Timothy Pflueger Day in SF

Timothy L. Pflueger in 1936, sketched by Peter
van Valkenburg (Wikipedia)

Sunday, 22 March 2009 will be proclaimed Timothy Pflueger Day by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The architect (1892–1946), who was born in San Francisco and lived there all his life, is having a street named after him.

Chelsea Place, an alley jutting south from the 600 block of Bush Street between Powell and Stockton streets (and located directly behind the Pflueger-designed 450 Sutter skyscraper), will henceforth be known as Pflueger Place.

The proclamation will be read at noon on Sunday at the entrance to Pflueger Place (641 Bush Street). Pflueger family members, SF city officials, former Board supervisors, local architectural historians, author Therese Poletti, and Art Deco lovers will will break champagne bottles on or near the street sign.

Three of Pflueger’s Berkeley buildings, all located at Shattuck Square, are designated landmarks.

From Maybeck to Modern :: House Tour Lecture Series

Photo: Daniella Thompson, 2009

In conjunction with our Spring House Tour, Maybeck Country: Hillside Houses of the Early- and Mid-20th Century, we are offering the three-lecture series From Maybeck to Modern.

Tickets: $15 per lecture; $40 for the series
All lectures will take place at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley, CA 94709.

Wednesday, 8 April 2009
7:30 pm
Robert Judson Clark :: Buena Vista: Maybeck and the Year 1907
Many of Bernard Maybeck’s finest residential designs, including his own house on Buena Vista Way, were created in this watershed year.

Robert Judson Clark is a professor emeritus of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. He is the author of The Arts and Crafts Movement in America 1876–1916 and Design in America: the Cranbrook vision, 1925–1950.

Wednesday, 22 April 2009
7:30 pm
Henrik Bull :: Bay Area Architecture of the 1950s and 1960s
Bay Area mid-century architecture as seen through the eyes of an architect who began his practice here during the 1950s.

Henrik Bull is founder and principal of Bull Stockwell Allen/BSA Architects.

Wednesday, 29 April 2009
7:30 pm
Waverly Lowell :: Greenwood Common: Living Modern
The story of William Wurster and his iconic development of mid-century houses surrounding a landscaped common overlooking the Golden Gate.

Waverly Lowell is Curator of the Environmental Design Archives at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of Living Modern: A Biography of Greenwood Common, to be published by William Stout this spring.

To order tickets, print, fill out, and mail the ticket order form.
You can also pay fo by credit card via PayPal. Please specify number of tickets and lecture date[s] in the Description line.

Maybeck Country :: BAHA Spring House Tour

Photo: Daniella Thompson, 2004

Our 34th Spring House Tour, Maybeck Country: Hillside Houses of the Early- and Mid-20th Century, will take place on Sunday, 3 May 2009, from 1 to 5 pm.

For information and tickets, see the tour page.

The Montealegre House: a mystery solved

The Montealegre House, 2601 Dana Street (photo: Daniella Thompson, 2009)

The stately Italianate house at the southeast corner of Dana and Parker streets has long been believed to be the Hillegass House. Some years ago, BAHA board member Jerry Sulliger began to question the claim that this house had originally been built on Hillegass property. Jerry’s subsequent extensive research revealed an even more fascinating history connected with this Victorian, now known to be the Montealegre House.

Jerry’s article was published in the current BAHA Newsletter (No. 130). An updated version with newly discovered facts and many more images is available on the BAHA website.