Enter the world of cornices, cupolas, and colonnettes, prestigious architects, and even more prestigious residents Charming and deeply informative, part historical detective work and part gossip column, this 400-page book offers an architectural and social history of one of San Francisco s most attractive neighborhoods, Pacific Heights. Illustrated with specially commissioned art, the book tells the stories of 110 houses designed variously by Ernest Coxhead, Willis Polk, Houghton Sawyer, Julia Morgan, William Wurster, and other great architects, along with lively and engaging accounts of the moguls, entrepreneurs, artists, mariners, recluses, and charlatans who have lived in them.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Anne Bloomfield, for many years a member of San Francisco s Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board, was a highly respected consultant in architectural history and an effective preservationist responsible for a number of San Francisco s landmark designations. For a period of fourteen years, she wrote the Great Old Houses column for New Fillmore, a neighborhood monthly. Before her death in 1999, she had intended to collect, edit, and revise these columns for a book. Arthur Bloomfield is a San Francisco native, a celebrated critic of both music and food, and the author of several books. His completion of Anne s Gables and Fables has resulted in a work that he describes as a phantasmal composite, if you will, of her cabernet and my merlot. Kit Haskell grew up in San Francisco. An independent artist, she has been doing pen and ink drawings for the Victorian Alliance of San Francisco since 1986.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointed in the lack of detail,
By Frank "National Boomerang" (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Gables and Fables: A Portrait of San Francisco's Pacific Heights (Hardcover)
I just bought this book from Amazon.com after seeing it displayed at Gumps in DT San Francisco (I had recently took a trip out there for work). Having actually lived in the Pacific Heights area (for seven years in the 1990s), I was excited to see a book about many of the houses and apartment buildings that I used to regularly walk by. I was always curious about who lived in them and what they were like on the inside.
After reading several of the book's chapters, I am thoroughly disappointed with the lack of detail. Personally, I have learned so much more by reading my old Access Travel Guide to San Francisco (the chapter about the Pac. Heights neighborhood) - Access' select entries (in just a few sentences) told me so much more about some of these homes and / or blocks. I suggest you buy the Access - San Francisco Travel Guide (even a used one) or perhaps some other detailed travel book of The City that features this neighborhood.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A hundred of the structures of one of San Francisco's richest neighborhoods,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Gables and Fables: A Portrait of San Francisco's Pacific Heights (Paperback)
Part historical piece and part gossip, GABLES AND FABLES: A PORTRAIT OF SAN FRANCISCO'S PACIFIC HEIGHTS tours over a hundred of the structures of one of San Francisco's richest neighborhoods, blending architectural observation with a social history of the city that is perfect for any California history library. Chapters survey changing ownerships, politics, and social life surrounding these structures, with line drawings by Kit Haskell rounding out the historical backgrounds.
Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the fascinating houses of Pacific Heights in san francisco,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Gables and Fables: A Portrait of San Francisco's Pacific Heights (Hardcover)
This is a wonderful presentation of many fabulous houses in San francisco. it is an easy read and very pleasurable.
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Inside This Book
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Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs):
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San Francisco, Pacific Heights, Queen Anne, California Street, Pacific Avenue, Vallejo Street, Colonial Revival, New York, Union Square, Washington Street, Willis Polk, Beaux Arts, Nob Hill, World War, Russian Hill, City Hall, Pierce Street, Alamo Square, Bush Street, Union Street, Alta Plaza Park, Clay Street, Sutter Street, Van Ness Avenue, Market Street Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
San Francisco, Pacific Heights, Queen Anne, California Street, Pacific Avenue, Vallejo Street, Colonial Revival, New York, Union Square, Washington Street, Willis Polk, Beaux Arts, Nob Hill, World War, Russian Hill, City Hall, Pierce Street, Alamo Square, Bush Street, Union Street, Alta Plaza Park, Clay Street, Sutter Street, Van Ness Avenue, Market Street Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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