William Westerfeld House | |
Location | 1198 Fulton St., San Francisco, California |
---|---|
Coordinates | 37°46′38″N122°26′11″W / 37.77722°N 122.43639°W |
Area | 0.1 acres (0.04 ha) |
Built | 1889 |
Architect | Henry Geilfuss |
Architectural style | Stick/Eastlake |
NRHP reference No. | 89000197 [1] |
SFDL No. | 135 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | March 16, 1989 |
Designated SFDL | December 6, 1981 [2] |
The William Westerfeld House, also known as the "Russian Embassy", is a historic building located at 1198 Fulton Street (at Scott St.) in San Francisco, California, United States, across the street from the northwest corner of Alamo Square. Constructed for German-born confectioner William Westerfeld in 1889, the home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is San Francisco Landmark Number 135.
William Westerfeld, a German-born confectioner, arrived in San Francisco in the 1870s. By the 1880s, he had established a chain of bakeries. He hired local architect Henry Geilfuss [3] [4] 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 (equivalent to $338,600in 2023).[ citation needed ]
When Westerfeld died in 1895, the home was sold to John Mahony, of Mahony Brothers, noted for building the St. Francis Hotel and the Palace Hotel after the 1906 earthquake. [5] Mahony replaced the rose garden with flats to meet the city's dire need for housing.[ citation needed ]
In 1928, a group of Czarist Russians bought the home. They turned the ground-floor ballroom into a nightclub called Dark Eyes and used the upper floors for meeting rooms. [6] The house became known informally as the "Russian Embassy". [5]
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 musicians who played in the neighborhood jazz clubs. John Handy was allegedly one of many to call the Westerfeld House his home, although he later denied having been a boarder there. [5] [6]
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 Calliope Company, a fifty-member collective, moved in. In 1967 underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger took up residence. [6] [7] Anger filmed Invocation of My Demon Brother starring Manson family member Bobby Beausoleil, Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey, and featuring music by Mick Jagger.[ citation needed ]
In 1968, members of the Family Dog occupied the house while promoting acid rock concerts at the Avalon Ballroom. Members of the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company were frequent visitors. [5] [6]
The first attempts to rehabilitate the building began in the 1970s. Two men purchased the home for $45,000 in 1969 (equivalent to $374,000in 2023). They remodeled the fourth floor servants' quarters beyond recognition. [6] The house was left standing despite an urban renewal project, which claimed 6,000 Victorian-era buildings over a 60-block area in the Western Addition.[ citation needed ]
Jim Siegel purchased the home in 1986 for $750,000 [5] 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 25-foot (7.6 m) ceiling with period wallpaper crafted by Bradbury & Bradbury. [6]
In 2018, the house was featured in an episode of paranormal reality show Ghost Adventures .[ citation needed ]
The Winchester Mystery House is a mansion in San Jose, California, that was once the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of firearms magnate William Wirt Winchester. The house became a tourist attraction nine months after Winchester's death in 1922. The Victorian and Gothic-style mansion is renowned for its size and its architectural curiosities and for the numerous myths and legends surrounding the structure and its former owner.
Ralston Hall Mansion located in Belmont, California, was the country house of William Chapman Ralston, a San Francisco businessman, a founder of the Bank of California, and a financier of the Comstock Lode. It is an opulent Italianate Villa, modified with touches of Steamboat Gothic and Victorian details. It is a California Historical Landmark and is designated a National Historic Landmark. It is now part of Notre Dame de Namur University.
Alamo Square is a residential neighborhood in San Francisco, California with a park of the same name. Located 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.
The Lightner Museum is a museum of antiques, mostly American Gilded Age pieces, housed within the historic Hotel Alcazar building in downtown St. Augustine. This 1887 Spanish Renaissance Revival style building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Mechanics' Institute is a historic membership library, cultural event center, and chess club housed at 57 Post Street, San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1854 as a mechanics' institute, an educational and cultural institution to serve the vocational needs of out-of-work gold miners. Today the Institute serves readers, writers, downtown employees, students, film lovers, chess players, and others in search of learning and a community for the exchange of ideas.
The Avalon Ballroom was a music venue in the Polk Gulch neighborhood of San Francisco, California, at 1244 Sutter Street. The space is known as the location of many concerts of the counterculture movement, from around 1966 to 1969. It also had a reopening 34 years later, from 2003 to 2005.
Rancho Petaluma Adobe is a historic ranch house in Sonoma County, California. It was built from adobe bricks in 1836 by order of Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. It was the largest privately owned adobe structure built in California and is the largest example of the Monterey Colonial style of architecture in the United States. A section of the former ranch has been preserved by the Petaluma Adobe State Historic Park and it is both a California Historic Landmark and a National Historic Landmark. The Rancho Petaluma Adobe State Historic Park is located on Adobe Road on the east side of the present-day town of Petaluma, California.
The Haas–Lilienthal House is a historic building located at 2007 Franklin Street in San Francisco, California, United States, within the Pacific Heights neighborhood. Built in 1886 for William and Bertha Haas, it survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fire. The Victorian era house is a San Francisco Designated Landmark and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It was converted into a museum with period furniture and artifacts, which as of 2016 received over 6,500 visitors annually.
Crystal Ballroom, originally built as Cotillion Hall, is a historic building on Burnside Street in Portland, Oregon, United States. Cotillion Hall was built in 1914 as a ballroom, and dance revivals were held there through the Great Depression. Starting in the 1960s, the hall has also been host to many popular pop, rock, folk, blues and jazz artists, as well as beat poetry and other entertainment.
Liberty Hall, also known as the Governor William Livingston House, located on Morris Avenue in Union, Union County, New Jersey, United States, is a historic home where many leading influential people lived. It was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) in 1938. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark on November 28, 1972, for its significance in politics and government. It is now the Liberty Hall Museum.
López Adobe, located at 1100 Pico Street in San Fernando, California, is one of the two oldest private residences in the San Fernando Valley. Built in 1882 by early settlers of the San Fernando Valley a short distance from the San Fernando Mission, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
The Dr. William Barrow Mansion is located at 83 Wayne Street between Barrow Street and Jersey Avenue in Downtown Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. The mansion was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 2, 1977, and is located within the Van Vorst Park Historic District, which itself was dedicated on March 5, 1980, and is roughly bounded by Railroad Avenue, and Henderson, Grand, Bright, and Monmouth Streets.
The Gable Mansion is a Victorian mansion in Woodland, California, listed as a California Historical Landmark, that was built in 1885 for Amos and Harvey Gable, two Yolo County pioneers and ranchers.
The James R. Browning U.S. Court of Appeals Building is a historic post office and courthouse building located at San Francisco, California. It is a courthouse for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Completed in 1905 as the U.S. Courthouse and Post Office, it was intended to represent the affluence and increasing importance of the United States as it became a world power. The building survived both the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
The Schnull–Rauch House, sometimes referred to as the Victorian Manor and now also branded as The Manor at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, is a National Register of Historic Places-designated Romanesque Revival historic home constructed in the early 20th century at 3050 North Meridian Street, north of downtown Indianapolis, Indiana.
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.
Koshland House, also known as "Le Petit Trianon", is a private residence in the Presidio Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, California. It has been one of San Francisco's most prominent and celebrated homes for over 100 years.
William Westerfeld was a German baker and confectioner who lived in San Francisco, California. He moved to America and learned the confectionery trade, and then opened his own bakery; he became prosperous. He is known for the house that he built in San Francisco, which is now referred to as the William Westerfeld House.
Henry Geilfuss also known as Heinrich Geilfuss, was a German-born American architect. He designed approximately 400 homes in the San Francisco Bay Area.