Mrs.Doubtfire-Father's Day Tour,Mansions/Victorians-SF Arch.Tour-PacificHeights.

Please note: This tour is designed to accommodate, like any good dad would, to make a wider group happy. Here's how it works! By having the tour work for those who want either a 1.5 hour outing. Or those who want a deeper dive and can do a 3.0 hour tour. The possibility of a brunch, afterward, at La Mediterranee or Janes on Fillmore is something I like to do so join for that if you like.

The event is called the Mrs. Doubtfire Tour in honor of Dads, especially the ones who weren't cut-out for the role as perfectly as some would prefer. (Also in-memorial to Robin Williams.)

There is available free parking around the neighborhood and no restriction on weekends. There is parking around Alta Plaza Park between Steiner & Pierce, on Jackson St.
My go-to spot is on Pierce St. between Jackson St. & Pacific. It is very steep there, but the parking is at 90 degrees. (Don't park by a meter, like those on Fillmore.)

About midway we'll stop for a break at Lafayette Park. Restrooms and view the surrounding houses from the atop the park. There we'll talk about one of the strangest real estate/housing situations in SF history, that went on for forty years. The Samuel Holladay matter.

Pacific Heights is best known for being one of the most affluent neighborhoods in San Francisco. This tour highlights not only the architecture, but also the people who built, occupied and maintained these grand properties. About 20 of which will be on our tour with a few sentences of information about each property.

The walking tour is about 2.5 miles for the shorter group and 4.0 miles for the deeper dive group. We'll go as far west and north as Scott & Vallejo Sts. and to the south, Lafayette Park

Here's a simple link that will allow you to support the Meetup and add a thank you. During the tour, I'll just pass the hat and offer a Venmo link. Either way, please help support, Walking With a Guide.

I think it's fun to learn about San Francisco's Victorians, here's the dope.
San Francisco has generally, five styles of Victorians. Information about these five styles is below:

1. Flat front Italianate- (earliest Victorians in SF), 1860s.

2. Italianate with slanted or square bay windows, 1870s.

3. San Francisco Stick and Stick-Eastlake, 1880s. (see photo below)

4. Queen Anne Row House, most common in SF, late 1880s on.

5. Queen Anne Tower House, one of the most majestic styles, especially when situated on a corner property, late 1880s until the style stopped around 1910, in San Francisco. (stopped earlier elsewhere).
(We'll find at least one of each on the tour.)
Details and Gingerbread, what to look for-
Type of Entry & Doorway(maybe a rounded Moongate entry)-

Decorative Ironwork- fencing or high above, at the roof-line

Floral Decor-Garlands (one of many types of decorations known as *"Gingerbread")

Fish scale&Diamond shingles among many other shapes.

Tower & Witch's Cap, on the Queen Ann Tower House.

Stained Glass, Beveled Glass, Leaded Glass.

Carvings/Molded Plaques of Grotesque faces. (see image below)

Sunbursts- often painted gold in color

Gables in a variety of material- (mainly redwood)

Newel Posts, Balusters and Finials on Tower tops and roof peaks.

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 of using fancy cutouts of gingerbread to decorate wedding cakes. The term gingerbread was subsequently used to describe the decorating of Victorian houses.

1860 - 1870s Italianate: Buildings were vertical in emphasis with rounded classical detail. Earliest had flat windows & flat roofs with false roof fronts.

1880s Stick Style (also called Eastlake): The early buildings in this genre relied heavily on plane vertical board decorations. Squared off bay windows appear. (see photo below)

Late 1880s and 1890s Queen Anne : Sloping roofs appear, not hidden behind a high false front. Queen Ann Row Houses are the most seen of the five Victorian styles in SF.

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, sometimes decorated with spool work and gable braces. Frieze bands of foliated patterns wrapped around towers.
The style popular after Victorians, 1895 to 1910 Edwardian and Colonial Revival: The continued elaboration of Victorian ornamentation and facade shapes reached its height in the early 1890s.
After that and into the 1900s there was a gradual move towards simplicity and away from excess and toward, order. As these two styles, Edwardian and Colonial Revival, shared characteristics that were distinguished by the restrained use of classical ornament, flat planes and facades which were square or rectangular and were topped by either a hip roof or a flat roof with a heavy cornice.
The brash individuality of the late Victorians subsided into reticence and good manners of the Edwardian style. Victorian eccentricity gave way to strict conventions, quiet lines and understated quality materials. Money now made understatement its chief method of display. Style was no longer measured in pounds of gingerbread ornament per square foot, but in elegant proportions and an air of sophistication.
After the 06' earthquake apartments in substantial buildings became popular with well-to-do San Franciscans. Take a look at one of these.
If you would like a look at a full floor condo/coop apartment, here is a link to an interior tour of 1940 Broadway, 8th floor.