HABS No. CA-2352-B

Grace Cathedral, Crocker Fence (Cathedral Close Fence) Along Taylor Street and Sacramento Street San Francisco County California

PHOTOGRAPHS

WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DAT A

REDUCED COPIES OF MEASURED DRAWINGS

Historic American Buildings Survey National Park Service Western Region Department of the Interior San Francisco, California 94107 HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY

GRACE CATHEDRAL, CROCKER FENCE (Cathedral Close Fence)

HABS No. CA-2352-B

Location: Grace Cathedral Close, along Taylor and Sacramento Streets frontages, San Francisco San Francisco County California

Present Owner: Episcopal Diocese of California 1051 Taylor Street San Francisco, California

Present Use: Wall and Fence

Significance: Constructed in 1877, the Crocker Fence is the only remnant left of Charles Crocker I s Nob Hill mansion, considered one of the grandest in San Francisco during the 19th century. The fence is a rare, surviving example of a stone and cast­ iron fence that typically surrounded the great 19th-century mansions in San Francisco, and is an excellent example of Victorian design with its intricate cast-iron and polished, sculpted granite. Charles Crocker, a man of statewide significance, was one of the so-called "Big Four" who built the western half of the transcontinental railroad. Cracker's work with the railroad, real estate speculation and other business ventures made him one of the wealthiest men in the United States during the 19th century. GRACE CATHEDRAL, CROCKER FENCE (Cathedral Close Fence) HABS No. CA-2352-B (page 2)

PART I. HISTORICAL INFORMATION

A. Physical History

l. Date of erection: The fence was originally constructed in 1877 when Charles Cracker's house was built at the corner of Taylor and California. A 36-foot section of the fence where Nicholas Yung's house was on. Sacramento Street was added in 1904.

2. Architect, Builder: Although the designer of the Crocker Fence has not been documented, it is likely that the architect of the Crocker House, Samuel C. Bugbee, also designed the fence around the house. 1 Born in 1812 in New Brunswick, Canada, Samuel Charles Bugbee arrived in San Francisco in 1854. By the 1860s and 1870s, Bugbee' s architectural firm became an important place for aspiring architects to apprentice. Bugbee developed a specialty in designing elaborate mansions for San Francisco's railroad and silver barons. In addition to designing the Crocker mansion, Bugbee designed David Colton's mansion (a Crocker protegee) on the site where Huntington Park is now at Taylor and California (Collis Huntington eventually bought this house). Bugbee also designed 's Nob Hill house at California and Powell Streets. Samuel Bugbee died in September, 1877 soon after work was completed on the Crocker mansion on Nob Hill. After his death, Bugbee's son, Arthur, continued to run his architectural firm.

The Crocker fence may have been constructed by workers and engineers from the . 2 The basalt

1 Raun and Taylor are often incorrectly referred to as the architects of the Crocker mansion on Nob Hill. In 1888, The San Francisco Newsletter ran a series of photos and descriptions of major San Francisco Bay Area houses called "Artistic Homes of California". In this series, the Crocker mansion is incorrectly attributed to Raun and Taylor. This attribution has been perpetuated since the "Artistic Homes" was published in 1987 as Victorian Classics of San Francisco. The original front elevation drawing of the Crocker mansion with Bugbee' s name on it is illustrated in Doris Muscatine's book Old San Francisco.

2 There are documents in the files of the Southern Pacific Railroad (successor to the Central Pacific) regarding building the fence according to Michael Lampen, Grace Cathedral archivist, who GRACE CATHEDRAL, CROCKER FENCE (Cathedral Close Fence) HABS No. CA-2352-B (page 3)

stone in the base of the fence was a common material used for building bridges.

3. Original and subsequent owners: Charles Crocker built and owned the fence until his death in 1888. The estate of his heirs owned the fence and the Crocker block until they donated it to the Episcopal Diocese of California in November, 1906.

4. Original plans and construction: Architectural plans and sketches, historic photographs and other related correspondence and documents related to the cathedral House are in the Grace Cathedral Archives. s. Alterations and additions: When originally built in 1877, the Crocker fence encircled the entire block bounded by Taylor, California, Sacramento and Jones Street, except for two areas: the northwest portion of the block where the stable was (approximately where the Cathedral School is now located), and the 36 feet of frontage of the Yung house along Sacramento Street between the eastern pylon of the carriage entrance and the next pylon to the east. The Crockers finally bought the Yung property in 1904 and completed this section of the fence (an existing 6 inch wide granite street curb marks the section where Yung had his property). The Crocker property had an entry gate on California Street identical to the extant carriage entrance on Sacramento. 3

Except for a few masonry ruins of the William Crocker house at Jones and California, the only structure still standing on the Crocker property after the 1906 earthquake and fire was the fence. Since 1906, various sections of the fence have been moved or demolished to accommodate the construction of the buildings in the cathedral close. A 9-foot section of the fence, including one pylon, was removed for the Taylor Street entrance to the Church Divinity School in 1911. Another 5-foot section of fence was removed in 1911 for the stair at the school's south elevation. Approximately half of the California Street frontage of the fence was removed for the construction of the Founder's crypt in 1914.

The section of fence along Jones Street was removed when construction on the Cathedral began again between 1930 and has communicated with the Southern Pacific regarding this matter.

3 The California Street entry gate is illustrated on page 45 of Wesley Vail's book San Francisco Victorians (Sebastopol, CA: Wabash Press, 1978). GRACE CATHEDRAL, CROCKER FENCE (Cathedral Close Fence) HABS No. CA-2352-B (page 4)

1934. A couple of sections of the cast-iron fence have been preserved in concrete along Jones street. In 1935, an approximately 12-foot section of the fence was removed and part of the wall (north of the stairs) was rebuilt for the Taylor Street entrance to the Diocesan House. Along the north elevation of the Diocesan House, a 4-foot section of the fence was removed for a side stair. The eastern pylon flanking this stair was moved from a point that was about 8 feet from the stair. The section of the wall where the pylon had been was rebuilt in 1935.

During the final phase of the Cathedral's construction between 1961 and 1964, the remaining section of fence along California Street, and the Taylor Street section north to the Cathedral House, were demolished. A pylon may have been removed for the Sacramento Street entrance to the Cathedral School in 1965.

B. Historical Context

Son of a farmer, Charles Crocker was born in 1822 near Troy, New York. Crocker left home at an early age and $tarted an iron foundry in Indiana. Crocker made a meager living running the foundry, so he left for California in 1849 when gold was discovered. Like most who came to California for gold, Crocker soon looked for another means of livelihood after being unsuccessful in mining. Crocker opened a store in the Mother Lode selling dry goods to the miners, and then, in 1852, he opened a store in Sacramento. By 1860, Crocker had become the "largest and most successful dry goods retailer in Sacramento." 4 Sacramento was the supply center for scores of active mining communities in the Sierra foothills.

In the early 1860s, Crocker joined with the other members of the so-called Big Four in founding the Central Pacific Railroad - Leland Stanford, a wholesale grocer, and two hardware merchants, Collis Huntington and Mark Hopkins. Stanford's election as California's governor in 1862 gave the Central Pacific the political connections to start planning the transcontinental railroad. The Central Pacific started work on the western half of the transcontinental railroad in 1863 with Charles Crocker superintendent of construction. Because of the problems in finding reliable labor, Crocker obtained notoriety in his day for bringing thousands of Chinese to California to work on the railroad.

The Central Pacific met the Union Pacific at Promontory Point, Utah in May, 1869 and the transcontinental railroad was completed. The

4 Bunyan Hadley Andrew, Charles Crocker, M.A. Thesis, History Department, University of California, Berkeley, 1931. GRACE CATHEDRAL, CROCKER FENCE (Cathedral Close Fence) HABS No. CA-2352-B (page 5)

Central Pacific bought out the California Pacific line between Sacramento and San Francisco in 1871, and in 1873, the Central Pacific moved its offices from Sacramento to San Francisco. 5 Stanford, Hopkins and Crocker moved to San Francisco and began buying property on Nob Hill for their grand mansions. Stanford built his mansion first, at the southeast corner of Powell and California, in 1874. Crocker had to buy out 12 property owners to acquire the entire block bounded by California, Taylor, Jones and Sacramento Streets. The only property owner who would not sell his house to Crocker was an undertaker named Nicholas Yung. In order to get Yung to capitulate, Crocker built a 40 foot wall around Yung's house, the infamous "spite fence" immortalized in the Edward Muybridge' s Panorama of San Francisco from January, 1877. 6 Crocker's battle with Yung made him the target of Dennis Kearney, leader of the Workingman's Party, who made the spite fence "a local symbol of the arrogance of wealth" 7 • During Kearney's rallies on Nob Hill, attended by crowds of as many as 300 people, he demanded that the mansions be taken over by "the people" and turned into asylums.

The first cable car line in San Francisco, the Clay Street Railway, began carrying passengers up Nob Hill from.Kearny to Leavenworth Streets in 1873. Before the invention of the cable car, Nob Hill (known then as Fern Hill) had only a few, small wood-frame cottages since it was generally inaccessible. In 1876, Stanford, Hopkins and Crocker, in addition to several other investors, started the California Street cable railway. By the time the line opened in

5 The Central Pacific, in its attempt to monopolize the railroad industry in the West, purchased the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1868 when they started to built a competing transcontinental railroad from through the southwest. The Southern Pacific became a subsidiary of the Central Pacific.

6 See pages 18 and 19 of Vail op. cit. Crocker's spite fence was discussed often in the local newspapers and its notoriety attracted curious residents from all over the city. Yung eventually moved his house, but still refused to sell his land. After Yung's death in 1880, his widow held the property for another 25 years, finally selling the property to the crocker family in 1904. see Andrew, pg. 106.

7 Oscar Lewis, The Big Four (Sausalito, CA: Comstock Edition, 1966), pg. 85. GRACE CATHEDRAL, CROCKER FENCE (Cathedral Close Fence) HABS No. CA-2352-B (page 6)

1878, property values along California Street had doubled. 8

Construction had started on Crocker's massive Second Empire mansion in 1876, one of the most notable buildings in this style in San Francisco. Reportedly costing over $1 million, the 25,000 square foot mansion had a central tower 76 feet tall with a view of the entire Bay Area. The mansion's massive front granite stairs were often admired in the press for their cost and grandeur. Samuel Bugbee's design for Cracker's house was described in the 1888 San Francisco Newsletter as "one of the most beautiful architectural masterpieces to be found in any State in the Union." An article about a party Crocker held for President Grant in 1879 included a description of the house and the fence, which was notable for its "low, solid wall, with heavy coping of Penryhn granite, relieved with posts of the same material partly polished, and an iron railing surrounding the grounds on every side. 119 More recently, critics have derided the "flimsy flamboyance" of Cracker's mansion as "an uncertain pile of twisted crestings, bay windows and mansard roofs." 10

The Nob Hill built by the Big Four was considered quite different from the wealthy neighborhoods of the major East Coast cities. In an article about California's millionaires in the New York publication The Daily Graphic, the writer noted visitors from the East would be as surprised by "the roominess of the grounds" of the mansions along California Street "as by the houses themselves. 11 The Crocker fence was built as an integral part of the "roomy" grounds around the Crocker mansion, which with the expansive lots of his neighbors, gave II an airy grace to this entire quarter of the city. 11 Although the writer considered those who "do not consider the money they invest giving their houses plenty of elbow room" to be rather extravagant, he approvingly says that "the effect" of the street's roomy lots "reminds one of a more tropical climate. 1111

During the 1870s and 1880s, Crocker expanded his business

8 Patricia J. Lawrence, Four Mansions on Nob Hill in the 1870s, M.A. Thesis, History Department, University of California, Davis.

9 " A Brilliant Event - Charles crocker' s Reception of General Grant", California Spirit of the Times, October 25, 1879, pgs. 41 and 44.

10 Harold Kirker, California's Architectural Frontier (Santa Barbara: Peregrine Smith, Inc., 1960), pg. 94.

11 "California's Millionaires", The Daily Graphic, December 15, 1881, pgs. 320 - 321. GRACE CATHEDRAL, CROCKER FENCE (Cathedral Close Fence) HABS No. CA-2352-B (page 7)

activities beyond the railroad into real estate development, coal mines and irrigation development in the San Joaquin Valley. He, however, had persistent health problems because he worked too much and weighed too much (225 pounds). 12 In 1888, crocker died at Monterey's Del Monte Hotel, which he had helped develop with the Southern Pacific Railroad. At his death, Crocker was the President of the Southern Pacific Railroad and second Vice-President of the Central Pacific Railroad. He left $40 million to his heirs, one of whom was his youngest son, William H. Crocker. William Crocker built his own mansion on the Crocker block next door to his father's house in 1888. 13 Other than the fence, all the structures on the Crocker property burned in the 1906 earthquake and fire. William Crocker thereafter convinced his family to donate the Nob Hill property to the Episcopal Diocese of California (whose cathedral at California and Stockton was also destroyed) in 1906. Since 1906 the cathedral has developed, and the sections of the fence along Jones and California Streets have been removed. Much of the original fence is still intact along Taylor and Sacramento Streets. As part of the current project planned for the Cathedral Close, a 130-foot section of the fence in front of the Cathedral House will be moved the California Street frontage.

PART II. ARCHITECTURAL INFORMATION A. General Statement

1. Architectural character: The Crocker fence is a rare, surviving example of a stone and cast-iron fence and carriage gate built for a-19th century San Francisco mansion. The fence itself is an good example of Victorian design with its intricate ornamental iron work and elegant carved granite base and pylons (photos 14, 15). The Sacramento Street carriage gate retains its original, classical gaslamp bases and its swinging cast-iron gate.

2. Condition of fabric: The stonework of the fence is generally in excellent condition although covered with black soot. The pair of leaves below the upright acorn on the cast­ iron fence are missing throughout most of the fence. The largest section of the intact ironwork is in front of the Cathedral House. The cast-iron is rusted and deteriorated in a number of places where the fence attaches to the granite base. The gates and pylons at the carriage entrance have been

12 L ewis,, pg. 87.

13 Biographical material on William Crocker is included in the historic documentation of the Cathedral House. GRACE CATHEDRAL, CROCKER FENCE (Cathedral Close Fence) HABS No. CA-2352-B (page 8)

damaged by automobiles. The western end of the Sacramento Street frontage of the fence ends abruptly and is also unstable.

B. Description Of the original 1,150 feet of fence originally constructed around the Crocker property, approximately 484 linear feet have survived with 214 feet of fence along Taylor Street and 270 feet along Sacramento Street. The fence is composed of a basalt, quarry-faced, random ashlar base under a 2-foot wide polished, granite cap with a flat top and moulded sides. The basalt was from a quarry near Cordelia, California, and the granite was from Rocklin, California, near the Sierra foothills (photo 14) . 14 A decorative cast-iron fence is attached to the granite base and the pylons. The cast-iron fence has a design motif repeated throughout the fence. The fence is composed of two designs for the vertical bars, repeated conse~:tively, and attached to the top and bottom flat, horizontal iron pieces. The main vertical bars of the fence, attached to the stone wall on moulded pedestals, are capped with a stylized acorn with flanking symmetrically placed leaves (photo 15). The subsidiary vertical bar, descending down from the top horizontal piece, has a smaller acorn at its tip. A stylized ribbon motif above the small acorn is a junction point for two diagonal braces attached to the adjacent main vertical bars. A symmetrically designed double scroll with a central descending diamond pendant joins together the main vertical bars near the base.

The fence is consistently about 8 feet tall (divided evenly for the stone wall and the cast-iron fence) along the level Taylor Street frontage (photos 2, 3 & 4). The Sacramento Street frontage has a steep grade that rises west about 38 feet from the Sacramento/Taylor Street corner to the end of the fence (photos 5, 6 & 7) . The stone wall decreases in height ( in relation to the sidewalk) as it ascends the Sacramento Street hill until only the granite base when the fence abruptly ends at the entrance to the Sacramento Street entrance to the Cathedral School.

Along Taylor Street the granite pylons are spaced at regular intervals, approximately every 24 feet. Although the 4 remaining Taylor Street pylons generally follow this spacing,

14 Ward Hill personal communication with Michael Lampen, Grace Cathedral archivist, April, 1993. GRACE CATHEDRAL, CROCKER FENCE (Cathedral Close Fence) HABS No. CA-2352-B (page 9)

this pattern was altered when 3 pylons were removed to accomodate the stairs to the Divinity School and the Diocesan House. The Taylor Street pylons have an incised banding near the top and the base, and an incised geometric pattern on the sides. The pylons and granite base along Taylor Street also have a high polish. The pylons have a hipped cap and they are set on a moulded plinth and a granite block protruding from the main basalt and granite wall. Each pylon is 4 feet, 9 inches tall not including the plinth and base.

Six pylons along the Sacramento Street frontage are identical to the ones along Taylor Street, except they do not have the incised geometric patterns or the polished surface seen on the Taylor Street pylons. The pylons west of the entrance gate on Sacramento Street are approximately 23 feet apart. The spacing of the remainder of the Sacramento Street pylons is irregular because of the entrance gate, the 36 feet of fence added where the Yung house was, and the pylon moved to flank the side stairs to the Diocesan House. At the corner of Taylor and Sacramento Streets, the polished pylon is wider (4 feet square) and taller with decorative banding and a broad, projecting cap. These more elaborate pylons were originally on each corner of the block, except at.· Jones and Sacramento streets. 15

The largest pylons ( 5 feet square) flank the Sacramento Street carriage entrance (photo 7, 8 & 9) . These pylons are the same as the corner pylon at Taylor and Sacramento, except they are somewhat larger, are not polished and lack the decorative band under the cap. The pylon east of the carriage entrance matches the carriage entrance pylons. At the carriage entrance pylons, the fence curves into the smaller, square, granite pylons that form the bases for the two gaslamp bases (photos 7, 8). The cast-iron gaslamp bases have a tapered form like a classical urn. The design motif of the main fence is continued into the design of the gate. The gate, which tapers down to a central scroll on each side, swings into the parking lot (photos 5, 9 & 10). o. site:

1. General setting and orientation: The Taylor street frontage of the fence runs in a north/south direction between the Cathedral House and the Diocesan House on the west, and the sidewalk on the east. The Sacramento Street frontage runs

15 see Victorian Classics, Plate 6 for a view of the original California/Taylor corner, and pg. 31, Grace Cathedral, Michael Lampen for the Jones/California corner. GRACE CATHEDRAL, CROCKER FENCE (Cathedral Close Fence) HABS No. CA-2352-B (page 10)

perpendicular to Taylor Street in an east/west orientation. South of the fence along Sacramento Street is a planted area adjacent to the Diocesan House, and a lawn and ivy-covered hill next to the cathedral parking lot. The carriage entrance faces north toward Sacramento Street.

The Crocker Fence is set in a densely built-up urban environment in a prominent position at the the top of Nob Hill. The area to the west is primarily three- to four-story apartment buildings. Across the street from the Taylor Street frontage of the fence (to the east) is a small, urban park (Huntington Park) and the Flood Mansion (now the Pacific-Union Club), the only pre-1906 mansion surviving on Nob Hill. The other buildings east of the fence are large, multi-story apartment buildings and luxury hotels.

2. Historic landscape design: The landscaping on the property from the Crocker period was destroyed in 1906. The landscaping of the close since 1906 has been informal, and not according to an overall plan or design. A number of plants (primarily ivy) grow near the Crocker fence, but none of the plantings have been identified as having historic significance. 16 The fence itself is a landscape feature that was originally designed to complement Charles Crocker' s Second Empire mansion at the corner of California and Taylor Streets. The Taylor Street fence also functions as a retaining wall that holds the hill in place along the east side of the block.

PART III. SOURCES OF INFORMATION

A. Original Architectural drawings: Samuel c. Bugbee's elevation drawings for the Crocker mansion are in the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Drawings of the fence, however, are not included in these elevation drawings.

B. Historic views: Historic photographs of the Crocker Fence are in the Grace Cathedral archives, San Francisco; the San Francisco History, Main Library, San Francisco; the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley and the California Historical Society Library, San Francisco.

C. Interviews: Ward Hill met with Michael Lampen, the Grace cathedral archivist for the last 10 years, 4 times during April, 1993 regarding the history of the Crocker Fence and the cathedral close.

16 The Grace Cathedral archivist is planning a tree and plant survey of the close to identify different species on the property and their approximate date of origin. GRACE CATHEDRAL, CROCKER FENCE (Cathedral Close Fence) HABS No. CA-2352-B (page 11)

D. Bibliography

Primary and unpublished sources

Bloomfield, Anne. State Historic Resources Inventory Forms for the Grace Cathedral Close and the Crocker Fence. September, 1992. Copy on file with the San Francisco City Planning Department.

Ron, Martin M. and Associates, Inc. Architectural Site Survey at Grace Cathedral. June 17, 1992.

The following unpublished manuscripts are in the Grace cathedral archives:

Lampen, Michael, , Supplemental Information Prepared by the Grace cathedral Archivist for the San Francisco Landmarks Board. Separate form regarding the Crocker Fence, September, 1983.

------, Notes on the Architectural Heritage of the vision of Grace Cathedral, January 17, 1991.

secondary and published sources

Andrew, Bunyan Hadley. Charles crocker. M.A. Thesis, Department of History, University of California, Berkeley, 1931.

A Guide to Grace Cathedral. San Francisco, 1958. "A Brilliant Event - Charles Crocker's Reception to General Grant," California Spirit of the Times. October 25, 1879, pgs. 41, 44.

"California's Millionaires", The Daily Graphic. December 15, 1881, pgs. 320-321.

Junior League of San Francisco. Here Today. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1973.

Kirker, Harold. California's Architectural Frontier. Santa Barbara: Peregrine Smith, Inc., 1960.

Lewis, Oscar. The Big Four. Sausalito, CA: Comstock Editions, Inc., 1971.

------. San Francisco - Mission to Metropolis. Berkeley, CA: Howell-North Books, 1966. GRACE CATHEDRAL, CROCKER FENCE (Cathedral Close Fence) HABS No. CA-2352-B (page 12)

Lampen, Michael. Grace Cathedral. San Francisco: Grace Cathedral Corporation, 1980.

Lawrence, Patricia J. Four Mansions on Nob Hill in the 1870s. M.A. Thesis, Department of History, University of California, Davis. Muscatine, Doris. Old San Francisco - The Biography of a city. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1975.

Page & Turnbull, Inc. Cost Study Cathedral House. Grace Cathedral, June 18, 1992. (copy on file in the office of Page & Turnbull, Inc., San Francisco)

Ryder, David Warren. Great Citizen - A Biography of William H. Crocker. San Francisco: Historical Publications, 1962.

San Francisco City Planning Department. Grace Catheral Close Alterations -Final Environmental Impact Report. February 11, 1993. San Francisco - Its Builders Past and Present, Volume II. San Francisco: S.J. Clarke Publishing. Company, 1913.

Southworth, Susan and Michael. Ornamental Ironwork. San Francisco: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1978.

Vail, Wesley D. San Francisco Victorians. Sebastopol, CA: Wabash Press, 1978.

Victorian Classics of San Francisco, edited by Alex Brammer. Sausalito, CA: Windgate Press, 1987. Young, John P. A History of the Pacific Coast Metropolis. San Jose, CA: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1912. GRACE CATHEDRAL, CROCKER FENCE (Cathedral Close Fence) HABS No. CA-2352-B (page 13)

PART IV. PROJECT INFORMATION

This documentation of the Cathedral House was undertaken as a mitigation measure to reduce the significant impacts identified in the February 11, 1993, Grace Cathedral Close Alterations Final Environmental Impact Report. As part of the project planned for the Grace Cathedral Close by the Grace cathedral Corporation, the cathedral House will be demolished and approximately 130 feet of the Crocker Fence will be moved. Also, the Sacramento Street carriage gate will be disassembled during construction, and will be reassembled in its existing location thereafter. The California State Office of Historic Preservation (SHPO) has identified the Cathedral House and the Crocker Fence as contributing resources to a National Register eligible historic district that includ~s other structures in the Grace Cathedral Close. The SHPO has also determined that the Crocker Fence appears to be individually eligible for the National Register as a rare survivor of the 1906 earthquake and fire.

In the area where the Cathedral House and a section of the Crocker Fence are now, a new staircase will be built from Taylor Street to the main doors of Grace Cathedral. In additi.on to building the new staircase, a new 19,100 square foot Chapter. House and a two story subsurface garage will be built along Sacramento Street.

Prepared by: Ward Hill Title: Architectural Historian Affiliation: Page & Turnbull, Inc. Date: 5 May 1993