Landmark 203
George W. Gibbs House
2622 Jackson Street
Pacific Heights
Built 1895
[Willis] Polk's initial oportunity to design a large city house suffered from his lack of experience in such projects, yet the solution set a new standard
for subsequent work in the city. The commission came from George W. Gibbs, one of the leading producers of iron and steel on the West Coast and a prominent
figure in philanthropic affairs. Gibbs, upon retirement at age seventy, decided to erect a house that would rival those of his eastern peers--elaborate,
dignified, but not ostentatious. Polk drew largely from Italian Renaissance sources, then at the height of fashion in New York. The massing recalls that
of a Tuscan villa, with details adapted from Raphael's Palazzo Pandolfini and a portico inspired by the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli. But the elementary composition
and the particularizing of its components make the facade seem more akin to mid-nineteenth-century Italianate houses than to McKim, Mead and White's work.
The plan is equally conservative, with large, boxy rooms opening off a long central corridor.
Nevertheless, the Gibbs house generated a flurry of excitement. The San Francisco Examiner pronounced it to be "the first classical residence in
San Francisco." Enthusiasm also centered on the fact that this was among the city's earliest houses constructed entirely of stone and that almost no dwelling
of comparable size matched the restraint of its exterior. The Wave summarized prevailing opinion, remarking that the house's "unpretentious solidity ... cheapens
the much gabled and turreted mansions surrounding it." In a metropolis of wood, the Gibbs house became an instant symbol of grandeur and permanency. The scheme
further set an important local precedent for the collaboration of architect and artist in developing the decorative program. Polk had Douglas Tilden design the
Medusa heads for the portico--the sculptor's first commission following his return from Paris earlier that year. Bruce Porter was brought in to create the huge
stained-glass window in the stair-hall landing. Lockwood de Forest, who had been a partner in one of the country's first decorative-arts studios, prepared plans
for the ornamentation of some of the principal rooms. De Forest's work may not have been executed, and the whole scheme fell far short of the exquisite interiors
of McKim, Mead and White's houses, which served as its conceptual model. Still, the work demonstrated to rich San Franciscans that they need not entrust
room design strictly to decorators, who often had little concern for architectural cohesiveness.
From On the Edge of the World: Four Architects in San Francisco at the Turn of the Century by Richard W. Longstreth
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