Architectural Tour Noe Valley Victorians-Part 2

-----------Architectural Tour Noe Valley Victorians-Part 2----------
We start with a house built by Fernando Nelson at 1257 Noe St. in 1892. It has the Nelson signature gingerbread details, of donuts, button boards and bow ties. Fun to see these idiosyncratic things on a house.

Not far away (we won't go over there) at 407-30th St. is the first house Nelson built in SF in 1876, when he was sixteen years old and newly arrived from NYC. It is pictured above. For a biography of Nelson click here.

There are over one hundred Victorians in the various guidebooks for Noe Valley. In our tour time of two hours we will get to see about thirty. There will need to be two tours to adequately cover all of Noe Valley.

Just imagine whole streets of these exuberant designs. A physical fantasy world, created of Victorian architecture. Row after row of these efflorescent, floriated, flamboyant creations

Roughly over 48,000 Victorians were built here, (1860s to 1890s), with about a third remaining. Did this style of architecture help offset the harshness of life in the 19th century? Or was it California capitalist entrepreneurship, fueled by the best building material, old growth redwood?

This link will take you to the history of several of the houses on the tour. The info comes from the Victorian Alliance of SF, tour guide booklet for Noe Valley.

The information below is provided if you are interested in more details about SF Victorian architecture.
Looking at a San Francisco Victorian, what to look for:
Or just come on the tour and soak up the info!
(There are five Styles)

• Flat front Italianate- (earliest Victorians). (French 2nd Empire appear)
• Italianate with slanted bay windows.
• San Francisco Stick Style (also called East Lake). Simpler square bay windows now used. Overall much more elaborate decoration, ornament and gingerbread used.
• Queen Anne Tower House&Witches Cap, with angled or rounded bay windows & front gable
• Queen Anne Row House, 1, 1-1/2 or two stories. Large front gable. Possible moongate entry.

Features & "Gingerbread"
Type of Entry & Doorway(maybe a rounded or partial Moongate entry)-
Decorative Ironwork-
Floral Decor-Garlands (one of many types of decorations known as *"Gingerbread")
Fish scale&Diamond shingles-
Towers & Witch's Cap-
Stained Glass or Beveled Glass-
Carvings of grotesque faces-
Sunbursts- often painted gold color, half or full.
Gables (Queen Anne's) in a variety of material- (mainly redwood)
Newel Posts and Finials on Tower tops and roof peaks-
Fernando Nelson built thousands of homes in SF. Over many, many decades. We'll also see clusters (2 to 17) of Victorian homes systematically built for the average working person by a development company, "The Real Estate Assoc." THEA, from 1870 to 1880. Not quite magnificent but many still standing.
Development of woodworking mills South of Market provided the ornaments with which to add the "gingerbread" to the Victorian houses There was an Old English custom using fancy cutouts of gingerbread to decorate wedding cakes. The term gingerbread was subsequently used for the decorating of Victorian houses. The secret ingredient was redwood. It could be carved, sawn, or turned, or soaked and press molded into almost any design
Periods
1860 - 1870s Italianate* Buildings were vertical in emphasis with rounded classical detail. Earliest had flat windows, later angled Bay windows with false raised roof fronts. *Copying Italian townhouses from the 15th & 16th centuries.
1880s Stick Style (also called East Lake): The early buildings in this SF genre relied heavily on vertical decorations and lots of gingerbread. Squared off bay windows appear.
Late 1880s and 1890s Queen Anne : Gingerbread would be applied to both the Stick and Queen Ann styles in San Francisco. Sloping roofs appear. Gables and towers with witches caps.
In Queen Ann surfaces are covered in a variety of patterns with fish scale and diamond shingles, lap siding and masonry, sometimes all in the same building.
Rooflines in the Queen Anne were irregular, combining the witches hat roof on a rounded or octagonal tower, with a front facing large gable.

If you would like a scholarly and detailed explanation with photos, click.
Or, again, just come on the tour and soak up the info!

Host or Publisher Jordan M Herrmann