Tag Archives: Pacific Heights

San Francisco ~ Haas-Lilienthal Victorian House

ABC Wednesday ~ V is for Victorian

As featured on A&E’s America’s Castles’ “Castles by the Bay,” this exuberant Queen Anne-style Victorian was built in 1886. It is the only intact private home of the period that is open regularly as a museum, complete with authentic furniture and artifacts. The House has elaborate wooden gables, a circular corner tower and luxuriant ornamentation. Volunteer docents lead tours through the House and explain the Victorian architecture of the exterior. A display of photographs in the downstairs supper-room describes the history of the home and the family that lived here until 1972.

The Haas-Lilienthal Family
From Victorian Sampler by Randolph Delahanty.
William Haas was born April 24, 1849, in the village of Reckendorf, Bavaria, to a family of modest means with many children…In 1865, sixteen-year-old William and an older brother, Abraham, sailed for New York City…He arrived in San Francisco on October 9, 1868, and joined the grocery firm of Leopold Loupe and Kalman Haas. His first recorded address, in Langley’s San Francisco Directory of 1869, was the Nucleus Hotel, on Third and Market. Please come take a tour to learn more about how William Haas built his life (and his home) in San Francisco.

William Haas entrusted Bavarian architect Peter R. Schmidt and contractors McCann & Biddell to build his home in 1886.

The house withstood the 1906 Earthquake with only slight damage. However, the home was threatened by the devastating fire, which followed the earthquake and destroyed about 40% of San Francisco. The Haas family watched the fire from the roof of their house, but was soon forced to evacuate by city authorities. So the family, along with most other San Francisco residents, went to the nearest public park, Lafayette Park, to camp out during the emergency. Later, they temporarily moved to a large house in Oakland while the City was reconstructed.

My husband was at a conference in San Francisco December 5th -9th. I met him there on saturday the 6th of December to celebrate our 34th wedding anniversary. On Sunday we went on a walking tour of some of the Victorian Homes in Pacific Heights. When we got to this home a lovely volunteer with the Foundation, Kaleene, told us about the Christmas Open House that was that very afternoon. Dear had to go to a meeting but I came back to the house for the event. While there I was given a mini-tour of the home. Here are some interior photos of this historic landmark.

 

Wine and food was served during the Open House.

Being Russian I was happy to see this great Samovar…

For more ABC Wednesday Posts visit the ABC Wednesday Blog. Thanks to Denise for hosting this meme.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007 to 2015 hostage and has replaced them all with ugly black and grey boxes asking for a ransom to have them re-published. Such a frustrating bother as I go through each post to delete the ugly boxes.

San Francisco ~ Pacific Heights

Queen Anne homes dominated Victorian residential architecture from 1880 to 1910. In fact, this style is virtually synonymous with the phrase “Victorian house.” Typical characteristics of a Queen Anne home include projecting bay windows, wraparound porches, towers, turrets, balconies, elaborate banisters and spindles, stained glass, decorative trim, and patterned shingles.

On Sunday Dear and I walked around the Pacific Heights area of San Francisco to see these great Victorian Homes. We saw other styles of grand houses, also.

This yellow and green house are on Gough street. The Victorians on this block, all built in 1889, are particularly lovely. These are in the Queen Anne Style. I believe they refer to the yellow one being a Queen Anne-Eastlake style (marked by elaborate woodwork).

This was a smaller house tucked between two larger structures that just caught my eye.

This is the Spreckels Mansion. Romance novelist Danielle Steel’s home is one of the most extravagant in town – built in 1913 for Adolph Spreckels, heir to the sugar empire of German-American industrialist Claus Spreckels, who made his fortune refining California sugar beets and Hawaii sugarcane.

 

This is the home featured in the Robin William’s movie Mrs. Doubtfire.

I really enjoyed seeing this old church and all the people coming out of services.

This is the Haas-Lilienthal House built in 1886. The exciting thing about this house is that we stumbled upon it on their annual Christmas open house day. We met one of the Foundation workers out front who told us about the open house and invited us to come back when it started. I will be posting more about this great house and the indoor pictures I was able to take also.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007 to 2015 hostage and has replaced them all with ugly black and grey boxes asking for a ransom to have them re-published. Such a frustrating bother.