Abner Phelps House

Abner Phelps House
Abner Phelps House in San Francisco
Location 1111 Oak Street, San Francisco, California
Coordinates 37°46′22″N 122°26′17″W / 37.77278°N 122.43806°W / 37.77278; -122.43806Coordinates: 37°46′22″N 122°26′17″W / 37.77278°N 122.43806°W / 37.77278; -122.43806
Area 0.1 acres (0.040 ha)
Built c.1850
Architectural style Colonial/Other
NRHP reference # 71000187 [1]
SFDL # 32
Significant dates
Added to NRHP 23 May 1979 [1]
Designated SFDL 31 May 1970[2]

The Abner Phelps House sits at 1111 Oak Street just west of Divisadero Street in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district. This is currently the oldest house in San Francisco, constructed in approx. 1850 by Abner Phelps and his wife Augusta Roussell with pre-constructed house parts. The home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is San Francisco Landmark Number 32, since 1979.[3] The house is not open to the public and is listed as a private residency.

History

Abner Phelps served in the Mexican–American War as a colonel from 1846–1848 and later worked as a lawyer Downtown on Montgomery Street.[4] He rode a horse to his office, which stood where the Transamerica Pyramid currently is located.[5] By 1854, the San Francisco city borders extended to the property.[3] The architecture style of the house is a reference to Gothic Revival with Colonial features.[4]

The building has moved three times; once in 1890 for the road grading on Divisadero Street and then repositioned in the same place, secondly in 1904 to reposition the house so that stores could be built along Divisadero and in the 1970s it was repositioned on the lot to allow for a front yard.[3][6][7] It previously had the address 329 Divisadero Street.[3]

Origins

The origins of the house has two contradicting stories. The oldest story published story of the origins is from 1934, "built in 1850 by John Middleton & Sons, one of the first real estate concerns in the city...(and) constructed of lumber into sections brought round the Horn from Maine, there being no sawmills here at the time."[3] The second story is from 1961, Phelps' great-granddaughter stated the house was built in New Orleans and brought in sections and rebuilt in San Francisco between 1850–1851, this was because his wife Roussell was homesick for Louisiana.[3] The home sat on a 160-acre homestead outside of San Francisco and included the area that is now the Golden Gate Park Panhandle.[3]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "NPGallery Digital Asset Management System". National Park Service. U.S. Department of the Interior.
  2. ↑ "City of San Francisco Designated Landmarks" (PDF). City of San Francisco. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "San Francisco Landmark #32: Abner Phelps House". NoeHill in San Francisco. San Francisco Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board. 1969-08-20. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  4. 1 2 Dudley, Andrew (2010-07-15). "Secretly Awesome: the Abner Phelps House". Hoodline. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  5. ↑ "San Francisco's oldest home is renting for $12,000 a month". SFGate. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
  6. ↑ Craig, Christopher J. (2006). San Francisco: A Pictorial Celebration. New York, New York: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. p. 58. ISBN 1402723881.
  7. ↑ Dinkelspiel Cerny, Susan (2007). An Architectural Guidebook to San Francisco and the Bay Area. Salt Lake City, Utah: Gibbs Smith. p. 74. ISBN 1586854321. Retrieved 2017-07-18.
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