San Francisco Victorian Architecture





Photographs of Some Eminent San Francisco Victorians

Photographs and provenances of some San Francisco Victorian residences built between 1860 and 1900. (Click on an image to enlarge it.)

		1198 Fulton Street The Westerfeld House Built 1889 San Francisco Landmark #135 "Up at Fulton and Scott is a great shambling old Gothic house, a freaking decayed giant, known as The Russian Embassy" Tom Wolfe wrote in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968). The Westerfeld House, designed by Henry Geilfuss, was built in 1889 for banker and candy baron William Westerfeld, one of many prosperous German immigrants who built grand homes in the area around Alamo Square. This great wooden palazzo is a pure expression of the style, Stick Italian Villa, with its tower, square bay windows and strong vertical line. Among its subsequent owners was John J Mahoney the builder of the Palace Hotel, the St. Francis Hotel, and the open air Greek theater on the campus of the University of California in Berkeley. But by The Summer of Love and The Autumn of Love, like many of San Francisco's grand but derelict old mansions, its roof leaked and it was home to a commune and it was this commune, Calliope, that Wolfe visited. San Francisco tour books and tour guides, eager to flaunt The City's perverse past, have decided that Charles Manson once lived here. He did live in San Francisco, but not here. But Bobbie Beausoleil did live here just before he joined The Manson Family. He and his buddy Kenneth Anger, also in residence, would spend nights in the tower on the look-out for flying saucers. According to Anger he had "a couple of very good flying saucer sightings." More photos....

		1701 Franklin Street The Edward Coleman House Built 1895 San Francisco Landmark #54 The Queen Anne residence at the corner of California and Franklin Streets was designed by W. H. Lille and built in 1895 for Edward Coleman who owned of the Idaho Gold Mine in Grass Valley, California. More photos....

		294 Page Street Charles Dietle House Built 1885 San Francisco Landmark #48 The stick-style residence at the corner of Page and Laguna Streets was designed and built by Henry Geilfuss for Charles Dietle in 1885. In 1906, after the Earthquake and Fire, Mr Dietle sold it to John DeMartini for a bag of gold that Mr DeMartini had salvaged from his destroyed business. Today the building houses private law offices. More photos....

		201 Buchanan Street Nightingale House Built 1883 San Francisco Landmark #47 The residence at the corner of Buchanan and Waller Streets has elements of the Stick and Eastlake styles fused into a towered chalet. The house was probably built for John Nightingale, a former president of the California Pioneers who had come to San Francisco during the Gold Rush of 1849. Today the house is a private residence.