The 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs in Paris showcased sleek new machines, automobiles, airplanes and ocean liners that were very different from their ornate Victorian predecessors. The streamlined angular, curvilinear, and zigzag forms of these designs inspired a new form of architecture that was free of historical or classical details. New building techniques such as reinforced concrete and steel also made traditional cornices, pitched roofs, window moldings, and weight-bearing corners obsolete. This style was originally known as Moderne, but is now referred to as Art Deco or Streamline Moderne. Art Deco was still highly decorative as compared to its predecessors such as Art Nouveau or Historic Revival styles, but emphasized vertical design and zigzag ornamentation. It was primarily embraced for commercial purposes to highlight products for corporate headquarters as seen with the Chrysler Building in New York City or the Pacific Telephone Building in San Francisco, rather than housing.

170 Valencia St. San Francisco by Harold G. Stoner

By the 1930s, Art Deco evolved into Streamline Moderne which emphasized horizontal lines and less ornamentation as if it was an ocean liner or sleek airplane. The Sunset District Historic Context Statement by the Planning Dept. states that the first known Streamline Moderne tract home in San Francisco was built by Henry Doelger and Jason Arnott in 1937. The City also says it is one of the rarest styles found in San Francisco’s residential builder tracts, but there are many fine examples in my own neighborhood, Miraloma Park. This may be partly due to the building slowdown during the Great Depression and the popularity of Colonial Revival, Traditional and Mid-Century residential home styles after World War II.

Architecture trends reflect the tension between form and function. The first widely adopted Modern architectural style in San Francisco, efficient “homes as machines” Streamline Moderne was a radical departure from the decorative forms of Spanish Revival, Tudor and Storybook styles seen in the first homes built in Miraloma Park. In contrast to the applied decorations and materials of the past, this design utilized more functional designs such rectangular stucco blocky forms, often arranged in a zig zag geometric fashion, broken up by curved walls or modest details connoting speed. For example, functional corner walls may have an asymmetrical curve and practical details, such as windows, are made decorative with glass block construction. Character defining features include horizontal rooflines, sometimes stepped; rounded corner walls and curved surfaces; balconies of curved stucco, often with thin speed line railings, or decorative metal railings with circular motifs; horizontal stucco canopies; smooth stucco exterior cladding; glass block windows, occasionally curved; rectangular and porthole window openings; casement and fixed windows with horizontal “ribbon” muntins; applied speed lines (bands of horizontal piping, also known as “speed whiskers”, grooved stucco, or layered metal strips) particularly near the cornice; asymmetrical garage or entry openings, and an absence of wood and plaster/terra cotta ornamentation such as shields or decorative tiles. Miraloma Park designers created an amazing variety of homes in this style, utilizing the zigzag block face designs to hug and emphasize our curvilinear streets and corners. Here are just a few of many great examples surviving nearly intact since before WW2.

Below left home has a rare column shaped chimney, grooved stucco speed lines on the facade, and paired double hung paneled wood garage doors with porthole windows and horizontal canopy. The front window is recessed with a curve on the left. The home next door also has a distinctive chimney that steps up and back from the roofline with fluted speed line decoration. Large fluted right angle speed lines decorate the entrance canopy, side facade, and front of the home to emphasize the corner. A vertical glass block window decorates the entrance with the front door set back from the street view.

The example, below right, features a uniquely large and curved block window with a recessed speed line frame that is distinct from the zig zag angles forming the remaining frontage of this lovely corner Streamline Moderne design. A pair of double hung windows are decorated with a delicate metal speed line balcony. The contrasting paint design adds nice emphasis to these details.

Delicate metal speed lines with interlocking circles decorate this curved corner balcony, below left. The zig zag frontage also features a zig zag stucco canopy and fluting at the corner of the roof. Original ribbon muntin windows with speed line ribs or reeding decorate the tunnel entrance. Below right, is a nice example of a curved solid stucco balcony with a speed line metal railing inserted in the middle, which also serves as a canopy for the garage. Speed lines decorate the recessed window. The entrance wall of the garage is curved on the left, to echo the balcony, with a right-angle wall on the right.

An iconic ship like porthole window decorates this vertical wood plank door, below left, along with a curved corner canopy and a recessed vertical glass block window.  This setback corner entrance, below right, has a large corner stucco canopy and an echoing curved corner stepped porch with a very unique curved metal speed line railing. Fluted speed lines below the roof and a glass block window provide more decoration along with etched speed lines in the stucco along the porch and front facade.

A chevron atop a glass block window, below left, accents the front facade and stepped roofline. The horizontal vent and stucco canopy provide additional horizontal emphasis. Several Miraloma Park designs include porthole windows in the facade, some with one or more speed lines. Instead of a porthole window, this home, below right, has a metal circle with speed lines accenting the smooth facade. Delicate speed lines are etched below the roofline and the corner window. A speed line balcony enhances the side window, as well as stucco lines on the corner, so that both sides of this angled corner house have ornamentation.

A few more examples of Moderne touches:

Both San Francisco and San Diego were eager to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal and organized expositions to welcome the new business to their ports. The Panama Pacific Exposition held in San Diego in 1915 also helped introduce a new style of architecture to California – one that particularly suited its sunny personality. The city hired New York architect, Bertram Goodhue, to create a romantic city in Balboa Park with architectural elements from the state’s Spanish-Colonial and Mexican heritage. These Mediterranean Revival styles, easily adapted to California’s sunny climate and natural environment, became very popular for new homes, replacing the Victorian, Classical, and the Craftsman bungalow styles.

The ideal became the sanitized all-electric, stucco hacienda: a romantic amalgamation of Edison, Bell, Ford, and Zorro with telephone jacks and radio aerial intact. The patio succeeded the verandah; the tiled breakfast room challenged the paneled dining room; the screened sleeping porch gave way to the two-tray laundry porch; and the motor car became the new house pet with its own attached garage. Floor plans grew tighter and area square-footage shrank, as more women became their own domestics and construction costs doubled. The Meyer Brothers homes along Portola Drive in San Francisco are primarily Tudor or Storybook style, but their 1927 advertisement for the English styled “Raleigh” also included Sunshine Gables, the Spanish Miraloma, and Portola designs that featured a tile roof rather than half-timbering. Developers of neighborhoods West of Twin Peaks found out quickly that these styles hinting of a warmer climate in the foggy side of San Francisco were much more popular among home buyers. Sunnyside Avenue was renamed with Spanish themed Monterey Blvd. and the historic downtown Market St. extension to the West of Twin Peaks neighborhoods was named Portola Drive.

The terms “Spanish Colonial Revival” and “Mediterranean Revival” are often used interchangeably to describe this style that incorporates red Spanish clay tile roofs, thick adobe-like stucco walls with hand troweling , exposed timber, ironwork, and arched window and door openings, with derivatives such as Mission Revival, Spanish Eclectic, Pueblo Revival, Mediterranean Colonial, and Monterey Revival.

Mediterranean Revival is a catch-all umbrella term that includes buildings with Spanish, Mexican, Italian, and Moorish influences, featuring gabled roofs, thickly textured stucco cladding, arched door openings, and windows, often in ganged (multiple) configuration, muscular chimney stacks and /or towers, and ornamentation such as molded rope mullions, vigas (rough hewn wood beams that project out from the exterior wall), cartouches or shields, and niches.

 Miraloma Home for sale March 2020

Spanish Colonial references California’s Spanish Colonial and Missions legacy. It includes many of these elements, as well as, arched, chamfered or squared window or door openings, often with robust, turned wood mullions, thick adobe-like walls. shaped parapets, exposed timber, bell towers, and ironwork. Ornamentation can also include quatrefoils, sound holes, niches, balconies, curvilinear arched entries and windows, along with Churrigueresque detailing (highly decorative stucco work that surrounds windows or entryways). Monterey Revival features a full or partial width wood balcony as the primary design element.

Here are some examples in Miraloma Park. Note how these details create attractive shadows in the photographs and how the designers cleverly used varying depths, heights, and shapes to make our home facades attractive and interesting despite the reduction in lot sizes in the 1930s.

Focal point tiled tower entrance with original recessed parabolic multi-paned front window enhanced with a wrought iron balcony and cartouche.

Tower entrance with arched entry and Monterey Revival style balcony. Wrought iron decorates the tower top and round window.

Deeply recessed entry adds to the adobe like appearance. Triple arched recessed windows decorated with spiral columned mullions.

Barrel front Mediterranean Revivals were very popular in the Sunset, but less so in Miraloma. With lots of shields for decoration, this style features a ganged window configuration of 4-5 openings. The flat roof typically had clay tile edging, as seen on the angled roof shielding the entry.

Source: Sunset District Historic Context Statement by City of San Francisco Planning Dept. Red Tile Style by Arrol Gellner is a great resource for those wishes to enhance or restore these details in their homes.

Originally written for the December 2016 issue of the Miraloma Life Newsletter.

When I walk around my Miraloma Park neighborhood, I find the artistic architectural details preserved by many of the residents to be especially appealing and the essence of what makes this neighborhood picturesque. The Meyer Brothers, who built the first homes, and others developing residential neighborhoods between World War I and II, found this Period Revival Style of architecture to be especially popular among home buyers. Replicating a medieval English cottage, French peasant house, or Swiss chalet, these fanciful interpretations of European country homes were very different than the wood shingle bungalow, columned classical, or Victorian designs that preceded them. This article focuses on the Storybook version of this historic-revival trend, which laid the architectural detail on more thickly, looking more like something from a fairy tale, and often blends influences from England, France, and Germany. Arrol Gellner, who coined the phrase “Storybook style,” notes “Fairy Tale, Disneyesque, and Hansel and Gretel have all been used to describe this medieval European revival style popular in the 1920’s known for its exaggerated details, use of decoration to suggest antiquity, but most of all charm and a bit of whimsy … created by an architect or designer with a distinct flair for theater, a love of fine craftsmanship, and good sense of humor.”

Architectural historians also believe that the overseas experience of American soldiers during World War I enhanced interest in such designs, as well as, the use of them in Hollywood movies. Storybook style originated in Los Angeles as a link with the silent film industry, in particular the experience of Hollywood set designers, in creating the exaggerated appearance of age and ruins; the fact that many silent films were set in Europe; and the demand for homes that reflected the fantasy of film. Meyer Brothers advertisements for these designs in Miraloma Park were described as “Medieval English” or “The Raleigh“.

Primary features of the Storybook style include asymmetrical and exaggerated details, arched entries and doors, multiple gables in varying directions with the forward facing one dramatically pitched (some swooping into a gate), turrets and towers, oversized and curving chimneys, slate roofing, dovecote-like vent pipes or miniature bird houses, arched wood plank doors with over-sized metal hinges, over-sized and/or cut-out design shutters, troweled stucco, half-timbering, and applied masonry or faux stone accents to create the appearance of aging European cottages.

Here are some examples of these historic details in Miraloma Park based on the Historic Context Statement prepared by the Planning Department for similar houses in the Sunset District and Storybook Style: America’s Whimsical Homes of the Twenties by Arrol Gellner.

Below left: A winding staircase inside the turret to the right provides a whimsical entry to the front door. A miniature witch’s capped tower on the left provides a slit window for light or throwing tar on your enemies – just for fun! Oversized frame around the center window adds articulation.

Below Right: This steeply pitched and forward facing gabled roof asymmetrically swoops down on one side. Called a cat slide, it slopes onto a half-timbered entry gate which provides added separation from the street to the front door. The bay window adds articulation for the front facade. The over-sized chimney on the left hints of being handmade with stone.

Below Left: The rolled eave hints of a thatch roof and softens the sharps gables and eaves. The muscular chimney stack adds more whimsy and interest.

Bellow Right: The charming multi-curved window panes on this original casement window were likely handcrafted – just like in the Middle Ages. The quaint recessed arched window on the right adds a whimsical contrasting decoration to the front facade.

Below Left: A turreted entry provides a cozy and inviting front door. The roughly troweled stucco between the half-timbering creates the appearance of wattle and daub. The front gable slopes back at the top to form a small hipped roof end which is called a jerkin head or hipped gable.

Below Right: Half-timbering and curved wood medallions add a whimsical touch to this example which also features a three-part pointed arch window that enriches the home’s facade.

Below Left: A winding staircase leads to an arched wooden plank door deeply recessed within a second sheltering stucco arch and a sloping roof. A niche window adds more visual charm, as well as, the decorative railing and light. The decorative chimney next door provides a great example of how neighboring architectural details can enhance each other.

Below Right: A distinctive pointed arch and multi-paned window is highlighted with angled shutters decorated with arrow cutouts. The decorative initial on the rain gutter adds a nice touch.

Looking back into my archives, I found this 2010 article written for the San Anselmo Historical Society.

When I first moved to San Francisco in 1980, I was excited to find a tiny home on the slopes of the City’s highest hill. Just steps from my door to the park at its peak is the opportunity to be totally surrounded by a tall forest – a world away from the hubbub of the surrounding city. Time does not stand still and I have been amazed at how this unknown part of San Francisco has since been a focus of some who live elsewhere and want to change it. The inspiration for the book I wrote years ago was to remind us of why this gem came to be. 

Don Jose de Jesus Noe was the first owner of what we now call Mt. Davidson Park when it was part of a 4443-acre land grant by Mexican Governor Pio Pico in 1845. After California’s statehood in 1850, Noe’s cattle grazing Rancho San Miguel changed ownership several times, but the City’s highest hill remained relatively unchanged until German immigrant, Adolph Sutro, stopped mining the original Mt. Davidson in Nevada. Solving the ventilation and drainage problems with a five-mile tunnel into the silver-rich Comstock Lode made Sutro and his partners multi-millionaires. One of his first investments in 1881 was 1400 acres of Rancho San Miguel. At the urging of the poet, Joaquin Miller (one of the first to promote preservation of the Sierra Nevada forests), Sutro gave school children and the unemployed tree seedlings to plant on his land in celebration of the first Arbor Days. Sutro believed that the planting of trees and hiking in the forests they created would improve the mental and physical health of his fellow residents. (The east side of the is park treeless because it was owned by Leland Stanford). Sutro willed his original 1,400 acres (including the western slope of Mt. Davidson) to an educational trust so his forest land would be preserved for public recreation, but some of his heirs convinced the California Supreme Court to invalidate the will. They sold 700 acres to housing developer, A.S. Baldwin, for $1.4 million in 1911. Baldwin funded the building of a hiking trail to the top of “his” forested side of Mt. Davidson “for the pleasure of the public,” as part of his development advertisment plan.

A.S. Baldwin 1924 Subdivision Plan and Trail for Sutro’s Property

Over a decade later, however, the San Francisco Chronicle proclaimed “Mt. Davidson Unknown to S.F. Citizens.” The hilltop’s obscurity would change after Western Union official James Decatur took up that hiking invitation in 1923 and wrote about the experience: “As the group found themselves deeper in the wood … peace and quiet were so profound that it seemed almost unbelievable that the noise and roar of a great city was only a few minutes behind them … The solitude of the forest … conveyed a sense of vastness quite as real as one would experience among the age-old monarchs of the High Sierras …The undergrowth and flowers looked as if they might have been there for centuries … Decatur got Baldwin’s permission to organize an Easter Sunrise Ceremony atop Mt. Davidson on April 1, 1923. With over 5000 hiking there before dawn to hear the Dean of Grace Cathedral, Decatur and Baldwin decided to make it an annual event.

Attending the ceremony three years later, Mrs. Edmund N. “Madie” Brown, was also inspired – for a different reason. She wanted to put a stop to “the subdivider’s axe and steam shovel from destroying in ruthless fashion the beauties of nature on our beloved Mt. Davidson.” The Federation of Women’s Clubs joined forces with her “to preserve for San Francisco this wooded hill, Mt. Davidson, which will serve to provide our school children with the environment for nature study, the Boy Scouts with an outdoor playground for hikes and overnight camping, the Easter pilgrim with a place of worship on its summit at dawn, and the visitor with unsurpassed views from the highest point in the city.” Prominent citizens were interviewed, letters were written to individuals and organizations asking for their support, and publicity was secured through press and movie newsreels.

Madie Brown

An editorial in the April 26, 1927 San Francisco Examiner supported City purchase of the land: “As the residential area advances, the forest goes down before the axe. In another year, it will be too late for the beauty of the summit to be preserved …” Three days later, a report to the Finance Committee of the Board of Supervisors recommended purchase of the summit of Mount Davidson “for a public park serving the needs of the West of Twin Peaks District and also serving as a recreation center and forest playground for the whole city. The acquisition will also preserve for all time the beautiful tree covered slopes of the mountain as an attractive scenic land mark in the city …”

The sum of $15,000 was approved to purchase the first 20 acres in 1927 with the support of Mayor Rolph and the first woman elected to the Board of Supervisors, Margaret M. Morgan. The park was dedicated on the 84th birthday of Park Superintendent John McLaren in 1929 with a plaque honoring Madie Brown: “who found beauty in flower and tree on this lofty hill. Through her untiring pleas, these acres have been set aside as a city park that all may enjoy their beauty and find refreshment of the soul.”

1929 Proposed Park Boundary

Attendance at the annual Easter Sunrise event skyrocketed to 30,000 by 1932, but nearby housing sales were slowing during the Great Depression. Fundraising began to build a permanent cross on Mt. Davidson, with the help of the developers and builders of the adjoining neighborhoods. The developer’s widow, Mrs. A.S. Baldwin, donated six more acres to the City park for the cross site. The architect of the city’s tallest buildings, George Kelham, was recruited to design the City’s highest monument on it’s highest hill. Built with $20,000 in donations, it took 30,000 feet of lumber to form the 750 cubic yards of concrete that covers 30 tons of reinforced steel. The foundation goes down 16 feet into solid rock. The 103 foot high cross faces due east. It is 10 feet wide at the base and tapers to 9 feet wide at the top. A time capsule under the granite slab at the base contains a copy of the deed of Rancho San Miguel to Don Jose Noe.

Mayor Rossi laying time capsule at the Mt. Davidson Cross dedication on March 5, 1934

Park founder, Madie Brown, asked President Franklin D. Roosevelt to dedicate it in 1934:

“As chairman of arrangements, I have dared to dream that you would press a button in Washington, D.C., which in turn would light for the first time this giant cross in San Francisco at its dedication on March 24. It seems most appropriate that you, who have brought light to many a darkened American home and who through your New Deal has instilled the principles of the Golden Rule into American business, should take part in this cross-lighting ceremony.”

President Roosevelt pressed a golden-keyed telegraph switch to light the cross at 7:30 PM before a crowd of 50,000. The cross was lit two weeks a year, thereafter, for Christmas and Easter.

During the remainder of the Depression and through the early 1940s, CBS Radio broadcast the sunrise services coast-to-coast. Seven acres were added to the east side of the park in 1941, as up to 75,000 attended the Easter events during World War II. More acres on the south side were added to the park in in 1950 as housing was built higher up the hill. After a soldier bound for the Korean War wrote of it being his last sight of home, funds were raised to light the cross year-round. Visible from 75 miles away, the twelve 1000-watt lights were turned off in 1976, except during Easter and Christmas weeks, because of the energy crisis. Live television broadcast of the sunrise ceremony began in 1977.

After the lighting of the Golden Gate Bridge was expanded in 1987, fundraising began to resume year-round lighting and obtain historic designation of the cross. However, in response to complaints that public ownership of a religious landmark was a violation of the separation of church and state, the city restricted the lighting to two hours before Easter sunrise. A subsequent lawsuit took ownership of Mt. Davidson to the California Supreme Court a second time. After losing a five-year battle, the city decided to sell the park land under the cross at a public auction to the highest bidder, rather than remove the monument. Neighborhood leaders formed the Friends of Mt. Davidson Conservancy to reduce the amount of park land to be sold to settle the lawsuit. They negotiated limitation of the public park property sale from 6 acres to .38 acre, with deed restrictions ensuring public access and protection of the open space in perpetuity. San Francisco voters approved sale of the park land to the Council of Armenian Organizations of Northern California in November of 1997. The historic lights turned on by President Roosevelt were removed, but portable lighting is allowed two days a year.

Nov. 1997 Voter Guide Map for Proposition F showing location of park land to be sold.

Also in 1997, the Recreation and Park Dept. changed the purpose of Mt. Davidson Park from recreation to propagation of native plants as part of the Natural Areas Program. In fulfillment of this mission, their plan to replace the middle third of the forest (10 acres) with shrubs and limit public access throughout the park will be implemented as funding becomes available.

Despite its popularity for huge civic events during the 20th century, two trips to the CA Supreme Court, debates over its landscape, and an significant increase in the city’s density, San Francisco’s highest hilltop park quietly remains as a peaceful forest oasis thanks to the philanthropy of Adolph Sutro and Madie Brown – as if frozen in time since a 1923 newspaper article entitled Mt. Davidson Unknown to SF Citizens exclaimed:

“Once on the way you might imagine yourself in the wildest part of California. The woods appear vast and silent. There is no sign of life along the way. And yet you are still in a city of over 600,000 inhabitants and on every side below you are thousands of closely built homes. No other city in the world offers such a contrast. “

Welcome to the Harold G. Stoner blog for news about one of the Bay Area’s most artistic architects. Since my book, Bay Area Beauty: The Artistry of Harold G. Stoner, was completed earlier this year, I continue to discover more about this amazing man. This blog has been created to share what I have found.

Stoner’s Innovative Community-Oriented Site Plan

The on-going effort by Google Books to scan historic journals has recently revealed what may be the earliest magazine article published about Harold G. Stoner. “A Well-Designed Group of Small Houses,” in the December 1922 issue of The Building Review, notes that “a group of three houses [designed by Harold G. Stoner] at Ingleside Terraces in San Francisco, planned to face a common lawn, but with entirely separate rear gardens, has aroused no small amount of interest among builders and home-owners of this region.”

The cottages still located at 160, 170, and 180 Urbano Drive, which follows the original one-mile long course of the historic Ingleside Racetrack, are seen below as they looked in 1922 – before they were surrounded by many more homes.

Urbano Drive 1922

Ingleside Terraces was one of the first residence parks built in what was considered the outsidelands of San Francisco – the area west of the Twin Peaks which city dwellers initially considered to be suburbs as revealed in this article. “A mere house, after all, is not in itself a home – there must be a yard or garden for the children to play in – some trees, shrubs and flowers and a bit of lawn or terrace, else why bother to go out of town! … when one has decided to build, sacrificing apartment-house conveniences and the three-minute walk to business to a thirty-minute trip night and morning, he feels he that he is entitled to a few feet of earth to play upon, and decidedly objects to being crowded on a narrow lot with the next door neighbor within handshaking distance.”

Here Stoner may have first utilized a community-oriented site plan that he would later replicate in nearby Monterey Heights, as seen here along Monterey Boulevard.

“The three lots comprising this plot [on Urbano Drive] are fifty by one hundred feet each and terraced to the street level. The central house is set back about one hundred feet from the street, while the others facing each other present an interesting side-view with southwestern exposure … The plan as here described, of a group of detached houses is especially appealing to friends, acquaintances or members of a family who want to live near, but not with each other, and is an expression of the ‘community’ idea with modifications which is becoming more and more popular in planning suburban dwellings.”

In Balboa Terrace, Stoner reduced the threesome plan to pairs of homes that face each other as seen in this example on San Leandro Way. Stoner not only emphasized community in his site plans, but also in his home designs which he highlighted in one of his advertisements, “Here the feeling of a real home is found and one awaits with an anticipation of pleasure, the invitation of the host to enter.”