Alfred E. Clarke Mansion | |
---|---|
Type | Mansion |
Location | 250 Douglass Street, San Francisco, California, USA |
Coordinates | 37°45′35″N122°26′22″W / 37.75961°N 122.43953°W |
Area | Eureka Valley, Castro District |
Built | 1892 |
Original use | Single-Family Residence (Hospital in early 1900s) |
Architect | Alfred E. Clarke |
Architectural style(s) | Baroque Queen Anne [1] |
Official name | Alfred E. (Nobby) Clarke Mansion [2] |
Designated | December 7, 1975 |
Reference no. | 80 [2] |
The Alfred E. Clarke Mansion, also known as the Caselli Mansion, Nobby Clarke's Castle and Nobby Clarke's Folly, is a mansion at 250 Douglass Street on the corner of Caselli Avenue in Eureka Valley, San Francisco, California. Built in 1891 by Alfred "Nobby" Clarke, it has been a hospital and is now an apartment building. It became a San Francisco Designated Landmark in 1975.
The house is a four-story structure in Baroque-Queen Anne style; it has several towers and the roof has bands of scalloped shingles alternating with plain. It stands on a site at the head of Eureka Valley and originally had 45 rooms; [1] The interior features an impressive foyer with grand staircase, carved fireplaces, mantels, and wood paneling, and fine stained glass. Alfred "Nobby" Clarke, who had it built, is said to have based it on a French lakeside chateau whose plans he bought. [3]
Clarke, who came to San Francisco from Ireland as a cabin boy in 1850, [1] had amassed a fortune of some $200,000 by dubious means while working for the police department from 1856 to 1887, for much of that time as clerk to the chief of police and later as the department's legal advisor. [4] [5] He bought the lot in 1890 and completed the house in 1892 for a reputed $100,000. [1] [3] Clarke engaged in an expensive legal feud with a neighbor over water sales, [4] and soon after completing the house lost his fortune in a nationwide economic depression; in 1892 he declared himself insolvent after signing his real estate holdings over to his wife and a friend in an attempt to conceal them. He then brought a series of unsuccessful lawsuits against the city and his creditors and was repeatedly jailed before dying at age 69. He lost the house in 1896 when he defaulted on the mortgage; [5] his wife had declined to live in the then largely rural area, preferring to remain on Nob Hill. [3] [4]
The mansion was purchased by the California Medical College as a teaching hospital. The building subsequently became the Maclean Hospital and Sanitarium, headed by Donald Maclean, which taught eclectic medicine; in 1900 Law Keem earned a medical degree there, the first medical degree awarded to a Chinese person in San Francisco. [5] The building was used for two more hospitals, including the California General Hospital in 1904. [1] [6] In August 1903, heiress Edith Irene Wolfskill, the daughter of John Wolfskill, had been a patient of California General Hospital and she escaped out a window before they could perform a lobotomy. [6] The building may have been again used as a hospital during World War I. [5]
Unlike many other Victorian mansions in San Francisco, it survived the 1906 earthquake and the subsequent fires. [7] In 1909 it became the Victor Apartments, the first apartment building in the neighborhood, with 14 units. In World War II it was leased for employee housing by Standard Oil. [5]
The Alfred E. Clarke mansion was designated San Francisco city landmark number 80 on December 7, 1975. [2] [3]
Eureka is a city and the county seat of Humboldt County, located on the North Coast of California. The city is located on U.S. Route 101 on the shores of Humboldt Bay, 270 miles (435 km) north of San Francisco and 100 miles (161 km) south of the Oregon border. At the 2020 census, the population of the city was 26,512 and the population of the greater Eureka area was 48,119.
Carolands Chateau is a 46,050-square-foot (4,278 m2), 4.5 floor, 98 room mansion on 5.83 acres (2.36 ha) in Hillsborough, California, United States. An example of American Renaissance and Beaux-Arts design, the building is a California Historical Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Carolands is one of the last of the houses built during the Gilded Age, a period of great mansion-building that included famous houses of the Vanderbilt family, such as Marble House, Biltmore Estate and The Breakers, and stately California houses such as Filoli and the Huntington family's mansions.
Juana Briones de Miranda was a Californio ranchera, medical practitioner, and merchant, often remembered as the "Founding Mother of San Francisco", for her noted involvement in the early development of the city of San Francisco. Later in her life, she also played an important role in developing modern Palo Alto.
Mission Bay is a 303-acre (123 ha) neighborhood on the east side of San Francisco, California. It is bordered by China Basin to the north, Dogpatch to the south, and San Francisco Bay to the east. Originally an industrial district, it underwent development fueled by the construction of the UCSF Mission Bay campus, and is currently in the final stages of development and construction. It is the site of the Chase Center and Uber's headquarters.
The California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894, commonly referred to as the "Midwinter Exposition" or the "Midwinter Fair", was a World's Fair that officially operated from January 27 to July 5 in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.
Old Town Eureka in Eureka, California, is a historic district listed on the United States National Register of Historic Places. It is a 350-acre (1.4 km2) area containing 154 buildings mostly from the Victorian era. The core of the district runs the length of First, Second, and Third Streets, between "C" and "M" Streets, and includes many types of architecture including Eastlake, Queen Ann, Greek Revival, Classical Revival, and Second Empire styles from the 1850s to the 20th century. Though not officially within the district, the Carson Mansion commands the highest elevation at the eastern edge of the district.
San Francisco Baykeeper is a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization that uses science and the law to protect, preserve, and enhance the health of the ecosystems and communities that depend upon the San Francisco Bay, the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary, and its watershed. SF Baykeeper is the only organization, governmental or non-profit, that regularly patrols the Bay by boat and drone to document sources of pollution.
The Clarke Historical Museum in Eureka, California contains the area's premier collection of California North Coast regional and cultural history. The facility houses a Native American wing, Nealis Hall, which features an internationally recognized collection of basketry, regalia, stoneware, implements, and other objects indicative of the culture and creativity of local and regional Native American groups including the Wiyot, Yurok, Karuk and Hupa Tribes. The Eureka Visitors Center is located in the main hall of the museum. The Clarke Museum is a 501(c)3 nonprofit.
The Public Health Service Hospital (PHSH) is a defunct hospital located in the Presidio of San Francisco, it was in operation from 1912 to 1981. The precursor hospital was the San Francisco Marine Hospital, established in 1853, and renamed in 1912. The building for the Public Health Service Hospital was erected in 1931 or 1932, and in 2010 the building was converted into a residential apartment building.
Polk Street is a street in San Francisco, California, that travels northward from Market Street to Beach Street and is one of the main thoroughfares of the Polk Gulch neighborhood traversing through the Tenderloin, Nob Hill, and Russian Hill neighborhoods. The street takes its name from former U.S. President James K. Polk.
Albert Pissis (1852–1914) was a prolific Mexican-born American architect, of French and Mexican descent. He was active in San Francisco and had studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. He is credited with introducing the Beaux-Arts architectural style to San Francisco, California, designing a number of important buildings in the city in the years before and after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Woodward's Gardens, commonly referred to as The Gardens, was a combination amusement park, museum, art gallery, zoo, and aquarium operating from 1866 to 1891 in the Mission District of San Francisco, California. The Gardens covered two city blocks, bounded by Mission, Valencia, 13th, and 15th Streets in San Francisco. The site currently has a brick building at 1700 Mission Street, built after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which features a California Historical Site plaque, and the Crafty Fox Alehouse on the ground floor. The former Gardens site also features the current location of the San Francisco Armory, completed in 1914.
Joseph W. Wolfskill and Louis Wolfskill were brothers who were members of the Los Angeles, California, Common Council, the legislative arm of that city's government, between 1874 and 1884. They were landowner successors to their pioneer Southern California father, William Wolfskill.
The Castro District, commonly referred to as the Castro, is a neighborhood in Eureka Valley in San Francisco. The Castro was one of the first gay neighborhoods in the United States. Having transformed from a working-class neighborhood through the 1960s and 1970s, the Castro remains one of the most prominent symbols of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activism and events in the world.
The Montgomery Block, also known as Monkey Block and Halleck's Folly, was a historic building active from 1853 to 1959, and was located in San Francisco, California. It was San Francisco's first fireproof and earthquake resistant building. It came to be known as a Bohemian center, from the late 19th to the middle of the 20th-century.
The Theodore F. Payne House, also known as the Payne Mansion, is a Victorian house in the Lower Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, California, United States. Built in 1881 and designed by William Curlett in a mix of Stick, Eastlake, and Queen Anne styles, it survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. It has been adapted to house a hotel and a restaurant.
Samuel Newsom was a Canadian-born American architect. Together with his brother Joseph Cather Newsom founded the architecture firm Newsom and Newsom, practicing in Northern and Southern California. Their most celebrated house is the Carson Mansion in Eureka, California.
Archbishop's Mansion is a historic house built in 1904 and located at 1000 Fulton Street in the Alamo Square neighborhood in San Francisco, California. The mansion was built for Patrick William Riordan, the second Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco.
The building at 1813–1813B Sutter Street is a historic Italianate building built in 1876 in the Japantown neighborhood of San Francisco, California. It is notable for its architecture.
The Lower Nob Hill Apartment Hotel District is a historic district located in the Nob Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California, U.S.. It covers roughly a 5-block length in downtown San Francisco on the south slope of Nob Hill. It is sometimes referred to as the "Tendernob," the name is a portmanteau for the area that is the meeting point of the Tenderloin and Nob Hill. The Lower Nob Hill Apartment Hotel District is listed as a California Historical Landmark since July 31, 1991; and listed on the National Register of Historic Places since July 31, 1991, for architecture and social history.