Surface impressions of San Francisco assail the visitor like colors in a
gypsy's scarf lustrous and salient. There is so much vivacity in the
streets downtown, so much to see in the haunts talked about, that one is
apt to overlook in a brief sojourn an outstanding characteristic of the
city--its many distinctive homes.
Hardly a month passes that is not marked by pages of appreciation in
national architectural journals about the creative originality shown in
the landscape gardening and in the structural conceptions achieved in
the residence parks of San Francisco. In versatility of treatment the
architects who have specialized in home building in the San Francisco
Bay region have had their designs of contoured streets, parterres,
terraces and plantings published more widely than those of their
professional brethren in any other section of the country.
Tour leisurely by motor car or afoot through the city if you would
convince yourself how lovely the homes of San Francisco are. Leave the
traveled boulevards and journey out into the districts that lie along
the hills north of Washington street and west of Van Ness avenue as far
as the Presidio wall. Skirting that dividing line, wander through the
area between Geary street and the military reservation.
Pacific avenue, Broadway, Vallejo and the cross streets leading into
them are built up with splendid homes, outlined against inviting lawns
and gardens. There are noteworthy residence tracts in this section--
Presidio Terrace, West Clay Park and Sea Cliff, where homes that look
like villas and chateaux perch on heights that afford a sweeping range
of ocean, hills and harbor entrance.
The district west of Twin Peaks, which may be reached either by the
Municipal street cars that go out Market street or by automobile, has
restricted residential areas that are reminiscent of the illustrations
on the satiny pages of de luxe architectural folios.
Rapid transit has brought country life to city dwellers in San
Francisco, Third and Market streets being only twenty minutes away from
St. Francis Wood and its fountains and trees; Ingleside Terraces;
Westwood Park, lying along the lower slopes of Mt. Davidson; Forest Hill
and other verdant home areas, the tunnel through Twin Peaks making all
this possible.
Coming back downtown over the shoulder of Twin Peaks your eyes are
bewildered in trying to chart the sea of roofs and gables that stretch
over the Mission district. Where once a few tiled adobes clustered
around Mission Dolores, founded by Padre Junipero Serra, now spread
homes flooding the level places and gradually climbing up toward the
tops of the hills that are like watchtowers over the Golden Gate.