San Francisco House Histories, North Panhandle Neighborhood
Michael Helquist researched and wrote a series of house histories of residences located in San Francisco’s North Panhandle neighborhood and published them in the newsletter of the North of the Panhandle Neighborhood Association (NOPNA) in 2002 and 2003. They are reprinted here with permission. The buildings were selected in a random drawing among association members. Some of the structures were more architecturally significant than others, but each held a story.
Follow Politics & Passions, the blog accompanying this site, for announcement of new installments in this house history series.
Follow Politics & Passions, the blog accompanying this site, for announcement of new installments in this house history series.
“Sand Hills to Neighborhood Homes”
1660-1662-1664 Grove in the North Panhandle
By Michael Helquist
From the Beginning
How would epic writer James Michener tell the story of one building on one block in the North Panhandle neighborhood? In case you’ve never waded through one of his exhaustive treatments, Michener transports his readers to the beginning of time and moves inexorably forward. With our neighborhood, he could easily start with a speck of sand.
Wind-swept sand hills from Divisadero to the ocean -- that’s what Congress granted the city of San Francisco in March 1866. Mexican landowners had tried to retain their “pueblo lands,” but they lost it all under pressure from the Gold Rush squatters. By 1868 the city had surveyed the new acquisition, calling it first “the Outer Lands” and then the “Western Addition.” Two years later streets were laid out, lots were graded, and land grants were offered to investors and settlers. Masonic Avenue became the far western edge of the city; beyond it stretched vast cemetery tracts named Calvary, Chinese, Greek, Laurel Hill, Odd Fellows, and Masonic.
The layout of the new city blocks correspond to the fully developed grid today with the north-south streets above Grove taking on a steady grade. Streets carried names of political leaders (Hayes, Broderick, Baker), prominent Americans (Fulton, McAllister, Lyon and Turk), and points of interest, such as Grove Street, once close to grove of trees). The block considered here, 1600 Grove, appears on early maps bordered by Lyon and Lott Streets. Lott became Central Avenue in 1894.
The New Neighborhood
In 1870 California Governor Henry H. Haight authorized development of Golden Gate Park and Panhandle Park (they were considered separate at first).Original plans entailed a broad, green, five-mile-swath westward from City Hall and the Civic Center to the ocean, but so much land was deemed too precious for park use. Instead, a compromise resulted in three miles for Golden Gate Park and a one-block wide, three-quarter-mile long strip designated Panhandle Park. Soon street car lines lined the skinny panhandle strip, drawing developers and homebuyers.
The parks were wildly popular. By 1886 (three years before any houses appeared along 1600 Grove) more than 50,000 people visited the parks on any given day. By 1894 more than half of today’s buildings on the 1600 Grove block were standing. The newcomers almost certainly joined the two million visitors to that year’s Midwinter Fair, located in Golden Gate Park. At the fair they would have strolled along curving paths, dodged carriages and speeding bicyclists, marveled at the Tower of Electricity, and stopped at the Fine Arts Building, the first museum in the park.
The Panhandle Park claimed its own distinction as an arboreal museum with living exhibits from more than a dozen countries representing every continent, including bush cherries from Australia, gingkoes from China, olive trees from Greece, cedars from Morocco, and hawthorns from England. The eucalyptus trees in Panhandle Park today are the oldest trees in all of Golden Gate Park.
Cable Car Commuting
The green relief offered by the new parks led to the extension of several cable car lines. Travelers could roll along on the Hayes, McAllister, Haight, Oak, Ellis, and Geary street lines. At five cents a ride, commuting downtown was a breeze. Grove Street residents likely rode the green Hayes cars or the yellow McAllister versions. With the attraction of the parks and the easy access, the city sprouted “streetcar suburbs” including the North Panhandle, the Inner Sunset, Inner Richmond and Haight-Ashbury. Property values tripled wherever cable car lines were laid. With the arrival of electricity in the 1890s, electric street cars and trolley coaches replaced the cable cars. Many of the routes remain basically unchanged today. Today’s Grove Street residents ride along the same #5 Fulton and #21 Hayes lines as their predecessors more than 100 years ago.
Victorian Building Boom
A heavy migration to the city in the 1890s, along with cheap lumber and factory-made appliances, fueled a housing boom in the western part of the city. When construction began on the surveyed lots, the corner property was often a large apartment building set out to the property line at the sidewalk. Such was the case at the northeast corner of Grove and Central Avenue which was originally a huge lot measuring four times the usual 25 foot width. Not until 1906 was this corner expanse subdivided to accommodate today’s four lots (1690-1698, 1688-1684, 1682-1678, and 1672-1676 Grove). These four buildings were the last to be built on the 1600 block due to the late subdivision.
Early construction followed norms of the time: most buildings had the same number of stories and cost the same as neighboring structures. Early San Franciscans could often predict the price of any given house once they knew its block location. All early San Francisco houses were raised up off the damp, sandy ground although not all boasted full basements. Garages were rare. The building profiled here, 1660-1662-1664 Grove, is above street level and now has a garage and storage space.
The building at 1618-1620 Grove, completed on July 25, 1889, is the oldest of the twenty-four structures on the north and south sides of 1600 Grove. It was followed two months later by 1641-1643-1645 Grove. The building considered here, 1660-1662-1664, was constructed October 25, 1904.
Exterior Touches
The most prominent exterior features at 1660-1662-1664 Grove are the slanted bay windows on all three levels that became popular among builders after the turn of the century. These probably cheaper options replaced the now-iconic rectangular bay windows. The exterior walls facing the street are textured plaster with generous wood framing and wooden trim features ranging from simple to elaborate. Sculpted medallions appear above the entry stairs. A regular squared cornice at the roof line is offset by large dentil blocks above the third-story bay windows. Each level presents different architectural touches with the most straightforward gracing the lowest level that then yield to more expressive flourishes at the top.
Owners and Occupants
The 1894 owner of the undeveloped lot at 1660-1664 Grove was Ann Keys. Ten years later the current building was completed for Mr. H. Dahl, who owned it just two years before selling the building to Alex and Mary Sellinger. Early water department records indicate that the building was a multiple residence from the start, rather than a single-family home with relatives residing on all three floors. City directories reveal renters inhabited all three units. Early residents included an agent and salesman in 1660; a stableman, railroad man, and grocer (all unrelated) in 1662; and, in unit 1664, the Altman family included a painter, a printer, and a grocer.
The first building-owners to live in the Grove property were Pedro and Prisca Villa, who purchased the building in May 1948. They selected the middle flat for themselves, renting the other two. In 1979, Mrs. Villa passed away, and the property transferred to a son, Carlos P. Villa and his wife Esther Popescu Villa. The building owners at the time of this writing exhibit a framed poster for a performance, “Rhythms and Reverberations” at the de Young Museum in 1972 by Villa and two others.
In October 1998, Carlos Villa sold the building to Sam and Susan Blum and Keli Cwynar. Sam Blum moved to the Bay Area with his family when he was three years old, while Susan was born in the East Bay and later lived in Marin County. They met as students at UC Santa Barbara where Susan studied interior architecture. Sam and Susan married and lived in North Beach for nine years before moving to the North Panhandle neighborhood. They found the area relatively affordable then and they liked the proximity of the park. Their co-owner, Keli Cwynar, originally from Florida, trained as an architect. For several years Susan Blum served on the board of the North Panhandle Neighborhood Association, NOPNA, where on one occasion she helped coordinate the planting of neighborhood street trees.
Comfortable Interior
All three flats in the Grove Street building have similar layouts, other than differences allowing for the stairway to the third floor. The top flat, 1664, is filled with light, both from the street and from large skylights above the stairwell and in the back room. The front sitting room and the front bedroom get the benefit of the bay windows and views of the street and beyond. The original fireplace remains in the sitting room. Each room features refinished soft-wood floors; pocket doors lead to a second bedroom. A water closet and bath sit to one side of the hallway with a third smaller bedroom on the other. The hallway retains its original wainscoting of an incrusta style of embossed metal.
The family room with a functioning fireplace and the remodeled kitchen are at the rear providing a view of the large back yard, landscaped with an original brick pathway. Each of the three nearby properties to the east includes small houses at the rear of their lots, a not-uncommon feature in the neighborhood.
References
San Francisco Block Books, Sanborn Maps, Great Index to Register, city directories, San Francisco Water Department records.
First published by the North Panhandle News, July 2002. Reprinted with permission. Revised by author, March 2015.
1660-1662-1664 Grove in the North Panhandle
By Michael Helquist
From the Beginning
How would epic writer James Michener tell the story of one building on one block in the North Panhandle neighborhood? In case you’ve never waded through one of his exhaustive treatments, Michener transports his readers to the beginning of time and moves inexorably forward. With our neighborhood, he could easily start with a speck of sand.
Wind-swept sand hills from Divisadero to the ocean -- that’s what Congress granted the city of San Francisco in March 1866. Mexican landowners had tried to retain their “pueblo lands,” but they lost it all under pressure from the Gold Rush squatters. By 1868 the city had surveyed the new acquisition, calling it first “the Outer Lands” and then the “Western Addition.” Two years later streets were laid out, lots were graded, and land grants were offered to investors and settlers. Masonic Avenue became the far western edge of the city; beyond it stretched vast cemetery tracts named Calvary, Chinese, Greek, Laurel Hill, Odd Fellows, and Masonic.
The layout of the new city blocks correspond to the fully developed grid today with the north-south streets above Grove taking on a steady grade. Streets carried names of political leaders (Hayes, Broderick, Baker), prominent Americans (Fulton, McAllister, Lyon and Turk), and points of interest, such as Grove Street, once close to grove of trees). The block considered here, 1600 Grove, appears on early maps bordered by Lyon and Lott Streets. Lott became Central Avenue in 1894.
The New Neighborhood
In 1870 California Governor Henry H. Haight authorized development of Golden Gate Park and Panhandle Park (they were considered separate at first).Original plans entailed a broad, green, five-mile-swath westward from City Hall and the Civic Center to the ocean, but so much land was deemed too precious for park use. Instead, a compromise resulted in three miles for Golden Gate Park and a one-block wide, three-quarter-mile long strip designated Panhandle Park. Soon street car lines lined the skinny panhandle strip, drawing developers and homebuyers.
The parks were wildly popular. By 1886 (three years before any houses appeared along 1600 Grove) more than 50,000 people visited the parks on any given day. By 1894 more than half of today’s buildings on the 1600 Grove block were standing. The newcomers almost certainly joined the two million visitors to that year’s Midwinter Fair, located in Golden Gate Park. At the fair they would have strolled along curving paths, dodged carriages and speeding bicyclists, marveled at the Tower of Electricity, and stopped at the Fine Arts Building, the first museum in the park.
The Panhandle Park claimed its own distinction as an arboreal museum with living exhibits from more than a dozen countries representing every continent, including bush cherries from Australia, gingkoes from China, olive trees from Greece, cedars from Morocco, and hawthorns from England. The eucalyptus trees in Panhandle Park today are the oldest trees in all of Golden Gate Park.
Cable Car Commuting
The green relief offered by the new parks led to the extension of several cable car lines. Travelers could roll along on the Hayes, McAllister, Haight, Oak, Ellis, and Geary street lines. At five cents a ride, commuting downtown was a breeze. Grove Street residents likely rode the green Hayes cars or the yellow McAllister versions. With the attraction of the parks and the easy access, the city sprouted “streetcar suburbs” including the North Panhandle, the Inner Sunset, Inner Richmond and Haight-Ashbury. Property values tripled wherever cable car lines were laid. With the arrival of electricity in the 1890s, electric street cars and trolley coaches replaced the cable cars. Many of the routes remain basically unchanged today. Today’s Grove Street residents ride along the same #5 Fulton and #21 Hayes lines as their predecessors more than 100 years ago.
Victorian Building Boom
A heavy migration to the city in the 1890s, along with cheap lumber and factory-made appliances, fueled a housing boom in the western part of the city. When construction began on the surveyed lots, the corner property was often a large apartment building set out to the property line at the sidewalk. Such was the case at the northeast corner of Grove and Central Avenue which was originally a huge lot measuring four times the usual 25 foot width. Not until 1906 was this corner expanse subdivided to accommodate today’s four lots (1690-1698, 1688-1684, 1682-1678, and 1672-1676 Grove). These four buildings were the last to be built on the 1600 block due to the late subdivision.
Early construction followed norms of the time: most buildings had the same number of stories and cost the same as neighboring structures. Early San Franciscans could often predict the price of any given house once they knew its block location. All early San Francisco houses were raised up off the damp, sandy ground although not all boasted full basements. Garages were rare. The building profiled here, 1660-1662-1664 Grove, is above street level and now has a garage and storage space.
The building at 1618-1620 Grove, completed on July 25, 1889, is the oldest of the twenty-four structures on the north and south sides of 1600 Grove. It was followed two months later by 1641-1643-1645 Grove. The building considered here, 1660-1662-1664, was constructed October 25, 1904.
Exterior Touches
The most prominent exterior features at 1660-1662-1664 Grove are the slanted bay windows on all three levels that became popular among builders after the turn of the century. These probably cheaper options replaced the now-iconic rectangular bay windows. The exterior walls facing the street are textured plaster with generous wood framing and wooden trim features ranging from simple to elaborate. Sculpted medallions appear above the entry stairs. A regular squared cornice at the roof line is offset by large dentil blocks above the third-story bay windows. Each level presents different architectural touches with the most straightforward gracing the lowest level that then yield to more expressive flourishes at the top.
Owners and Occupants
The 1894 owner of the undeveloped lot at 1660-1664 Grove was Ann Keys. Ten years later the current building was completed for Mr. H. Dahl, who owned it just two years before selling the building to Alex and Mary Sellinger. Early water department records indicate that the building was a multiple residence from the start, rather than a single-family home with relatives residing on all three floors. City directories reveal renters inhabited all three units. Early residents included an agent and salesman in 1660; a stableman, railroad man, and grocer (all unrelated) in 1662; and, in unit 1664, the Altman family included a painter, a printer, and a grocer.
The first building-owners to live in the Grove property were Pedro and Prisca Villa, who purchased the building in May 1948. They selected the middle flat for themselves, renting the other two. In 1979, Mrs. Villa passed away, and the property transferred to a son, Carlos P. Villa and his wife Esther Popescu Villa. The building owners at the time of this writing exhibit a framed poster for a performance, “Rhythms and Reverberations” at the de Young Museum in 1972 by Villa and two others.
In October 1998, Carlos Villa sold the building to Sam and Susan Blum and Keli Cwynar. Sam Blum moved to the Bay Area with his family when he was three years old, while Susan was born in the East Bay and later lived in Marin County. They met as students at UC Santa Barbara where Susan studied interior architecture. Sam and Susan married and lived in North Beach for nine years before moving to the North Panhandle neighborhood. They found the area relatively affordable then and they liked the proximity of the park. Their co-owner, Keli Cwynar, originally from Florida, trained as an architect. For several years Susan Blum served on the board of the North Panhandle Neighborhood Association, NOPNA, where on one occasion she helped coordinate the planting of neighborhood street trees.
Comfortable Interior
All three flats in the Grove Street building have similar layouts, other than differences allowing for the stairway to the third floor. The top flat, 1664, is filled with light, both from the street and from large skylights above the stairwell and in the back room. The front sitting room and the front bedroom get the benefit of the bay windows and views of the street and beyond. The original fireplace remains in the sitting room. Each room features refinished soft-wood floors; pocket doors lead to a second bedroom. A water closet and bath sit to one side of the hallway with a third smaller bedroom on the other. The hallway retains its original wainscoting of an incrusta style of embossed metal.
The family room with a functioning fireplace and the remodeled kitchen are at the rear providing a view of the large back yard, landscaped with an original brick pathway. Each of the three nearby properties to the east includes small houses at the rear of their lots, a not-uncommon feature in the neighborhood.
References
San Francisco Block Books, Sanborn Maps, Great Index to Register, city directories, San Francisco Water Department records.
First published by the North Panhandle News, July 2002. Reprinted with permission. Revised by author, March 2015.
Michael Helquist, "Historical Profile of the North of Panhandle Neighborhood" NOPA House Tour, The Victorian Alliance of San Francisco, October 21, 2012.
Used with Permission, The Victorian Alliance of San Francisco, 2015. Note this profile was abridged by Kathy H. Carroll, 2012 and was editted with updates and additional writing by Tamara Hill, 2012. The Victorian Alliance sponsors annual historic house tours. For information about the organization and a description of the 2015 tour, see victorianalliance.org
Used with Permission, The Victorian Alliance of San Francisco, 2015. Note this profile was abridged by Kathy H. Carroll, 2012 and was editted with updates and additional writing by Tamara Hill, 2012. The Victorian Alliance sponsors annual historic house tours. For information about the organization and a description of the 2015 tour, see victorianalliance.org