The White House was the first

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

; it opened in 1854 and closed in 1965. It was originally named Davidson & Lane, then J.W. Davidson & Company, and finally, in 1870, when it moved to a large new building, took the name "The White House".''The Bay of San Francisco The Metropolis of the Pacific Coast and Its Suburban Cities : a History'', Lewis Publishing Company, 1892
1:553
/ref> In 1885, Lane retired, and Raphael Weill (1837-1920) continued with his brother, Henry Weill, Eugene Gallvis and Albert Roullier as partners. All four were Jewish and French by birth. Raphael Weill, who came to San Francisco in 1855, was a prominent "philanthropist, epicure, and patron of the arts". Weill was a

French Jew The history of the Jews in France deals with Jews and Jewish communities in France since at least the Early Middle Ages. France was a centre of Jewish learning in the Middle Ages, but persecution increased over time, including multiple expulsi ...

https://www.sinaichapel.org/tools-resources/Jewish_Sights_from_the_Civic_Center_to_Presidio_Heights.pdf born in

Phalsbourg Phalsbourg (; ; Lorraine Franconian: ''Phalsburch'') is a commune in the Moselle department in Grand Est in north-eastern France, with a population of about 5,000. It lies high on the west slopes of the Vosges, northwest of Strasbourg by rail. I ...

Lorraine Lorraine , also , , ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; german: Lothringen ; lb, Loutrengen; nl, Lotharingen is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of Gr ...

, France.Claudine Chalmers, ''French San Francisco'', Images of America series, 2007, , p. 59"Raphael Weill", ''Ship Passengers ~ Sea Captains: The Maritime Heritage Project ~ San Francisco 1846-1899''

/ref> He arrived in San Francisco in 1853, joined the firm in 1855 at age 18, became a partner in 1858, and in 1885, became senior partner. He was a prominent member of the

Bohemian Club The Bohemian Club is a private club with two locations: a city clubhouse in the Nob Hill district of San Francisco, California and the Bohemian Grove, a retreat north of the city in Sonoma County. Founded in 1872 from a regular meeting of journal ...

, a founder of the French Library, and a patron of the French Hospital. He was an uncle of the founding brothers of

Lazard Frères Lazard Ltd (formerly known as Lazard Frères & Co.) is a financial advisory and asset management firm that engages in investment banking, asset management and other financial services, primarily with institutional clients. It is the world's ...

. Weill was appointed as a ''chevalier'' of the

French Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

in 1908."PUTS RAPHAEL WEILL IN LEGION OF HONOR; President of France Gives San Franciscan High Decoration; NEW-YEAR'S SURPRISE; Distinction Comes for Services as an American Citizen"
''

The San Francisco Call ''The San Francisco Call'' was a newspaper that served San Francisco, California. Because of a succession of mergers with other newspapers, the paper variously came to be called ''The San Francisco Call & Post'', the ''San Francisco Call-Bulletin ...

'' 103:33:3 (Thursday, January 2, 1908)

California Digital Newspaper Collection The California Digital Newspaper Collection (CDNC) is a freely-available, archive of digitized California newspapers; it is accessible through the project's website. The collection contains over six million pages from over forty-two million arti ...

He died in 1920. In the 19th century, the company was known for its progressive treatment of its employees, closing at 6pm and on holidays, offering annual paid vacations, paid sick time, and commissions on sales. The Davidson & Lane Dry Goods Company originally opened in 1854 at the corner of Post and Grant. It moved to Kearny and Post on December 7, 1870, with the new name, The White House. After that store burned down in the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...

, the third location, designed by

Albert Pissis Albert Pissis (1852–1914) was a prolific Mexican-American architect in San Francisco who studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France and is credited with introducing the Beaux-Arts architectural style to San Francisco, California, des ...

and clad in white terra cotta,Joseph P. Fried
"Cars to Share Retail Landmark With Shoppers in San Francisco"
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New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', Sunday, May 21, 1967
p. 330
/ref> was at Sutter and Grant, with street address 256 Grant Avenue.Veronica Gelakoska, ''Pig 'n Whistle'', Images of America series, 2010, , p. 16-17William Woodhead
"The Material City: Some details of the rehabilitation of San Francisco's business houses"
''

Sunset Magazine ''Sunset'' is a lifestyle magazine in the United States. ''Sunset'' focuses on homes, cooking, gardening, and travel, with a focus almost exclusively on the Western United States. The magazine is published six times per year by the Sunset Publish ...

'' 22:4:425 (April 1909)The White House
The Department Store Museum In July 1960, an Oakland branch opened in

Kaiser Center Kaiser Center, also called the Kaiser Building, is a 28-story office building located at 300 Lakeside Drive, adjacent to Lake Merritt, in downtown Oakland, California, designed by the architectural firm of Welton Becket & Associates of Los Ange ...

, at 20th and Webster. The White House, San Francisco department store, closed on January 1, 1965, at which time it was housed in four buildings. After remaining vacant for several years, the main building reopened as a parking garage on the upper floors, with restaurants and retail stores including Tiffany & Co. and

Peck and Peck Peck & Peck was a New York-based retailer of private label women's wear prominently located at 581 Fifth Avenue. Peck & Peck was known for its classic clothes. Like Bonwit Teller and B. Altman and Company's post–World War II fashions, Peck & ...

at street level. {{Asof, 2021, the primary ground floor tenant is

Banana Republic In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resources. In 1904, the American author O. Henry coined the term to describe Honduras and neighboring ...

Notes

External links

* Dobbin, Hamilton Henry (1856-1930
Raphael Weill (1837-1925)California History Section Picture Catalog

California State Library The California State Library is the state library of the State of California, founded in 1850 by the California State Legislature. The Library collects, preserves, generates and disseminates a wide array of information. Today, it is the central ...

Calisphere The California Digital Library (CDL) was founded by the University of California in 1997. Under the leadership of then UC President Richard C. Atkinson, the CDL's original mission was to forge a better system for scholarly information management a ...

The White House
The Department Store Museum
Google Street View of building
1854 establishments in California 1965 disestablishments in California Buildings and structures destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake Companies based in San Francisco Union Square, San Francisco Defunct department stores based in the San Francisco Bay Area