Timothy Pflueger Blog

El Rey Theatre blueprints show what’s missing

February 26, 2010 by tpoletti

Drawing of plaster ornament on El Rey's auditorium sidewalls

Architectural historians are like detectives, sleuthing to figure out what happened at the scene of a crime. They use old photos, blueprints, layers of paint and other materials beneath the surface of remodeled historic buildings, looking for clues of the original architect’s intent.

They also try and determine what travesties occurred in the name of modernization.

So a recent discovery of some blueprints of the old El Rey Theatre, at 1970 Ocean Avenue, offers some clues of what elements might have been left out, or what may be missing from the former theatre, now the home of the Voice of Pentecost Church.

The theatre, by architect Timothy Pflueger, was one of three movie palaces designed by the firm in the early 1930s. Miller & Pflueger first worked on the Paramount Theatre for Paramount Publix, which opened in December, 1931, a month after the El Rey, designed for Samuel Levin and San Francisco Theatres Inc. The Alameda was designed for the Nasser Brothers in 1932. The three theatres were the most Moderne of Pflueger’s theatres designed from the ground up.

El Rey blueprints planned for more detailed sidewalls

The blueprints of the original El Rey show that Pflueger intended a series of masks in cast plaster to adorn the sidewalls of the auditorium, amid a series of plain neo-classic columns.

From the photos of the theatre’s interior today, it appears that Levin, the owner, might have decided on a less exotic look, sans masks, for the auditorium. But another possibility exists. Perhaps some of the missing ornament was removed when the theatre was closed or sold, a frequent occurrence. Stunning light fixtures were said to once grace the lobby. Murals, including one depicting modes of transportation, adorned the mezzanine, now an office, and were painted over by new owners.

From news stories in November, 1931 when the theatre opened, the El Rey was described with “rich decorative details” a place where movie goers could escape their economic woes. A “gallery of mirrors” adorned the lobby.

This is what the auditorium sidewalls look like today. The shape of the original plaster face is the same, yet instead it has a floral pattern and fan instead of the above human visage:

El Rey auditorium sidewalls today (c) Tom Paiva Photography

While we many never know if any of the faces or masks made it onto the sidewalls of the El Rey, Pflueger returned to the idea a few years later, in his detailed Lucite ceiling for the Patent Leather Lounge in the St. Francis Hotel, completed in 1939 and ripped out in the 1950s. (the bar was located in what is now the spot for Michael Minna’s restaurant). Two of the masks saved from the original ceiling can today be seen, painted gold and framed in the bar of the Tia Margarita restaurant on 19th Avenue and Clement Street.

This bit of ornament can still be found in the remodeled El Rey interior, based on these pictures taken by Tom Paiva for our book, Art Deco San Francisco. This is a drawing from a blueprint, followed by a photo from 2007 of the auditorium’s interior.

Detailed drawing of plaster ornament of El Rey Theatre

El Rey Theatre mezzanine ornament (c) Tom Paiva Photography

Another interesting revelation from the blueprints is a set of drawings of the tower and chimney. The top of the tower, which still stands today, was originally highlighted by red and green neon. The glowing tower beckoned evening crowds to the theatre in the frequent fog of the neighborhood.

Blueprints for the El Rey’s tower indicate Pflueger intended a big swirling letter “R,” made of neon, at the structure’s bottom.

But from an exterior photo of the theatre in 1931, it appears that this extra neon remained on the drawing board of Miller & Pflueger’s offices. The cost for additional tubing required for the curving “R” was perhaps seen as unnecessary. Instead, a photo in the San Francisco Chronicle at the time of its opening, shows the tower with simple block letters spelling out EL REY, possibly outlined in neon.

El Rey theatre blueprint of neon and chimney

News stories at the time mostly focused on the “flaming beacon” at the top of the tower, also used as an airplane beacon for planes flying into the airport, known as Mills Field at the time. So it does not look as if the signature “R” made it into the finished tower.

Posted in Alameda Theatre, Art Deco, El Rey Theatre, Miller & Pflueger, Paramount Theatre, movie palaces | 2 Comments »

Neutra’s son helps raise money for VDL compound

February 16, 2010 by tpoletti

Got a spare $2,500 lying around? You can buy a very cool black and white photograph of architect Richard Neutra taken by legendary architectural photographer Julius Shulman, at Neutra’s then-radical home in Los Angeles in 1966.

Richard Neutra at VDL House, 1966 by Julius Shulman, courtesy Raymond Neutra

The photo depicts Neutra, sitting on the terrace of his VDL Research Site, the home where Neutra and his family lived and where he worked for three decades. He moved to California in the late 1920s. The native of Vienna came to the U.S. via New York and then Chicago, where he worked briefly for Frank Lloyd Wright, before joining his friend Rudolf Schindler in Los Angeles.

The main wing of VDL, sometimes referred to as VDL II, was re-built in 1966 after a fire destroyed much of the original home built in 1932. Neutra named the home the VDL Research Site after the Dutch industrialist, Cornelius H. Van der Leeuw, who gave the architect a a no-interest loan of $3,000 to build his own home.

The VDL Research Site, located at 2300 Silver Lake Boulevard in Los Angeles, is regarded as a beacon for the mid century modernist movement in California for its affordable, spare design, innovative use of materials and its indoor-outdoor continuity, a concept not typically embraced by most architects of the International School in Europe. The home was also a cultural and political salon, attracting other architects and thinkers.

VDL was built in three waves and is now owned by Cal Poly Pomona College of Environmental Design per a bequest by Neutra’s wife. It is in need of repairs and restoration. For example, an estimated $120,000 is needed to repair the cooling water roof, added in the 1966 version of VDL, and depicted in the photo.

The money raised by selling these 16″ x 20″ prints, all signed by Shulman and twice the size of the original 8″ x 10″ print, will go toward ongoing and urgently needed work to restore the building and provide maintenance. A total of 35 limited edition prints were made. Because of the value of the prints, the purchase is not a tax deductible donation. More information can be found on the Neutra VDL compound’s Web site.

The story of VDL was told by Neutra’s youngest son Raymond, who grew up in the house. Neutra gave a talk last week at a duplex designed by his father, at 2056-2058 Jefferson Street.

Neutra duplex on Jefferson Street

This modern, sleek glass and steel box in the heart of San Francisco’s Marina District, stands as a stark iconoclast on a block of mostly Spanish Colonial revival homes of the 1920s. The lecture was sponsored by the San Francisco Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

“It’s a personal perspective of the place I grew up,” Neutra said of the VDL compound.

Raymond Neutra went into the field of public health. In 2007, he retired as chief of the division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control in the California Department of Public Health. Even though he did not become an architect, he was immersed in that world since childhood and has a great knowledge and appreciation of architecture and design.

His brother, Dion carried on the architectural torch and worked on VDL II with his father.

Interior staircase of Neutra-designed duplex on Jefferson Street

The evening’s co-host was San Francisco architect Chad Overway of Overway + Partners, the current owner of the duplex. Overway gave a brief description of some of his work on the building, designed by Neutra in 1938.

Overway bought the building from original owner Ilse Schiff in 1993 and has been slowly restoring it, eliminating things added over the years, such as wall-to-wall carpeting and paint that covered the original steel window frames, now painstakingly restored.

Earlier this year, Overway and his wife put the two-unit home up for sale, with an asking price of $3.95 million but the timing was poor for a high-end property with three levels, a garden, four-car garage and rooftop terrace with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Posted in Frank Lloyd Wright, Mid-century modernism, Richard Neutra | Leave a Comment »

450 Sutter named to National Register of Historic Places

January 23, 2010 by tpoletti

Miller & Pflueger’s innovative skyscraper 450 Sutter was named to the National Register of Historic Places, as of last month. The stunning Mayan themed 26-story high rise building, completed in 1929, was described in the application as a “masterwork” of noted San Francisco architect, Timothy Pflueger.

The listing is on the National Parks Service Web site here.

Congrats to Harsch Investment Properties, the owners of the 450 Sutter Medical/Dental building. The company just completed a major restoration project, and the scaffolding that had been in front of the building for over two years has now come down.

450 Sutter Spotted in Coit Tower Murals

I recently went on the Coit Tower murals tour with San Francisco City Guides, where the tour has access to the second floor closed to the public. On the wall of the staircase leading to the second floor of the tower is a massive fresco mural depicting a walk up Powell Street. One sees a very large and familiar building.

450 Sutter in a mural at Coit Tower by artist Lucien Labaudt

Labaudt, who was also known as a dressmaker, was born in Paris and moved to San Francisco right after the 1906 earthquake. He had a dressmaking shop and was an artist in his spare time. He eventually became known for his painting and theatre set designs and was chosen to join the 26 artists sponsored by the Works Progress Administration to paint the Coit Tower murals. The tower, designed by architect Arthur Brown, Jr., was completed in 1933.

Ralph Stackpole, who sculpted the large figures outside the San Francisco Stock Exchange for Pflueger, also worked on the Coit Tower murals.

Labaudt is probably best known in San Francisco for his murals at the Beach Chalet on the Great Highway. But he was also one of the artists hired by Pflueger to work on murals at George Washington High School. Along with the murals that adorn the staircase in the main entry hall by Victor Arnautoff, telling the story of George Washington, Labaudt painted another fresco mural in the upstairs library. You can read more about him in this oral history with his second wife, Marcelle Labaudt, in the Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution.

Lucien Labaudt's mural of writers, inventors and thinkers, (c) Tom Paiva Photography

Posted in 450 Sutter, Art Deco Architecture, Coit Tower, Harsch Investment Properties, Lucien Labaudt, Maya, Miller & Pflueger, Ralph Stackpole | Leave a Comment »

It’s a two-fer: Modernism lectures and a Neutra

January 11, 2010 by tpoletti

I recently stumbled upon a great lecture series on modernism in architecture, called “The Legacy of Modern” at the Los Altos Community Foundation. Not only are the lectures educational for anyone interested in archtecture and design, but the cost goes toward restoring a rare Richard Neutra house in the South Bay.

Neutra House in Los Altos at twilight

I missed last month’s lecture by Alan Hess, architect, author and architectural critic of my alma mater, the San Jose Mercury News.

But I managed to get there Thursday night to hear journalist Dave Weinstein and author of Signature Architects of the San Francisco Bay Area. Weinstein spoke about the architects of some of the much-loved mid-century Eichler built homes in the Bay Area. The audience was loaded with Eichler home owners. Weinstein shared funny anecdotes about local architectural legends who designed many Eichlers, such as Bob Anshen of Anshen + Allen, and showed some excellent photos.

If you arrive early enough, you can go through the restored Neutra House, which was once one of a small cluster of three affordable modern homes designed by the legendary Neutra. Though Neutra was born in Austria in 1892 (the same year as Timothy Pflueger), he became a leader of California mid-century modernism after he moved to the Los Angeles area in the 1920s.

A community-led effort helped preserve the last remaining of those three small Neutra houses. The cluster of simple, flat-roofed redwood clad homes, completed in 1939, was a writers commune on Marvin Avenue near a prune orchard. Two poets, Clayton Stafford and Jacqueline Johnson, had hired Neutra to design their respectives homes and a third smaller guest house on a half acre lot at 180-184 Martin Avenue.

The project to save Johnson’s house started in 2005. The city of Los Altos was given the house and moved it to its current site on Hillview Avenue. King Lear (yes that really is his name), who was on the Los Altos City Council, helped spearhead the project.

The project included cutting the house in half to move it three blocks from its original location to the City Community Center on Hillview. The house was seated on a new foundation. Structural components damaged by dry rot or infestation were replaced. Green paint was stripped from the redwood and original siding was sanded and treated. A new covered entry was built to shelter the front door, replacing the original carport.

All the work on the house, including modifying the interior to be used as a small conference center, was completed in 2008. Large airy windows, which once faced the prune orchard, now face a patio (see above photo) which can be used for outdoor functions. You can read more about the project here and if you visit for another one of the upcoming lectures, you can watch videos about Neutra and his work.

The next upcoming lecture will be by San Francisco architect Jonathan Pearlman who will talk about the evolution of the modern house from mid-19th century England to 20th century America, on February 11. Save the date!

UPDATE: Another Neutra house will be on view February 9, with a lecture by his youngest son, Dr. Raymond Richard Neutra, sponsored by the San Francisco chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Attendees will see Neutra’s house in the Marina district, at 2058 Jefferson Street, near Baker. That house was put on the market in early January, for nearly $4 million. A series of photos and more about the house itself can be found here at CurbedSF.

Posted in Mid-century modernism, Richard Neutra | Leave a Comment »

Deco the halls: SF skyscrapers jazz it up

December 24, 2009 by tpoletti

Every December, when people are looking for ways to evoke that holiday spirit, many families pile up in cars and drive to their favorite Bay Area neighborhood, famous for over-the-top displays.

Or they traipse to Union Square together, to check out the huge windows at Macy’s, Saks 5th Avenue, and Neiman Marcus, where some, like Carl Nolte of the San Francisco Chronicle, fondly remember the store when it was the City of Paris.

So here is a novel idea if you are searching for some holiday glam, away from the crowds. Come to the Financial District, where many skyscrapers are decked out in their red and gold finest, and glimpse the city’s smorgasbord of architectural styles.

Of course, here at the Timothy Pflueger blog, I am partial to the skyscrapers of the Jazz Age. But there is holiday spirit everywhere you turn. Try and catch some of these decorations before they are put away in storage at the dawn of the new decade.

Giant ornaments at plaza at 101 California

101 California Street

A fun place to start, where many come to take photos, is the plaza in front of the tower simply known as 101 California.

The plaza is currently dominated by giant red steel Christmas tree ornaments. You will feel like a Lilliputian next to these giants, which are nicely accented by an array of potted red Cyclamen. There are two big block of concrete steps in the plaza (like a ziggurat!) to relax or watch seagulls bathe in the nearby fountain.

Giant ornaments hang from the ceiling of 101 California

Inside, the lobby of the cylindrical 48-story tower, completed in 1982 and designed by architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee, has more grandiose decor. Enormous ornaments hang from the ceiling.

One Bush Plaza

Continue down California, then turn left onto Battery Street, until you reach the corner of Battery and Bush, and cross the street to the Crown Zellerbach Building, the city’s first International style building, and one of the finest examples of mid-century modern design in the city, inspired by Mies van der Rohe.

Crown Zellerbach's all glass Miesian lobby

One Sansome Street

Walk down Bush Street one block. Turn left onto Sansome and cross the street. If you are walking during regular business hours, you can enter the courtyard that serves as the conservatory adjacent to the bland skyscraper at One Sansome Street. The conservatory is the former site of a bank designed by my favorite Beaux-Arts architect, Albert Pissis.

Conservatory at One Sansome with Poinsettia tree

The lovely marble-enclosed conservatory was originally the Anglo and London Paris National Bank, which occupied the site from 1910-1981.

Pissis, a San Francisco architect who was born in Mexico to a French father and a Mexican mother, grew up mostly in San Francisco, with an interlude at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the 1870s.

Pissis is known for his early embrace of the Neoclassic, as one can see from the preserved marble arches and ornate cornice. Some of his best-known buildings are the Hibernia Bank on Jones Street, the Flood Building on Market and Powell, and the former Emporium, now San Francisco Centre, just across Market Street from the Flood Building.

155 Sansome Street

Turn around and continue on Sansome Street and head to the former Pacific Stock Exchange building at the corner of Sansome and Pine (an amusing footnote, in the financial pages of the Chronicle for years, a byline on the daily markets wrap-up story was Sansome Pine).

155 Sansome Lobby (do not use without permission of Empire Group)

There is usually a friendly guard sitting at the information desk (except on Sundays) in the lobby of 155 Sansome Street, who won’t mind if you peak at the tree and the gorgeous lobby.

If you cannot get inside, you can also gaze at the streamlined design of Miller & Pflueger’s tower, completed in 1929 just after the great stock market crash. The massive sculptures that adorn both the facade of 155 Sansome and the Stock Exchange trading building on Pine were done by local artist Ralph Stackpole and you can see the influence of his friend, muralist Diego Rivera, who painted a stunning mural inside at the City Club, the former luncheon club for traders and brokers.

Inside, gold tones in the lobby compliment the brightly lit tree and shimmer in the reflection of the dark marble walls. The star-patterned ceiling was inspired by a Berlin nightclub.

465 California Street

Continue down Sansome until you hit California Street again, turn left, and look for the brightly colored columns of the Merchants Exchange Building, designed in 1904 by famed Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, with Willis Polk, one of the city’s more eccentric architects, best known for his daring design of the Hallidie Building at 130 Sutter and its innovative glass curtain wall.

Merchants Exchange Building and its tarted up Ionic columns

Russ Building

Continue along California Street and turn left onto Montgomery, you will see the heavy massing of the Russ Building at 235 Montgomery Street, which was for many years the tallest skyscraper in San Francisco, after its completion in 1927.

Russ Building's Neogothic details with red holiday cheer

It stole the crown in height from Miller & Pflueger and Cantin’s Telephone Building. Its Neogothic detailing makes one think of a cathedral and the lobby is especially church-like, a veritable temple to finance. It was commissioned by two investment banking firms during the roaring 1920s stock market boom.

After admiring how the terracotta facing and detailing is highlighted by the red holiday swags and greenery, continue down Montgomery Street, also known as Wall Street West (even though the Stock Exchange was located on Pine Street).

Continue until you hit Sutter Street, and at Sutter and Montgomery, you will find the office building where Dashiell Hammett’s best known detective, Sam Spade, had his office.

Sam Spade went through these doors

111 Sutter

It has been calculated by Hammett fans, including Don Herron, the creator of the Dashiell Hammett walking tour, that Sam Spade, the detective in The Maltese Falcon, had his office in the Hunter-Dulin, completed in 1926 by New York architects Schultze & Weaver, known for their beloved Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

While not Deco or Moderne in style, the Hunter-Dulin Building is reminiscent of a French chateau. Its unusual copper mansard roof can be seen as you hike up Sutter Street. Notice the ornament course at eye level and you will see a bird. A falcon perhaps? Well not likely, since the building was complete before the black bird’s infamous moments in literature. But it’s fun to pretend.

450 Sutter

Turn left at the Hunter-Dulin Building, and head up Sutter Street, just as Spade turned toward Kearny on the prowl for some tobacco. There is a slight incline and as you walk west, you can see the tower of 450 Sutter, its terracotta ornament recently cleaned and new windows installed.

The interior is like stepping into a temple of the Maya, with its stepped ceiling in the shape of a ziggurat. The gold and green holiday decorations contrast with the dark Levanto marble and echo the gold, bronze and silver tones of the extensive metal work, which evoke Mayan figures, in the stunning lobby.

450 Sutter's Maya lobby decorated with holiday greenery

Happy holidays to everyone.

Posted in Albert Pissis, Hunter-Dulin Building, Miller & Pflueger, Neo-gothic, Russ Building, San Franisco Stock Exchange, Skyscrapers | 1 Comment »

Is the Transbay Terminal worth saving?

December 16, 2009 by tpoletti

Every time I walk past the dirty, exhaust-fume smudged Tranbay Terminal, amazingly I breathe a sigh of relief that its demolition has not yet occurred. This week, it was still there, as I glanced in the late winter light of the day, the belching buses pulling in front of its once-sleek entrance dominated by massive industrial style windows.

Transbay Terminal (c) Tom Paiva Photography

Those windows with the metal trim echo both the entry of the former San Francisco Stock Exchange Tower on Sansome Street, and the aluminum-colored Bay Bridge.

In its glory days, the then-sparkling Transbay was the terminus for many Key System trains, which traveled on the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. The Transbay Terminal’s spare modern design was by architects Tim Plfueger, Arthur Brown Jr. and John Donovan, the team which also worked — somewhat ineffectively due to cost constraints – as consultants on the Bay Bridge. Their biggest impact was creating a more elegant design for the suspension towers, Yerba Buena Tunnel, and the color of the bridge, a big debate with the engineers who wanted to paint the Bay Bridge black.

Trains traveled over the lower deck of the Bay Bridge when it opened in 1936 until the Key System was shut down and ripped out in 1958. Some of its old railway cars ended up in Buenos Aires.

Some people don’t understand my love for this building. I try to imagine it as it was, before it was converted into a bus station in 1959, and before it became a homeless encampment. A drawing of the original interior, seen in my book Art Deco San Francisco, shows an open light-filled hall, where hurried train passengers scurried to their destinations. Now, its interior is cut up by escalators and added levels compress the space.

Transbay Terminal Postcard, circa 1937

But the building is doomed. It is slated to be torn down sometime early next year and a temporary Transbay Transit Terminal has been in construction since 2008, a few blocks away, at Main, Folsom, Beale, and Howard streets.

Nearby on Natoma Street, the Varnish Fine Art gallery has a fat binder for anyone who wants to read about emminent domain, which is being used to evict all the small businesses in the area, to make way for a new mega-tower and transit hub. Across the street from Varnish one night, an evening construction crew was digging 240 feet into the ground, bay mud and silt, for the piles to support foundation of the first of a proposed cluster of skyscrapers that, if they get built, will change the look of the city forever, as the San Francisco Chronicle’s John King notes.

The Transbay Terminal is viewed as an eyesore. I don’t agree. Its boxy lines, big square windows and trim are an elegant take on the utilitarian International Stylists, and a nod to the Bauhaus School.

Transbay Terminal 1947, Paul C. Trimble Collection

Cleaned up and repaired, it could have served as a base for a new tower, much as the Hearst Building in New York uses its 1928 6-story headquarters building as a base for its 46-story glass and steel tower on West 57th St., near Columbus Circle.

I am sure such impractical ideas never occurred to the architects who want to promote their own designs. Not many think the building is worth saving. Instead, more bland glass skyscrapers will eventually be built, if they ever get approved.

In this case, where a multi-billion transit project, involving city, state and federal funding is planned, it would have been futile to try and fight city hall.

And that’s a sad thing.

Posted in Bay Bridge, Transbay Terminal | 2 Comments »

Next talk on Pflueger to be in a Pflueger

November 15, 2009 by tpoletti

Renovated Alameda Theatre

This is a tad early for a save-the-date notice, but a special lecture is coming up next year.

In January, I will be doing a talk on architect Timothy Pflueger for the Alameda Architectural Preservation Society. As a special treat, the lecture will take place inside the Pflueger-designed Alameda Theatre, resplendent since its $15.2 million restoration in the heart of downtown Alameda.

The lecture will cover Pflueger’s humble beginnings as a son of working class German immigrants to his rise as one of the city’s most prominent architects of the 1920s to the late 1940s. Many of Tom Paiva’s gorgeous photos from our book Art Deco San Francisco will illustrate the evolution of Pflueger’s work — from his early training in the Beaux-Arts style to the exotic movie palaces such as the Paramount and Alameda, to more streamlined work of the Great Depression, to the first inkling of modernism in buildings like the Transbay Terminal.

Because of the special venue at the Alameda, which was dark as a movie theatre for nearly 30 years before its grand 2008 reopening, the slideshow presentation will include some discussion of the restoration project. The nearly $40 million project included building a new cineplex connected to the historic theatre, constructing a parking garage and the restoration of the 1932 theatre.

Alameda interior

Alameda Architectural Preservation Society members are free. Non-members are welcome for $5.00, and books will be available at a discount.

Please come to the talk on Sunday, January 24 at 6:00 pm, especially if you have not yet been inside this incredible theatre, which can again be called a movie palace.

If you can’t wait until then, there are plenty of first-run movies playing now. In addition, the Alameda Theatre is offering a classic film series in the historic theatre, starting off this week with “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Other films in the series include “The Bishop’s Wife” and the holiday favorite, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Tags: movie palaces
Posted in Alameda Theatre, Paramount Theatre, movie palaces | 2 Comments »

Charming book chronicles streetcar bohemia

November 10, 2009 by tpoletti

Just before the turn of the century in San Francisco, a few years after architect Tim Pflueger was born in 1892, a quirky community sprouted up among the desolate sand dunes of Ocean Beach. Some enterprising real estate men and hardy pioneering souls turned a host of obsolete horse-drawn street cars into coffee stands, homes and weekend seaside cottages.

New Carville-by-the-Sea book

This fascinating development of a beachside bohemia is chronicled in a just-published book, “Carville-by-the Sea, San Francisco’s Streetcar Suburb” by Woody LaBounty, a San Franicsco historian and founder of the Western Neighborhoods Project.

The beautifully designed book is a treasure trove of vintage photographs, postcards, newspaper clippings and old city maps, presented as an old scrapbook. LaBounty has colored some of the black and white photos, which adds more depth and drama. Some photos feature the old street cars tilted among the sand dunes, “looking as though a gigantic box of toys had been spilled and scattered there,” described the Overland Monthly in 1908. Others show these makeshift homes raised on platforms.

This engaging book is full of anecdotes and lively characters, such as Colonel Charles Dailey, one of the earliest settlers. LaBounty guides us through the history of what became known as Carville, from a few lone outposts in the sand dunes to its evolution as a fin de siecle gathering place for writers and artists, to its ultimate demise in 1913.

Traces remain today in the Outer Sunset

LaBounty also takes us to the present, where one can still find remnants and a survivor out in Ocean Beach.

Ever curious about San Francisco history and architecture, I drove out to 1632 Great Highway, which LaBounty says may be the last Carville house in San Francisco. You can’t tell from the front of the house, but thanks to LaBounty’s photos, one can see that this non-descript structure is indeed made of two former horse cars.

LaBounty begins a whirlwind series of lectures tonight at the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society at 7:30 pm at the Jewish Community Center. The book is reasonably priced at $35 and can be found at Green Apple books, or from LaBounty at many of his upcoming lectures. He will also be giving a walking tour in the Outer Sunset.

UPDATE: Just found Carl Nolte’s story in Sunday’s Chronicle with photos of the surviving house and an interview with LaBounty.

Posted in Carville-by-the-Sea, outer Sunset | Leave a Comment »

King Tut-mania lives on in San Francisco

November 6, 2009 by tpoletti

Shell Building, 1930 postcard

The King Tut exhibit at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park is not the only place in San Francisco you will find a penchant for all things Egyptian.

The influence of that discovery in 1922 of the Egyptian boy pharaoh’s tomb lives on today in many Art Deco buildings that have survived since the 1920s. Some fine examples can be found in San Francisco, including the Financial District.

After Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered in late 1922 by archeologist Howard Carter, the world became fascinated with ancient Egypt. What Deco-philes now refer to as “Tut-mania” was a sudden popularity of Egyptian imagery in the design of clothing, jewelry, furniture, and architecture.

Shell Building facade with lotus flowers

According to Christopher Frayling, in the catalog for the stunning ”Art Deco 1910-1939,” an exhibit that came to San Francisco’s Legion of Honor in 2004, the mania was widespread around the world.

“The craze touched every aspect of design, from the ‘Tutankamen Rag’ played by the jazz orchestra in the ballroom of the Winter Palace Hotel, Luxor, to the latest lines in Egyptian-inspired garments, furniture, interior designs, bookbindings and fashion accessories in London, Paris, Berlin and New York,” Frayling wrote.

The Tut-mania craze, which Evelyn Waugh later wrote “so vulgarized” the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, manifested itself in architecture through the use of symbols and imagery evocative of ancient Egypt, typically as the decorative ornament of buildings, particularly skyscrapers with any semblance to a ziggurat or stepped towers.

The Shell Building, designed by architect George Kelham and completed in 1930, is an excellent example of the obsession with Egypt. A lovely brass screen above the front entrance of the building has a lotus flower pattern, as do the elevator doors inside the lobby (see above photo for exterior view). The lotus flower, a symbol of rebirth in ancient Egypt, was used frequently as ornament and in the capitals of columns.

130 Montgomery's tomb-like entrance

A brief stroll just in the Financial District alone can uncover several Egyto-mania references hidden or blatant in some of the city’s oldest and most elegant office buildings. Another symbol of rebirth or reincarnation is the scarab beetle. Who knew one could find a scarab on Montgomery Street, Wall Street West. But a close look at the ornament on each side of the tomb-like entrance of 130 Montgomery Street, completed in 1930 and designed by the O’Brien Brothers and Wilbur Peugh, reveals two scarabs in bas relief, accentuated by flat column-like speed lines.

Scarabs were beetles that were sacred to the Egyptians who were often buried with them. The scarabs, or dung beetles, meant transformation, resurrection and are connected with death and rebirth. In King Tut’s tomb, for example, one of the glorious golden necklaces found among the treasures had a piece of glass depicting a scarab, leading scientists to try to determine how did a piece of yellowish glass end up in a piece of jewelry in Ancient Egypt. But that’s another story.

Architect Kelham, who started out his career as a Beaux-Arts trained classicist, seemed fascinated with Egyptian motifs. Kelham, a rival of Timothy Pflueger in the design of the city’s earliest high-rise skyscrapers, mimicked the stepped form of Miller & Pflueger’s Telephone Building, and found his own exotic references for the Shell Building. As Pflueger embraced China as a theme for 140 New Montgomery, Kelham chose Egypt for the Shell.

The building, designed for the Royal Dutch Shell Oil Co., also has shell motifs, and other typical Moderne images of the period, such as zig-zag patterns, chevrons and fern fronds. But it was a significant departure from Kelham’s neoclassic buildings, many of which still stand, sturdy and strong on Montgomery Street.

Egyptian ornament 300 Montgomery cropped

Ornament on 300 Montgomery looks Egyptian

One of those structures is at 300 Montgomery, a very proper Greek revival design by Kelham for a bank in 1922, later remodeled in 1941. The building, originally the home of the American National Bank, also has exotic detailing, including this Egyptian-looking warrior. The columns on each side of the warrior look like they are adorned with lotus flowers. A snake (perhaps an asp?), encircles the spear of the muscular figure.

These are not the only Egyptian designs in San Francisco but just a small taste for inquiring minds. One example that has sadly disappeared, is a building for the Egyptian Lacquer Manufacturing Co. (yes there is still such a firm. Lacquer was a popular material in the 1920s ), designed by Miller & Pflueger at 1050 Howard Street. It appears the building has been destroyed or totally altered.

An ad in Pacific Coast Architect, December 1925

Egyptian Lacquer played a role in the development of the Telephone Building, according to Pacific Coast Architect. Lacquer was used to finish the metal windows, door casings and base and on the hundreds of walnut and oak hardwood doors with ebony inlay.

The former West Coast offices of Egyptian Lacquer are pictured here. Moderne-styled ornament with Egyto references and a wall of entire glass panes contrast with a traditional cornice. It’s an exotic design with a trace of Bauhaus for this small industrial building.

Posted in George Kelham, Shell Building, Telephone Building, Tut-mania | 4 Comments »

At 80 years old, 450 Sutter looks fabulous

October 24, 2009 by tpoletti

Last week, I went to the dentist at 450 Sutter, Miller & Pflueger’s ode to the Maya. While I was there, the pleasant security guards (among the nicest in San Francisco) were changing the notices in the elevator, where management updates tenants about the building’s ongoing restoration project. The guard let me keep last week’s notice.

In its place was a reminder that the gorgeous skyscraper had just turned 80 (silly me I totally forgot, even though the building’s opening date, October 15, 1929, is in my book about Pflueger, Art Deco San Francisco).

450 Sutter celebrates 80 years

At 80 years old, 450 Sutter is looking pretty fabulous. While the old girl was gifted with a gorgeous bone structure, her appearance was enhanced by a major facelift. Over the past 2-1/2 years, Harsch Investment Properties, the owners, managed a huge project that involved replacing every window in the building and a serious cleaning and repairing of the terra cotta surface.

“As part of our final inspection process, we hired a special consultant to provide the ‘ultimate leak test,’” wrote general manager Stan Mackewicz, in a recent note to tenants. “The consultant (Mother Nature) successfully scheduled the test this last Tuesday, which amounted to one of the most powerful rain storms in the Bay Area in the past 50 years.”

Mackewicz, a vice president at Harsch, was happy to report that 2860 out of the 2862 new windows installed at 450 Sutter passed the test. Only two windows had some very minor water leaks, resulting in a little puddle on the window sills.

The windows of 450 Sutter are an important element in its novel design and structure. In 1929, it was not commonplace for a skyscraper to have windows wrapping around the corners of the building, as they do here. This was only possible with the use of the steel frame, which enabled builders and architects to do away with heavy masonry walls and support columns. It’s almost as if Pflueger & Co. were saying, “Look Ma, no hands!”

The last remaining temporary scaffolding will stay up at 450 Sutter while the final terra cotta work is done at the front of the building. Chad Miller, office manager at 450, said the scaffolding and swing equipment for the window work should come down by mid-November, but that could change, based on weather conditions, etc.

Kudos to Harsch for its caring stewardship of this icon. What a grand way to celebrate 450 Sutter at 80. You go girl!

250 Sutter organic ornament and cornice

Random observations

Just two blocks down the street from 450 Sutter, one can quickly compare how modern that skyscraper was for its time. While giving the San Francisco City Guides Downtown Deco tour last weekend, someone in my group pointed out the stunning floral ornament at the cornice of this lovely retail building at 250 Sutter.

This small six-story building was built in 1909 and designed by the local architectural firm of Meyers and Ward. It was originally called the Goldberg Bowen building, for the delicatessen at the ground level. The building’s cornice and organic, Art Nouveau-like ornament, are of terra cotta as well, and are an interesting contrast with the neo-Gothic ribbing and arches.

Posted in 450 Sutter, Art Nouveau, Harsch Investment Properties, Maya, Skyscrapers | 1 Comment »