Whittier Mansion | |
---|---|
General information | |
Location | 2090 Jackson Street |
Town or city | San Francisco, California |
Country | United States |
Coordinates | 37°47′36″N122°25′46″W / 37.793415°N 122.429428°W |
Completed | 1896 |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Edward Robinson Swain |
Other information | |
Number of rooms | 30 |
Whittier Mansion | |
Built | 1896 |
NRHP reference No. | 76000524 [1] |
SFDL No. | 75 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | April 26, 1976 |
Designated SFDL | November 8, 1975 |
Whittier Mansion is a historic building that has served as a private residence, the West Coast headquarters of the Nazi Party, and has been occupied by The California Historical Society. It is located at 2090 Jackson Street in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The mansion is one of few buildings to survive the 1906 Earthquake, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also a San Francisco Designated Landmark. It is purported to be haunted. [2]
William Franklin Whittier, built the mansion as a private residence for him and his children. Whittier was born in Vienna, Maine and travelled to San Francisco (via the Isthmus of Panama) in 1854. After arriving in San Francisco, W. Frank (as Whittier went by) formed several business ventures and at one point his firm was the "the major west coast paint and white lead manufacturer, with extremely profitable side-lines in imported glass, mirrors, oils, etc." [3]
Through buyouts, mergers, and acquisitions, as well as the death of two business partners -- Caleb Cameron by accidental drowning in 1862, and William Parmer Fuller in 1890 -- W. Frank came to own the business along with W.P. Fuller (William Palmer Fuller's son.)
W. Frank and Young W.P. (as W. Frank called him) did not get along, and after much mutual dissatisfaction, W. Frank offered to buy the business from Young W.P. However the Palmer family felt the offer was a too low, and made a counter offer to buy the firm from W. Frank.
The Fuller family countered, and in 1893, three years after William Palmer Fuller's death, W. Frank accepted their offer to buy the firm for $400,000 ($14 million in 2025 dollars). The buyout was to be paid in 32 monthly installments.
Without a firm to run, W. Frank decided to build a grand mansion for his family to live in. He had a son, and two daughters, however his wife was tragically killed by a runaway horse and carriage accident in 1885.
The Whittier Mansion cost $152,000 ($5.7 million in 2025 dollars) to build and furnish, with W. Frank using the monthly payments from the sale of his firm to pay for it.
Construction on the mansion began in 1894, and took two years to build and furnish. The Whittier's finally occupied the mansion in August of 1896.
W. Frank moved to the town of Hemet, in Riverside County, California and as such, the mansion was occupied by W. Frank's youngest daughter, Mattie Weir née Whittier, and son-in-law, William Boyd Weir, though their primary residence was in Menlo Park. Following W. Frank's death in 1917, Mrs. Weir became the owner of the Whittier Mansion. However, she did not occupy the home and rented it to various tenants, including William Dargie, who founded the Oakland Tribune. One of those tenants was Frederick "Fritz" Wiedemann, who may have moved into the mansion as early as 1939. [4]
On April 16, 1941, during the rise of Nazi Germany, [5] Mrs. Weir temporarily transferred the property to The Title Insurance Company, who subsequently transferred the title to Herman Loeper on April 28, 1941. On April 29, 1941 Loeper transferred the mansion's title to the German Reich. The mansion served as a consulate for the Nazi Regime from until July 1941.
During that time, Fritz Wiedemann, who served "as chief of the Nazi propaganda and espionage services in the United States," [6] used the Whittier Mansion to conduct "clandestine business for the Nazis - attempting to intimidate German-Americans into 'serving the party'." [3]
After the end of World War II, the mansion was seized and held by the Alien Property Custodian and transferred to the United States Attorney General, util it was it was sold at auction in 1950, and returned to a private residency for many years. [7] The mansion was occupied by the California Historical Society from 1956 to 1991. [8] [9]
Designed by architect Edward Robinson Swain and built in 1896 by the family of financier William Franklin Whittier, it contains 30 rooms. [7] [10] Construction included steel-reinforced brick walls and a facing of Arizona red sandstone. [7] The mansion was built with one of the first residential elevators in San Francisco. The elevator was installed in March of 1895 by Cahill and Hall Elevator Company, at a cost of $1,225 (over $45,000 adjusted for inflation to 2025.) [3]
Whittier is a city in Southern California in Los Angeles County, part of the Gateway Cities. The 14.7-square-mile (38.0 km2) city had 87,306 residents as of the 2020 United States census, an increase of 1,975 from the 2010 census figure. Whittier was incorporated in February 1898 and became a charter city in 1955. The city is named for the Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier and is home to Whittier College. The city is surrounded by three unincorporated areas sharing the Whittier name, West Whittier-Los Nietos, South Whittier, and East Whittier, which combined are home to a larger population than Whittier proper.
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