San Francisco Travel: The Victorian Home Walking Tour
On our second full day in San Francisco the weather gods were not on our side: the
weather was grey and cool, and a major rain and windstorm was supposed to arrive in the area. After a nice breakfast at the Queen Anne Hotel we conveniently joined the Victorian Homes Walking Tour, led by local expert Jay Gifford right at our hotel. The Queen Anne Hotel, our home base during this San Francisco excursion, is a stunning example of Victorian architecture and an official stop on the Victorian Homes Walking Tour.
Jay has been a long-time resident of San Francisco since 1979. After being downsized from his corporate job, he decided to become a walking tour guide, specializing in the plentiful Victorian architecture that San Francisco has to offer. On this somewhat dreary-looking day he must have had about 25 people in tow, all keen to learn more about San Franciscos Victorian architectural heritage.
After describing the building's interior Jay took our group outside where he explained the difference between Queen Anne, Italianate and Stick Style Victorian architecture. He also explained the term "smothering", which refers to the removal and covering up of authentic Victorian architectural details as it was often practiced from the 1950s to the 1970s. Many of the remaining 14,000 Victorian properties in this era have now been restored, and even homes that were no longer recognizable as Victorian-era structures, are now being lovingly brought back to their former glory with period details and architectural features.
Along the way we also saw two synagogues, various churches and apartment buildings from the 1920s. On Laguna Street we stopped for a great view across San Francisco Bay before we continued our walk through the affluent Pacific Heights district which features an eclectic mix of upscale homes. Jay also pointed out the Victorian homes featured in "Mrs. Doubtfire" and in the "Party of Five" television show.
Two and a half hours later we finished our walk in Cow Hollow on Union Street, a popular shopping and restaurant area, just as the first raindrops were starting to fall. We then sat down I a caf with Jay to get a better understanding of San Francisco, its history and the mentality of its residents. This is where it got really interesting.
I inquired into his personal history. Jay, a graduate in marketing and Spanish, came to San Francisco in 1979 from Ann Arbor, Michigan. His original destination was Los Angeles but somehow he got stuck in San Francisco. Over the years Jay has done a lot of traveling to places such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, China, Australia, Thailand, Russia and all sorts of European countries. He is obviously a passionate traveller with a knack for discoveries off the beaten path.
His best local experience was a trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he linked up with a local person over the Internet and got a private car tour all over the city. He explored Poland in a similar manner, after connecting with a Polish woman who showed him the city through the eyes of a local. Jay added that people in San Francisco are generally very worldly and well-travelled. People here love diversity, and they have a well-developed sense of curiosity.
When Jay was downsized in 1996 from his position at IBM, he received a severance package and decided to completely revamp his life. He chose a completely new direction and got into the tour guiding business. After all, he had had numerous visitors from out east over the years to whom he had been giving tours. Taking it to the next step and turning his local knowledge into a profession was a logical conclusion. Jay was finally pursuing his passion.
Initially Jay created a long list of tours but found it was difficult to market such a broad offering. He realized that people truly loved his Victorian homes tour, so he decided to focus on this specific tour. He credits his success to the Internet and added that it took him over 10 years to get into various printed guidebooks. He has held the price steady at $20 for the last decade, which is feasible since he has very little overhead and does not spend a lot on advertising. Today his niece helps him with running the business.
His clientele is very diverse and tour participants come from all over the world although women do outnumber the men. Single female travelers who do not know which areas of the city are safe enjoy taking his tour because it introduces them to the real San Francisco in a safe manner.
To put his tour and the city into context, Jay provided us with a comprehensive overview of San Franciscos history during the Victorian era. People flocked to San Francisco from all over the world during the Gold Rush from 1849 onwards. Many abandoned their ships along the shoreline, which ended up being used as landfill and expanded the northern shoreline. In the 1860s Comstock silver led to a boom in silver mining and lots of money flowed into the city. Many of the Victorian row houses were built in this era, and the citys population grew rapidly. Upscale hotels and fancy mansions went up during the second half of the 19th century.
The earthquake of 1906 reshaped the city completely. Fires broke out, water mains ruptured, and houses were burning towards the ocean. A fire barrier was set up at Van Ness Avenue where houses were blasted to stop the advancing flames. This explains why so much of the Victorian housing west of Van Ness was preserved while the area east of this major thoroughfare had to be rebuilt.
Rebuilding after the earthquake was quick. The 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition exuberantly celebrated the rebirth of this city. The Palace of Fine Arts is the only remaining building of this complex and still enchants visitors today with its classical structures. To this day San Francisco is renowned for its stunning well-preserved Victorian architecture. The Painted Ladies on Alamo Square, also known as Postcard Row, are perhaps the best known example of Victorian houses. Almost 50,000 homes were built in the Victorian and Edwardian styles in San Francisco between 1849 and 1915. Many of the mansions on Nob Hill were destroyed by the 1906 earthquake, but thousands of them survived, particularly in the western and southern parts of San Francisco.
As the local expert, Jay also filled us in on the unique mindset of Northern Californians. For example, when he first started giving tours residents in some of the upscale homes in Pacific Heights would invite him inside to familiarize him with their homes. Some of the homeowners brought cookies or offered their restrooms to Jays tour groups. This is a very unique mindset, and Jay added that San Francisco has always had a more collective spirit than many other places.
We had already heard about and experienced the European flair of this city, and Jay elaborated on this further. People love to walk everywhere, or they take public transit. Food and living a balanced lifestyle is very important to the locals. Nowadays a lot of young people are moving into San Francisco, which adds a new dynamic to the city.
San Francisco is a city with many diverse neighbourhoods. From the ethnic spirit of Chinatown to the gay community in the Castro, the Spanish-inspired Mission District to the young professionals in the Marina District, San Francisco offers a myriad of flavours, to mention just a few. Many consider it the most liberal and tolerant city in the entire Unite states. As an example, Jay explained that medical marijuana is legal here. Aggressive panhandling is being addressed with new social programs geared towards rehabilitation. A $1 tax on restaurant bills has gone towards financing a local health tax. The minimum wage in San Francisco is higher than in other places. This was the second time in two days that we heard San Francisco being referred to as a compassionate city. A live and let live attitude prevails here that allows people of the most different kinds of background to coexist peacefully.
Jay had provided us with an excellent overview of San Franciscos past and present. After we said goodbye we finally capped the afternoon off with a late lunch at a French caf called "La Boulange" on Union Street where I enjoyed a delicious butternut squash soup followed by an open faced sandwich garnished with hummus, avocado, cucumber, tomato and bean sprouts. San Francisco is definitely a town for foodies.
After our Victorian adventures we took the bus back to the Queen Anne Hotel in the rain. Since the Queen Anne was fully booked tonight we were going to relocate to the downtown Handlery Hotel and looking forward to an exciting evening of entertainment at Asia SF, a popular downtown restaurant and night club that features its world renowned gender illusionists. An exciting evening was awaiting us
by: Susanne Pacher
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