Category: real estate

Fazekas Revisited: Renovations and Rare Sightings

Sunnyside History3 Comments

By Amy O’Hair
All things Fazekas can be found linked on this page.

Anton Fazekas, sculptor, metal-worker, and San Francisco entrepreneur, created unique lighted house number units that can be found on a great many Bay Area houses. Read the background on this midcentury sculptor and entrepreneur here. Since the follow-up post, I’ve happened upon these are other examples around San Francisco. If you have an image to share, write me.

This fairly well preserved unit on Alemany sports the very rare black-on-gold number tiles, which looked brilliant in the morning sun, despite missing its hood.
Another example of the very rare black-on-gold number tiles. The surrounding unit has either been painted to match, or was done in the factory, I do not know. Capp Street.
A lovely renovation on Vernon Street, with ceramic tiles inserted into the unit, along with matching tile spacers.
Although not in top condition, this colorway is striking. Original number tiles may have been the rarely seen black-on-white, with the numbers later repainted red. Cayuga Avenue.
Detailed paint work. Although the hood is missing, this owner on Harrison Street has made the best of it, covering and painting the hope to match.
A cheery bit of paint work on Revere Avenue.
A Slimline Fazekas that has been kept in excellent condition. Tocoloma Ave.
A Slimline Fazekas that has been kept in excellent condition. Tocoloma Ave.
A Deco model in fine condition. A piece of glass has been inserted in front of the number tiles, though how there is sufficient room I don’t know. Alemany Blvd.
A Deco model in good condition. Theresa Street.
Mix-and-Match! This one-half tile is not painted, for reasons I cannot fathom. A Deco unit in very good condition, although the white-on-black number tiles have weathered badly. Quality control seems to have been an issue at various points over the years. Potrero Avenue.
A one-half tile in a well-cared-for unlighted Fazekas unit on Manchester Street.
This Fazekas unit sports glass number-tiles, but they aren’t likely to be original. Even the side spacers are glass. Orizaba Street.
This unlighted ‘Deco’ unit is a bit of a mystery. It was installed sometime after 2008, and yet looks like an original. Could it be a clever latter-day imitation? Portola Drive.
Rare and original black-on-white number tiles, in great condition. The vast majority of Fazekas units have white-on-black tiles. Cayuga Avenue
This type of hood usually only appears on the multiple-address units, so it may have been cobbled together from parts. Dublin Street.
A very unusual Fazekas specimen, with Deco-style triangles, an odd star figure at the top, cut-out stencil-style digits, and presumably back-lighting (so no hood). Silliman Street,
A very unusual Fazekas specimen, with Deco-style triangles, an odd star figure at the top, cut-out stencil-style digits, and presumably back-lighting (so no hood). Silliman Street,
This unit on Treat has had a new bulb installed, but a large one, so the hood is slightly displaced. Properly sized bulbs are still available for Fazekas units. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N1DKVKT/
This unit on Treat has had a new bulb installed, but a large one, so the hood is slightly displaced. Bulbs are still available for Fazekas units. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N1DKVKT/

Continue reading “Fazekas Revisited: Renovations and Rare Sightings” →

The History of the Balboa Reservoir: A Timeline

Sunnyside HistoryLeave a comment

By Amy O’Hair

In the next few years, a large section of the Balboa Reservoir land will be developed as a housing project and park, making it a good time to review its long, complex, and often surprising history.

View this timeline in a stand-alone format here. More about the Balboa Reservoir here.

 

View this timeline in a stand-alone format here. More about the Balboa Reservoir here.

The little sculpture affixed to your house: Anton Fazekas and the making of a midcentury San Francisco sensation

Sunnyside History24 Comments

By Amy O’Hair
All things Fazekas can be found linked on this page.

Most houses in the city have numbers on their fronts; there are a small part of the house’s exterior decor and often escape notice. On my recent socially distanced neighborhood walks I’ve been looking at them. Many houses in Sunnyside, as well as neighborhoods all over the city, have numbers encased in little frames like these.

There turns out to be an interesting history behind these numbers that begins with an artist named Anton Fazekas (1878-1966).

The Sculptor and the Designs

Fazekas was the designer and manufacturer of these ornamental house numbers, each with a little bulb to light up the digits. He patented three models in the early 1930s. They were solidly fabricated of die-cast iron, and held space for four or five numerals depending on the model, with large, plain, readable numerals made of enameled metal. Later he added italic numerals. The digits slotted into the back and were secured with a little bar that screwed down. The hood protecting the bulb could be removed, allowing the bulb to be easily changed. Continue reading “The little sculpture affixed to your house: Anton Fazekas and the making of a midcentury San Francisco sensation” →

Gilbert Plov, Little-Box Builder

Sunnyside History2 Comments

The strange dominance of small single-family homes in San Francisco, with its roots in pre-Quake planning and post-Quake building, has come at last in this century to bite the city in its housing-supply backside. Density doesn’t match need now and it is difficult to see how it ever can. It is as though San Francisco, to personify for a moment, never expected to become a real city. So it allowed builders to fill the thousands of residential blocks with one-story-over-basement structures that cannot reasonably ever be transformed into multi-unit, multi-story buildings—unlike, say, a Mission-District Victorian or a Brooklyn brownstone. And should you be inclined to try, zoning and/or neighbors will prevent you from rebuilding one as a four-story wart on the smooth skin of row-upon-row of SFHs.

In their vast inertial numbers, the Little Boxes will always win. The march of those attached four- or five-room homes, on their narrow 25×100 foot lots, across hundreds of city blocks can only ever be disrupted here and there—a few corner developments, a few big structures on old gas station lots, a few scattered replacements, or the odd added story or ADU.

The die was cast—getting on for a hundred years ago now—and the pattern will persist.

Portion of the 1948 aerial survey, Garfield Street from Vernon to Head, in Ingleside. Soon all the gaps would be filled. DavidRumsey.com
Portion of the 1948 aerial survey, Garfield Street from Vernon to Head, in Ingleside. Soon all the gaps would be filled. DavidRumsey.com

Continue reading “Gilbert Plov, Little-Box Builder” →

Built on Beer: The Streets of Sunnyside and San Francisco Brewery Profits

Sunnyside History1 Comment

Investment money that funded the Sunnyside Land Company in 1890 was largely sourced from the hefty profits of some of San Francisco’s biggest late nineteenth-century breweries: Philadelphia Brewery, Albany Brewery, and United States Brewery—all overseen by the Brewer’s Protective Association. Men who were heirs to these fortunes, or wrapped up in the racket of propping up prices and selling off franchises to foreign capitalists, were among the most prominent initial investors in the Sunnyside project.

Behrend Joost, President of Sunnyside Land Company, was a notorious and irascible teetotaler[1], but he had no problem accepting beer-drenched money from his investors, who altogether put in one million dollars to fund the property speculation project. In return, many got their names or the places in Germany they came from on the newly laid-out streets.

2015-signs-Mangels-Baden

Five of the original Sunnyside streets—Mangels Avenue, Spreckels Avenue, Wieland Avenue, Baden Street, and Hamburg Street—I trace directly to these men.

Portion of the original Sunnyside Land Company homestead map, submitted to the city in 1891.
Portion of the original Sunnyside Land Company homestead map, submitted to the city in 1891.

In addition, Edna Street is likely to have been named for the beloved daughter of one of these brewery men. Continue reading “Built on Beer: The Streets of Sunnyside and San Francisco Brewery Profits” →

7 Ladies and The Great Horned Spoon: More Sunnyside advertising

Sunnyside HistoryLeave a comment

More example of advertising for the Sunnyside district in San Francisco newspapers in the first years, 1891-1892. (More wacky Sunnyside ads in the first post in this series.)

SF Examiner, 27 Aug 1891.
SF Examiner, 27 Aug 1891.

Note the frequent use of white space, clean-looking typefaces, and asymmetrically positioned text blocks, a bit ahead of their time–favorite features of midcentury advertisers decades later.

1891Aug30-b-Examiner-Sunnyside-AD
SF Examiner, 30 Aug 1891.

Continue reading “7 Ladies and The Great Horned Spoon: More Sunnyside advertising” →

87 Men and Golden Chances: The Sunnyside advertising campaign

Sunnyside HistoryLeave a comment

After Sunnyside was laid out and lots went on sale in San Francisco in 1891, there were a lot of unusual newspaper advertisements pushing property sales in the new district during that first year. (More wacky Sunnyside ads in the second post in this series here.)

SF Call, 7 Jun 1891.
SF Call, 7 Jun 1891.

The initial splash took place on Sunday 26 April 1891, with half-page ads in at least three San Francisco newspapers: the Chronicle, the Call, and the Examiner.  Continue reading “87 Men and Golden Chances: The Sunnyside advertising campaign” →

1909: ‘Beautiful Sunnyside in the Center of San Francisco’

Sunnyside HistoryLeave a comment
Portion of Sunnyside supplement, SF Call, 3 Jun 1909, Colorized by Amy O'Hair.

One hundred and ten years ago, the real estate firm of Rogers and Stone, who had recently invested heavily in Sunnyside lots, took out a huge four-page stand-alone color supplement in the San Francisco Call. It featured an artist’s fantastical renditions of life in the neighborhood. Unsurprising for the world of property sales, the copious text is full of imaginary claims about the future of the City and the prospects of the then-largely undeveloped district.

SF Call, 3 June 1909. Page 1 of four-page Sunnyside color supplement. Newspapers.com.
SF Call, 3 June 1909. Page 2 of four-page Sunnyside color supplement. Newspapers.com.
SF Call, 3 June 1909. Page 3 of four-page Sunnyside color supplement. Newspapers.com.
SF Call, 3 June 1909. Page 4 of four-page Sunnyside color supplement. Newspapers.com.

Continue reading “1909: ‘Beautiful Sunnyside in the Center of San Francisco’” →

High on a hillside, the Sunnyside sign

Sunnyside History3 Comments
1912. Sunnyside hillside. OpenSFHistory.org

Recently a marvelous panorama taken about 1912 came my way. Sunnyside can be seen in the distance. The image reveals a feature from the neighborhood’s past–a giant hillside sign in the style of the one in Hollywood that was also placed as a real estate advertisement. However, Sunnyside’s sign preceded the more famous one by at least ten years–though of course ours didn’t last.

1912-crop_wnp15.1592
1912. The Sunnyside sign, on hillside near Mangels and Detroit. Detail from panorama image below. Western Neighborhoods Project wnp15.1592.

Continue reading “High on a hillside, the Sunnyside sign” →

The Sunnyside Coalyard and the Williams Family of Joost Avenue

Sunnyside History4 Comments
Image courtesy the Williams Family

By Amy O’Hair

The Williams family came to Sunnyside and stayed for three generations, being a vital part of the neighborhood for most of the twentieth century.

1905-c-Seph-Horse-257Joost-crop-fix-alt-color4BW-06Oct2015
Seph Williams in front of the family home at 257 Joost Avenue in about 1905. Photo courtesy the Williams family. Digital restoration by Amy O’Hair.

Continue reading “The Sunnyside Coalyard and the Williams Family of Joost Avenue” →