The following is excerpted from the San Francisco Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board Case Report dated 17 October 1973:

This Italianate house was built by Stephen L. Piper, a prominent carpenter and house builder in the southern portion of San Francisco, now known as the Bayview District. Piper lived at Eighteenth Avenue south, near the Bayview Park, during the 1860's and 1870's.

According to its style, the house was built between 1865 and 1870. City records show the Sylvester family residing in the house between 1884 and 1900. At that time, the house was located on the south side of Sumatra Street, between Savannah and Platte Streets. Sumatra Street was later renamed Quesada Street. In 1913 the house was moved to its present location on Revere Street. The basement was added at the time of the move, being constructed from the stables which stood on the Quesada Street lot.

The first evidence of the family in South San Francisco appears in 1879 when Daniel and John Sylvester were wholesale butchers and cattle dealers at First Avenue South. In 1870, this neighborhood was set aside by state law as Butchertown or the Butchers' Reservation.