Willis Polk designed this residence for Andrew and Julia Welch. Andrew Welch was heir to a shipping fortune.

The twenty-two room residence includes a Spanish Renaissance courtyard modeled on the atrium of the Casa de Zaporta in Saragossa, Spain. After the original was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War, it was rebuilt based upon Polk's design.

Julia Welch, who was a devout Roman Catholic, willed the building to the Archdiocese of San Francisco. It was the Archiepiscopal Palace until 1979 when it was purchased by Dodie and John Rosekrans Jr.

John Rosecrans was heir to the Spreckels sugar fortune. Dodie Rosecrans was a fashionista whose father had owned United Artists. John died in 2001 and Dodie died in 2010.

Designed for Albert Ehrman, this stone and reinforced concrete house was inspired by Italian Renaissance palazzi. It has a courtyard and elaborate interior paneling. (Source: Here Today: San Francisco's Architectural Heritage by the Junior League of San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 1968.)

Here Today states that the house was built in 1913. Other sources indicate that the house was built in 1915. Let's compromise with early 20th century.

Polk designed this residence for S. I. Naphtaly as a stucco adaption of Spanish city architecture built around a central courtyard.

The Naphtaly House, the Welch House and the Ehrman House are in the stretch of Broadway called the San Francisco Gold Coast or Billionaire's Row.

This finely detailed Italianate was the setting for many lavish parties when it was owned by Frederico Barreda, Minister Plenipotentiary from Spain and Peru to the Court of Saint James and the United States. After 1904, Willis Polk married the Barreda's daughter, Christine Barreda Moore, and Polk proceeded to remodel the house, making it two flats. The upper flat was used by Madame Barreda and her daughter, while the Polks lived in the lower.

Source: Here Today: San Francisco's Architectural Heritage by the Junior League of San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 1968

Both houses turn a side to Lyon Street to face each other across a landscaped open space. The uphill house on the corner (2255 Lyon Street) turns its back on prestigious Pacific Avenue.

Although this configuration is not typical in San Francisco, it is not uncommon in older residential neighborhoods where homes were designed by architects for affluent clients. Other examples are 2600 Washington Street by Edgar A. Mathews, 2241 Sacramento Street by Edward E. Young, and Mark Zuckerberg's home above Dolores Park.

Our website attributed both of these houses to Polk until a San Francisco architect contacted us with convincing evidence that 2233 Lyon Street was designed by Bliss & Faville.

Exuberant architectural styles were all the rage in late 19th century San Francisco - both the new Queen Anne style and the highly ornamented revival styles.

Polk scorned the "wild and untrammeled efforts of local architects to outdo each other in unique and crazy effects." He called the Western Addition "an architectural nightmare conceived in a reign of terror and produced by architectural anarchists."

Perhaps that is why Polk went out of his way to strip this Tudoresque residence to its essentials. Its neighbor on one side is a flamboyant classical revival residence. Its neighbor on the other side is a haughty Queen Anne.

But, by the 20th century, Polk himself was capable of some unique and crazy effects as in the Naphtaly House.

Occasionally, when a historic property is listed for sale, we can get a glimpse of the interior.

2820 Pacific, built in 1910 for the Misses Alice and Caroline Griffith, is one of the few Pacific Heights homes with a lot that stretches all the way from Pacific to Broadway. It was the first San Francisco Decorator Showcase home in 1977.

Source: SocketSite.com 2 October 2007

The garage enters on Pacific, but goes a good way underground like a total James Bond tunnel towards the house, and at the end is a rotating disc, so you never have to back in, or back out. Just pull up on the disc, sip coffee, rotate, and gun it out the garage door - watch out for tourists staying at the Hotel Drisco, and be on your way. Return home and do the same in reverse, but never use Reverse. You get what I'm saying?

For what it is worth, the house is amazing! The views are incredible. They've remodeled it quite nicely. Pacific Avenue is hot, and the lot is prime to say the least. The best part, you can practically look down on Ellison, Traina, and the Gettys. You'd be above all of them - literally.

Source: the FrontSteps.com 3 October 2007

The house at 3255 Pacific Avenue was possibly designed by Ernest Coxhead around 1910 and subsequently remodeled by Willis Polk.

The house downhill to the right at 3277 Pacific Avenue is the Hooker House, also designed by Willis Polk.

Catherine Hooker commissioned Polk to design her home patterned on palazzi she had seen in Italy.

An exemplary First Bay Tradition residence.

The high-rise in the background at 2500 Steiner Street was designed by Conrad Meussdorffer and built in 1927.