St. Francis Wood
Historic District

San Francisco, Nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, 2020-2022

Brewster Historic Preservation was part of a historic preservation consulting team hired by the St. Francis Wood Homes Association to survey and evaluate the St. Francis Wood neighborhood in San Francisco’s West of Twin Peaks area for its potential listing in the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district. St. Francis Wood is a residence park on the western face of Mount Davidson on land that gradually slopes down from east to west, with dramatic views of the Pacific Ocean available from its upper slopes. Built in phases beginning in 1912, landscape architects, the Olmsted Brothers, created a site plan that responded to this hilly topography. The arrangement of the streets and blocks transitions from a grid in the more gently sloped western portion of the development to a curvilinear arrangement in response to hilly terrain and steeper slopes in the northeastern portion. Mr. Brewster surveyed and photographed approximately half of the over 500 residences at St. Francis Wood. The survey and evaluation found that St. Francis Wood is eligible for the National Register at the local level for its association with the establishment of designed and planned residence parks in streetcar suburbs in San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire, and as the representative work of a significant collection of architects and landscape architects within a unified plan. The nomination identified 501 buildings, 24 sites, 4 structures that contribute to the historic district, and 62 resources that do not, while retaining all aspects of integrity. Work on the National Register nomination was a two-year effort, beginning in July 2020, and ending in June 2022 when St. Francisco Wood was listed as a historic district in the National Register of Historic Places.