1554 Masonic Avenue

San Francisco, Historic Resource Evaluation [HRE], 2020

Built in 1910 and designed in a Classical Revival style of architecture by the firm of Righetti & Headmen, this two-story home is located in San Francisco’s Buena Vista Park/Corona Heights neighborhood. Brewster Historic Preservation was hired by the homeowners to prepare the HRE report to assist the San Francisco Planning Department in determining the home’s individual historic significance in anticipation of a project that would substantially alter the home’s external appearance with a Modern front facade (now completed). Historical research completed by Brewster Historic Preservation indicated that the home was owned and occupied in the 1970s by Ben Fong- Torres, who was a writer and senior editor of Rolling Stone magazine, and had a long career as a music journalist, author, and television and radio personality. Despite this more recent connection with Ben Fong- Torres, Brewster Historic Preservation recommended that the home did not meet the criteria for individual listing in the CRHR due to a lack of historical and architectural merit. Work on the HRE was begun in November 2020 and completed by December 2020.