Bernard Maybeck designed this Mediterranean building for the Associated Charities of San Francisco, an organization dating back to 1889. In 1938 Associated Charities changed its name to Family Service Agency to better reflect its mission and to eliminate the historical stigma attached to the word charity.

When Maybeck's building was new, most of its neighbors were exquisite Italianate row houses like the Rothschild House next door and the Stadtmuller House a block away.

For decades, the Family Service Agency shared the intersection of Eddy and Gough Streets with St. Paulus Lutheran Church and the twenty-room Portman Mansion.

The Portman Mansion, built in 1888, was razed in 1959, one year after playing the role of the McKittrick Hotel in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo.

Some buildings designed by Bernard Maybeck:

• 1895: Swedenborgian Church, 3200 Washington Street
• 1902: Faculty Club, UC Berkeley
• 1904: Outdoor Art Club, Mill Valley
• 1909: Roos House, 3500 Jackson Street
• 1909: Goslinsky Residence, 3233 Pacific Avenue
• 1910: First Church of Christ Scientist, Berkeley
• 1915: Parsons Memorial Lodge, Yosemite National Park
• 1915: Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon Street
• 1927: Phoebe Hearst Gymnasium for Women, UC Berkeley
• 1927: Earle C. Anthony Packard Showroom, 901 Van Ness Avenue
• 1928: Family Service Agency, 1010 Gough Street