Every House Has A Story To Tell: 718 Broderick
by Michael Helquist
Broderick Row
For decades the grand, ornate Victorians that line Alamo Square Park in San Francisco have captured the imagination of visitors to the city. These “Painted Ladies” have attained iconic status with countless photographs accompanying tourists returning home. But Alamo Square’s adjacent neighborhood, the North of the Panhandle, features its own outstanding Victorian and Edwardian residences. Of special note are the St. Anne towers that climb and descend the 700 block of Broderick Street between Fulton and McAllister Streets. These two-dozen architectural delights might rightly be christened “Broderick Row.” One architectural critic regards them the most colorful concentration of Victorians in the city. (1)
Every block carries an aspect of the city’s history, but the Broderick houses especially reveal the significant changes that San Francisco, and the North Panhandle area, experienced since the 1890s. Most of the houses in the neighborhood were built in the early 1900s, but the Victorians of Broderick Street were erected in the early 1890s by one of the city’s first home building companies, Cranston and Keenan.
The heavy migration to the city in the 1890s led to a housing boom marked by cheap lumber and factory-produced appliances and parts. The huge number of available laborers made it possible for construction in the “Outer Lands” to get seriously underway. The new Broderick Street houses lured homeowners with amenities previously available only to the wealthy -- central heating and stained glass windows with decorative carving adorning eaves, porches, and ceilings.
These residences represented the last phase of Victorian styles in house building. Many feature the typical Queen Anne flourishes -- the round corner towers with semi-circular bay windows complemented by turrets, tall chimneys, and spacious porches. The elaborate exteriors boast ornate cornices, brackets, and columns.
For decades the grand, ornate Victorians that line Alamo Square Park in San Francisco have captured the imagination of visitors to the city. These “Painted Ladies” have attained iconic status with countless photographs accompanying tourists returning home. But Alamo Square’s adjacent neighborhood, the North of the Panhandle, features its own outstanding Victorian and Edwardian residences. Of special note are the St. Anne towers that climb and descend the 700 block of Broderick Street between Fulton and McAllister Streets. These two-dozen architectural delights might rightly be christened “Broderick Row.” One architectural critic regards them the most colorful concentration of Victorians in the city. (1)
Every block carries an aspect of the city’s history, but the Broderick houses especially reveal the significant changes that San Francisco, and the North Panhandle area, experienced since the 1890s. Most of the houses in the neighborhood were built in the early 1900s, but the Victorians of Broderick Street were erected in the early 1890s by one of the city’s first home building companies, Cranston and Keenan.
The heavy migration to the city in the 1890s led to a housing boom marked by cheap lumber and factory-produced appliances and parts. The huge number of available laborers made it possible for construction in the “Outer Lands” to get seriously underway. The new Broderick Street houses lured homeowners with amenities previously available only to the wealthy -- central heating and stained glass windows with decorative carving adorning eaves, porches, and ceilings.
These residences represented the last phase of Victorian styles in house building. Many feature the typical Queen Anne flourishes -- the round corner towers with semi-circular bay windows complemented by turrets, tall chimneys, and spacious porches. The elaborate exteriors boast ornate cornices, brackets, and columns.
718 Broderick with its Queen Anne tower
718 Broderick
The focus of this installment in the North Panhandle House History Series is the mid-block Victorian at 718 Broderick. It was selected for a profile during a raffle among neighbors conducted by the author and the North of Panhandle Neighborhood Association in 1999. (The open selection process allowed a mix of architectural styles to be profiled but not always the most significant examples).
Calvin W. Knowles, a dentist and the first owner of 718 Broderick, purchased the house in 1891 for about $4000. The four-story building was the last of the Queen Annes to be erected on the east side of the block, and it soared majestically with seven others in a row. As a homeowner, Knowles was among the minority in a city of renters. He paid about $48 a year in property taxes for his new home. He and his neighbors could travel to the financial district for a nickel, using the Omnibus Railroad and Cable Car Company line that served Broderick Street.
In time, however, the automobile allowed the prosperous merchants and professionals of Broderick Street to leave the block to its increasingly middle-class residents. One study of the relocation patterns in early San Francisco found that the city was growing so fast that a ten-year-old house was considered out-of-date. (2) Notions of fashionable neighborhoods came and went quickly. In the 1920s another housing boom surged through the city, and wealthy San Franciscans moved to the new suburbs further west toward the ocean and down the peninsula. Soon the Victorians of Broderick Street were partitioned to allow for small apartments and boarding rooms for white, blue-collar workers. Knowles’ $4000 house had risen in value to $10,000 to $14,000 twenty years after his purchase. House values cratered during the Depression, however, dropping 718 Broderick and similar structures into the $5000 to $7000 range.
The focus of this installment in the North Panhandle House History Series is the mid-block Victorian at 718 Broderick. It was selected for a profile during a raffle among neighbors conducted by the author and the North of Panhandle Neighborhood Association in 1999. (The open selection process allowed a mix of architectural styles to be profiled but not always the most significant examples).
Calvin W. Knowles, a dentist and the first owner of 718 Broderick, purchased the house in 1891 for about $4000. The four-story building was the last of the Queen Annes to be erected on the east side of the block, and it soared majestically with seven others in a row. As a homeowner, Knowles was among the minority in a city of renters. He paid about $48 a year in property taxes for his new home. He and his neighbors could travel to the financial district for a nickel, using the Omnibus Railroad and Cable Car Company line that served Broderick Street.
In time, however, the automobile allowed the prosperous merchants and professionals of Broderick Street to leave the block to its increasingly middle-class residents. One study of the relocation patterns in early San Francisco found that the city was growing so fast that a ten-year-old house was considered out-of-date. (2) Notions of fashionable neighborhoods came and went quickly. In the 1920s another housing boom surged through the city, and wealthy San Franciscans moved to the new suburbs further west toward the ocean and down the peninsula. Soon the Victorians of Broderick Street were partitioned to allow for small apartments and boarding rooms for white, blue-collar workers. Knowles’ $4000 house had risen in value to $10,000 to $14,000 twenty years after his purchase. House values cratered during the Depression, however, dropping 718 Broderick and similar structures into the $5000 to $7000 range.
718 Broderick, front porch
Changing Demographics
With the onset of World War II and the plentiful supply of jobs in the San Francisco shipyards, the city’s African-American population joined thousands of new arrivals from the South and established residences and vibrant communities along Fillmore Street and throughout the Western Addition. In the years after the war, whites “took to the hills,” according to Joe Williams, a retired merchant seaman, who bought 763 Broderick in 1955 for $24,000. (2) Then, in the mid-1960s when the Reverend William R. London moved into 714 Broderick, the entire block was inhabited by Blacks who formed a close-knit community.
The social turbulence of the late 1960s and early 1970s exacted a heavy toll along Broderick Street. Many of the homes were abandoned and a few served as a refuge for alcoholics and heroin users. Life became more difficult for many of the residents on the street, and house maintenance suffered. Later in the 1970s the booming regional economy triggered a decade-long surge in home prices. Investors and speculators took notice of the one-time Broderick Street mansions, and turned the bargain-priced properties into showplace apartments for well-paid managers and office workers
In 1986 Barbara Russell, a retired nurse, made a down-payment of $120,000 to buy 718 Broderick. Her investment became a labor of love, as she and her husband renovated the interior themselves, stripping fifty-year-old wallpaper and sanding away black paint that hid the lovely oak paneling in the lobby. The Russells and their neighbors helped return the Queen Annes of the block into architectural treasures.
References
(1) Painted Ladies Revisited: San Francisco's Resplendent Victorians Inside and Out, E. Pomada and M. Larson, E.P. Dutton: New York, 1989.
(2) "Street of Dreams," W. Cellis III, The Wall Street Journal, 1989.
Sources Consulted
Randolph Delehanty and Richard Sexton, In the Victorian Style (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1991); E. Pomada and M. Larsen, Painted Ladies Revisted: San Francisco’s Resplendent Victorians Inside and Out (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1989); W. Celis III, “Street of Dreams,” The Wall Street Journal, 1989; city directories, municipal reports, SF Water Department, Sanborn maps.
(c) 1999, 2015 Michael Helquist.
With the onset of World War II and the plentiful supply of jobs in the San Francisco shipyards, the city’s African-American population joined thousands of new arrivals from the South and established residences and vibrant communities along Fillmore Street and throughout the Western Addition. In the years after the war, whites “took to the hills,” according to Joe Williams, a retired merchant seaman, who bought 763 Broderick in 1955 for $24,000. (2) Then, in the mid-1960s when the Reverend William R. London moved into 714 Broderick, the entire block was inhabited by Blacks who formed a close-knit community.
The social turbulence of the late 1960s and early 1970s exacted a heavy toll along Broderick Street. Many of the homes were abandoned and a few served as a refuge for alcoholics and heroin users. Life became more difficult for many of the residents on the street, and house maintenance suffered. Later in the 1970s the booming regional economy triggered a decade-long surge in home prices. Investors and speculators took notice of the one-time Broderick Street mansions, and turned the bargain-priced properties into showplace apartments for well-paid managers and office workers
In 1986 Barbara Russell, a retired nurse, made a down-payment of $120,000 to buy 718 Broderick. Her investment became a labor of love, as she and her husband renovated the interior themselves, stripping fifty-year-old wallpaper and sanding away black paint that hid the lovely oak paneling in the lobby. The Russells and their neighbors helped return the Queen Annes of the block into architectural treasures.
References
(1) Painted Ladies Revisited: San Francisco's Resplendent Victorians Inside and Out, E. Pomada and M. Larson, E.P. Dutton: New York, 1989.
(2) "Street of Dreams," W. Cellis III, The Wall Street Journal, 1989.
Sources Consulted
Randolph Delehanty and Richard Sexton, In the Victorian Style (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1991); E. Pomada and M. Larsen, Painted Ladies Revisted: San Francisco’s Resplendent Victorians Inside and Out (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1989); W. Celis III, “Street of Dreams,” The Wall Street Journal, 1989; city directories, municipal reports, SF Water Department, Sanborn maps.
(c) 1999, 2015 Michael Helquist.