The William Westerfeld House is a historic building located at 1198 Fulton Street (at Scott St.) in

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 ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, United States, across the street from the northwest corner of

Alamo Square Alamo Square is a residential neighborhood and park in San Francisco, California, in the Western Addition. Its boundaries are Buchanan Street on the east, Turk Street on the north, Baker Street on the west, and Page Street Street on the south. ...

. Constructed for German-born

confectioner Confectionery is the art of making confections, which are food items that are rich in sugar and carbohydrates. Exact definitions are difficult. In general, however, confectionery is divided into two broad and somewhat overlapping categories ...

William Westerfeld in 1889, the home is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

and is San Francisco Landmark Number 135.

History

William Westerfeld, a German-born

, arrived in San Francisco in the 1870s. By the 1880s, he had established a chain of bakeries. He hired local architect Henry Geilfuss to design for his family of six a 28-room mansion with an adjoining rose garden and carriage house. The house was constructed in 1889 at a cost of $9,985 (). When Westerfeld died in 1895, the home was sold to John Mahony, of Mahony Brothers, noted for building the

St. Francis Hotel The Westin St. Francis, formerly known as St. Francis Hotel, is a hotel located on Powell and Geary Streets on Union Square, San Francisco, California. The two 12-story south wings of the hotel were built in 1904, and the double-width north wing ...

and the Palace Hotel after the 1906 earthquake.Brown, Serena
Third Thursday October 2018: Westerfeld House
''Feldman Architecture''. Retrieved March 16, 2020. Mahony replaced the rose garden with flats to meet the city's dire need for housing. In 1928 a group of

Czarist Tsarist autocracy (russian: царское самодержавие, transcr. ''tsarskoye samoderzhaviye''), also called Tsarism, was a form of autocracy (later absolute monarchy) specific to the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states th ...

Russians , native_name_lang = ru , image = , caption = , population = , popplace = 118 million Russians in the Russian Federation (2002 ''Winkler Prins'' estimate) , region1 = , pop1 ...

bought the home. They turned the ground-floor ballroom into a nightclub called Dark Eyes and used the upper floors for meeting rooms.Bowling, Mary Jo (March 28, 2016)
The Westerfeld House: San Francisco's most storied Victorian
''Curbed San Francisco''. Retrieved March 16, 2020. The house became known informally as the "Russian Embassy". In 1948 the home was converted into a 14-unit apartment building. For most of the next two decades, the units were rented to

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

musicians who played in the neighborhood jazz clubs.

John Handy John Richard Handy III (born February 3, 1933) is an American jazz musician most commonly associated with the alto saxophone. He also sings and plays the tenor and baritone saxophone, saxello, clarinet, and oboe. Biography Handy was born in ...

was allegedly one of many to call the Westerfeld House his home, although he later denied having been a boarder there. In 1965 Charles Fracchia purchased the building to use as a residence but never occupied it. The house was mentioned in the book ''

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test ''The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test'' is a 1968 nonfiction book by Tom Wolfe. The book is a popular example of the New Journalism literary style. Wolfe presents a firsthand account of the experiences of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, ...

''. The Calliope Company, a fifty-member collective, moved in. In 1967 underground filmmaker

Kenneth Anger Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, February 3, 1927) is an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and author. Working exclusively in short films, he has produced almost 40 works since 1937, nine of which have been grouped ...

took up residence.Yu, Brandon (July 5, 2018)
‘Snaggletooth’ fits right into Westerfeld House’s horror heritage in SF
''San Francisco Chronicle''. Retrieved March 16, 2020. Anger filmed ''

Invocation of My Demon Brother ''Invocation of My Demon Brother'' (1969) is an 11-minute film directed, edited, and photographed by Kenneth Anger. The music was composed by Mick Jagger playing a Moog synthesizer. It was filmed in San Francisco at the Straight Theater on Haight S ...

'' starring Manson family member

Bobby Beausoleil Robert Kenneth Beausoleil (born November 6, 1947) is an American murderer and associate of Charles Manson and members of his communal Manson Family. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the July 27, 1969 fatal stabbing of Gary Hinman, w ...

, Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey, and featuring music by

Mick Jagger Sir Michael Philip Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer and songwriter who has achieved international fame as the lead vocalist and one of the founder members of the rock band the Rolling Stones. His ongoing songwriting partnershi ...

. In 1968 members of the Family Dog occupied the house while promoting acid rock concerts at the

Avalon Ballroom The Avalon Ballroom was a music venue in the Polk Gulch neighborhood of San Francisco, California, at 1244 Sutter Street (or 1268 Sutter, depending on the entrance). The space is known as the location of many concerts of the counterculture move ...

. Members of the

Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, ...

and

Big Brother and the Holding Company Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Jefferson Airplane. After som ...

were frequent visitors. Westerfeld House (San Francisco)

The first attempts to rehabilitate the building began in the 1970s. Two men purchased the home for $45,000 in 1969 (). They remodeled the fourth floor servants' quarters beyond recognition. The house was left standing despite an

urban renewal Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...

project, which claimed 6,000 Victorian-era buildings over a 60-block area in the

Western Addition The Western Addition is a district in San Francisco, California, United States. Location The Western Addition is located between Van Ness Avenue, the Richmond District, the Haight-Ashbury and Lower Haight neighborhoods, and Pacific Heights. ...

. Jim Siegel purchased the home in 1986 for $750,000 and has since retrofitted the foundation, removed the dropped ceilings, re-wired, re-roofed, and re-plumbed, and restored the interior and exterior woodwork and the historic, ground-floor ballroom, and decorated the ceiling with period wallpaper crafted by Bradbury & Bradbury.

References

External links

Noe Hill.com: Westerfeld House
{{DEFAULTSORT:Westerfeld, William, House Houses in San Francisco Houses completed in 1889 National Register of Historic Places in San Francisco San Francisco Designated Landmarks 1880s architecture in the United States Queen Anne architecture in California Victorian architecture in California Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in San Francisco

History

See also

References

External links