News
Celebrating the Centennial of the Mt. Davidson Easter Sunrise Service
I was honored to be invited to highlight the altruistic history of Mt. Davidson Park and Monument during this year’s 100th Easter Sunrise event on April 9, 2023 – including the story about where the Easter Bunny lives. Coverage of the event by KTVU.
Mt. Davidson Time Capsule Unearthed!
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/mount-davidson-cross-time-capsule-opened-17874670.php
Iconic Design by Harold G. Stoner on the Market
On the market for $4,000, 000, this home was designed by Harold G. Stoner for Henry Stoneson, the developer of the surrounding Lakeside neighborhood and Stonestown Shopping Center. In 1941 The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Henry Stoneson had spent $60,000 for his own 12-room mansion at 100 Stonecrest Drive. The largest home in the […]
Mt. Davidson Cross Glows Blue Easter Eve 2020
For the first time in 97 years, the non-denominational Easter Sunrise service on Mt. Davidson was cancelled. Having once moved to a nearby church during a rainstorm, this historic cancellation was due to the prohibition of large gatherings to help stop the pandemic Covid-19 virus outbreak sweeping the world. But despite this setback, the cross attained […]
Harold G. Stoner Design Gets New Owner
Harold Stoner’s design at 170 Valencia St. has been highlighted in the National Trust Guide to Art Deco in America as “an elegant Art Deco perfume bottle that has been enlarged into a full-scale building. The street facade presents one of the country’s most elegant Art Deco designs.” With the new ownership by the Gay […]
A Century Ago Today – Bessie Left her Heart in San Francisco
In 2001, when I embarked on what would become a very interesting and unexpected journey researching my father’s family , I realized that most of them left few clues of who they were or what they did. Information in various government records provide some idea, but not the whole story. Records of female ancestors are […]
Sutro’s Tropic Beach Coloring Contest
Keeping Architect Harold Stoner’s Tropic Beach brilliant color scheme looking its best was a challenge according to a 1950 article in the San Francisco Chronicle recently shared with me by John Martini, the author of Sutro’s Glass Palace. The article describes the “modernistic towers” outside the entrance to the Sutro Baths with “their facets brightly colored in […]
NOAA Coast Survey Archive about George Davidson
In response to my blogpost about George Davidson , Albert “Skip” Theberge kindly shared some interesting information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Archives. He has written a detailed history about San Francisco having the longest tidal record in the western hemisphere – over 150 years of data – and George Davidson’s role in the first […]
From Hanover, Germany to San Francisco, CA
Behrend Joost had high hopes in 1891 for his “creme de la creme” of subdivisions, naming the streets in the Sunnyside neighborhood he created in San Francisco after millionaires: Flood, Spreckels, Mangels, and Joost himself. Behrend Joost, Claus Spreckels, Claus Mangels, and his sister Anna Christina, were all from Hanover, Germany. Anna Mangels and Claus Spreckels […]
Adolph Sutro’s Urban Forests: Influences and Lasting Benefits
I am pleased to announce that my research essay “Adolph Sutro’s Urban Forests: Influences and Lasting Benefits,” has been published in the Summer 2016 issue of The Argonaut, Journal of the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society: TheArgonautVolume27 No.1!