City
Here’s a little background about the whole Quake/Fire event. On April 18th, 1906, a huge earthquake (registering around 8.0 on the Richter scale) hit San Francisco early in the morning. Resulting fires caused by ruptured gas mains raged through the city for four days. Ruptured water mains left the firemen with few resources to fight the fires.
By the second day, the fires had reached Van Ness Avenue. Many of the wealthiest families in the city had built huge mansions along this broad boulevard. Unfortunately for them, the firefighters of the city decided that since Van Ness was one of the widest streets it was their best chance to create a firebreak. They dynamited these lovely mansions – kaboom! - in an attempt to stop the fires from sweeping even farther through the city. It did work… eventually. Ironically, it’s suspected that many people whose homes had sustained some damage in the quake actually set the remains on fire – because they were more likely to have fire insurance than earthquake insurance to cover their losses. Doh!
Haas It Goin’?
But back to the Haas family. William Haas, a German immigrant merchant, built his house in 1886 for $18,500. Comparatively, most homes of that time cost from $700 - $2,000! As he was a merchant and not a banker or wealthy old-money family of San Francisco, he’d chosen to build his house not on the showy Van Ness Avenue, but a street over on the quiet, residential Franklin Street. Good decision - this is why the house still stands intact today, untouched by the fire and the firemen’s dynamite.
This lovely Queen Anne-style Victorian was occupied by three generations of the Haas and Lilienthal families until 1972. (A Haas daughter married a Lilienthal, hence Haas-Lilienthal. Say it three times, fast. It’s fun!) At that point, the two oldest surviving family members, Frances Lilienthal Stein and her sister, donated the home to San Francisco Heritage to be preserved as a museum for you and me to enjoy. With no significant renovations ever made, the house is virtually the same as it was when it was built in the late 1800s. Whew! Now that we’ve got all the back story out of the way, I can tell you about the architecture and design of the house itself.
Turret Syndrome
First, the muted colors of the house’s exterior as it stands today are probably quite close to the original colors. The brightly colored Victorians you see today were painted that way in a fit of exuberance in the 1960s. The house is constructed of redwood and fir – two very desirable materials that were plentiful in 1886. They were thought to be fairly fire-resistant and strong, yet flexible in an earthquake. The round turret-like window is prevalent within the Queen Anne style.
The fancy glass-inset front doors had a set of wooden pocket doors that could be closed immediately in front of them. These cleverly engineered pieces served two purposes when closed: protecting the glass during storms, and letting potential callers know that the family was “away”, i.e. not receiving callers. Oh, those Victorians and their strict social etiquette. There would be no “pop-in” unannounced visits – horror of horrors!
The interior is filled with marble fireplaces and staircases and some great faux finishing. Actually faux finishing or trompe l’oeil was quite popular during the Victorian era. In the front hall of the home, there is wood that is cleverly and realistically painted and grained to resemble Golden Oak. Make no mistake, the Haas family could afford Golden Oak, and they did have real Golden Oak in other rooms. However, it was quite something to have a talented craftsman paint the front hall this way.
Another wall treatment found throughout the house is Lincrusta – a fabulous, mass-market wallcovering invented by Frederick Walton to mimic expensive, ornate plaster work. Made of wood pulp and linseed oil (same ingredients as linoleum, doncha know?), the paper was rolled through presses to emboss different designs on it and then painted in various finishes. The Haas-Lilienthal home had Lincrusta in three different areas – front hall, dining room and stairway – with different patterns and colors for each. And, as it happens, if you get hired to faithfully restore a Victorian home, you can still get Lincrusta products. How handy.
Ceilings in Victorian homes were quite high – 12 to 14 feet usually. But unlike the sometimes pointless vaulted ceilings in today’s architecture, theirs had a purpose. You see, good old Thomas Edison had patented the light bulb in 1880. So San Francisco had electricity when the Haas house was built, but it was, well, a little iffy. So all the chandeliers in the house were combination fixtures. They had six electric bulbs that hung down and six gas jets that pointed up, toward the ceiling. When electricity was working, they used the bulbs. But when it wasn’t, they turned on the stinky, dirty, coal gas jets and lit them to provide light. The high ceilings allowed the fixtures to be hung high and keep some of the stifling, not so pleasantly smelling gas way up above everyone’s heads.
Did I skip the floor plan? Oops, let’s back up. It’s funny, but the floor plan of this house of a wealthy merchant is still basically that of a Row House – the same floor plan used by the middle classes and even in apartments. Since the lots are generally long and narrow in San Francisco, a Row House floor plan is the most efficient use of the lot. You have a hallway and perhaps a staircase along one side of the house and the front parlor, second parlor, and dining room all in a row (row house – get it?) on the other side. The hallway then dead-ends into the kitchen.
The last family member to live in the house, Frances Lilienthal Stein, provided great insight into the way life was lived when she was growing up. The front parlor, as the formal receiving room, was rarely used by the family and often had sheets covering the fine furniture. Fine mahogany wood was used in the room, as well as Carrara marble for the fireplace. Three bands of different molding styles make up the cornice around the ceiling: traditional egg-and-dart, symbolizing life and death, then dentil, and finally band of laurel, standing for a warrior’s achievement. Pocket doors connecting the mahogany front parlor to the redwood-built second parlor were ingeniously faced with mahogany on the front parlor side and redwood on the second parlor side. They were so well made, though, that it’s not immediately obvious.
It was in the second parlor that the family hung out by the big Egyptian marble wood-burning fireplace. This was the “den” of the home. The Christmas tree was place here. They even had some of the first mass-produced furniture in this room. Each night, according to Frances, the family gathered in this room and perhaps had a cocktail until the pocket doors leading into the dining room were opened promptly at 7pm for dinner. Did you hear that? Promptly at 7pm this Victorian family ate together every night. Sound a little different from your house? Probably. Mama Haas wasn’t exactly running the kids around from soccer practice to play dates in her minivan, you know?
Speaking of the kids – they actually ate with the servants until they were considered to have manners nice enough to eat with the adults. Hmmm… I think I like a few things about the Victorian era. Just not the bustles – what were they thinking?
In the dining room you can see the original dining table that has enough leaves to expand to seat 20(!). For a party larger than that, they simply moved downstairs to the ballroom. Grasscloth covered the walls – yup, grasscloth. A wallcovering that will never lose its popularity, it seems. An interesting engineering detail is that the dining room floor slopes up about a half-inch from the second parlor. The theory is that when they closed the pocket doors from the parlor to the dining room the upward slope kept out any drafts from under the door. The room also contains a large bay window meant to let in as much natural light as possible during the day.
Upstairs we saw the main bedroom with a maid’s quarters separated by pocket doors. A good maid can never be too far from her mistress! All the other servants lodged on the 3rd floor, except for the Chinese laundryman who lived in the basement. According to the docent, he wasn’t a big fan of the German food the Bavarian servants cooked for the family and most likely cooked his own meals in his quarters. No bratwurst for him, apparently!
Doors from the bedroom opened into a thoroughly modern bathroom – hot and cold running water inside the house. Apparently indoor plumbing was such a status symbol that some families would leave their water pipes exposed on the outside of their homes so that everyone could see – and envy – them.
In Lieu Of An Ending
Well, there you have it my friends. A quick little tour of Victorian life in San Fantastico. Is it wrong to end with indoor plumbing? Hmmmm… right or wrong, I’m doing it. Now get your hineys to The City and edutain yourselves while you’re getting some exercise in this design wonderland. But before I go, let me share with you some of my most recent favorite places:
Sit Depending on where you’re coming from it can be cheaper to fly into San Jose airport. Take the shuttle bus to the Santa Clara train station (which is all the way across the parking lot) and for about $8 or less you can ride straight into San Francisco. Takes an hour-ish. You can nap or plan your adventure while you’re on the train.
Stay This trip we stayed in the Embarcadero area near Pier One (not the store) where the ferries come and go to Oakland. The Harbor Court Hotel was just as stylish and welcoming as the other Kimpton properties we’ve stayed at. Love ‘em! Located near the fab Ferry Building Marketplace, our room had a great view of the bay.
Eat Okay, this may be a bit out of the student price range, but I have to mention it – Alfred’s Steakhouse in the Financial District. It wasn’t outrageously priced – most entrees were under $30. The décor was Victorian bordello – burgundy tufted leather booths and dark wood. And lemme tell you – we had the most impeccable service we’ve ever had in a restaurant. Another favorite of ours is Nob Hill Café – a neighborhoody little Italian place that never disappoints us.
Get Your Groove On If you the have the time and the cash, check out Steve Silver’s Beach Blanket Babylon. It’s a crazy cabaret-style musical adventure. With really big hats. That’s about all I can say. But I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Ask For More For more information on other areas of San Francisco, read Alyssa Schulke’s article. And don’t leave home without checking this event calendar. And when you’re ready to shop, check out this map of Mocoloco.com-approved stylish stores here on Google. How handy is this?
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Today I’m chatting about a particular era and area of “The City” (as it’s known to all Northern Californians) – the historic Victorian homes of Pacific Heights. 
Architecture varies from Victorian to Mission Revival to Edwardian to Chateau style. We’re focusing on the Victorian style today. You’ve most likely seen a photo of the famous 
By the second day, the fires had reached Van Ness Avenue. Many of the wealthiest families in the city had built huge mansions along this broad boulevard. Unfortunately for them, the firefighters of the city decided that since Van Ness was one of the widest streets it was their best chance to create a firebreak. They dynamited these lovely mansions – kaboom! - in an attempt to stop the fires from sweeping even farther through the city. It did work… eventually. Ironically, it’s suspected that many people whose homes had sustained some damage in the quake actually set the remains on fire – because they were more likely to have fire insurance than earthquake insurance to cover their losses. Doh!
The interior is filled with marble fireplaces and staircases and some great faux finishing. Actually faux finishing or 
Did I skip the floor plan? Oops, let’s back up. It’s funny, but the floor plan of this house of a wealthy merchant is still basically that of a Row House – the same floor plan used by the middle classes and even in apartments. Since the lots are generally long and narrow in San Francisco, a Row House floor plan is the most efficient use of the lot. You have a hallway and perhaps a staircase along one side of the house and the front parlor, second parlor, and dining room all in a row (row house – get it?) on the other side. The hallway then dead-ends into the kitchen.
