Reader Rob R. sent us a story on San Francisco’s Skinniest Buildings from CA Home + Design. Included in the list is this svelte home on the same block of 6th Avenue as the Police station.
Though it’s clad in shingles and there’s no half-timbering in sight, 483 6th Avenue was clearly built with Tudor Revival in mind. Its steeply pitched roof, jettied living quarters, boxy bay window and remarkably angular features render it unlike any building in the neighborhood—or city, for that matter. It’s an enigma, and it’s anyone’s guess what secrets lurk inside.
You’ve gotta love that overhanging room on the front lefthand side – probably a later addition to the home that today, I doubt the city would allow. Must be exciting to be in that room, wondering if the floor will fall away at any moment and drop you onto the sidewalk.
Zillow says the house has 3 bathrooms and is 2,300 square feet – pretty good specs for a skinny home. The real estate site also “Zestimates” it at a value of $1,310,206.
That may be a little generous but at least it’s got a nice, skinny build it can boast about. I bet the fat houses on the block are really jealous.
Sarah B.
Maybe it was on one of those low carb diets….
It’s a cool one. I’ve ridden by on the bus many times and gawked at it. And yes, that’s a weird addition… and I’ve seen a lot of weird additions. If only I had the time and resources to research all the intriguing buildings in this city that catch my fancy. An architectural historian has to make a living though!
There are a bunch of houses in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood with similar steep-pitched roofs, but none so skinny as this, and the square bay window is unusual – it throws the whole composition off-balance in a fascinating way.
Doesn’t look like it from the front but that house is pretty big by this aerial view.
https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=483+6th+ave.+sf+ca&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.eWU&bpcl=40096503&biw=1600&bih=700&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl
For another look, fire up Google Earth, input the address. Click on the clock icon on the top. Move the slider back to 1936. Nice clear aerial photo.
Tim
Ey why the picture of my grandmothers house up on this website. Yall ridiculous. Lol. Nice post?
Hi all…Randall from (cold) RI here. Couple of comments I want to make. First, about the skinny house. That first floor garage seems awfully small. I mean, if it is indeed a garage and not just simply a storage area, a driver, with even the smallest compact car, would have to be dead-on perfect everytime s/he brings it in or backs it out; there is little margin for error. Second, not being a San Francisco native (though I’d love to call it home someday, despite the sky-high rents and real estate values), I have to say I’ve never seen so many garages on the first floors of private residences throughout SF. It seems that the typical architecture of a private SF home is to have a garage on the first floor, and then the actual living spaces…bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms…all above the garage, on 2nd and 3rd floors. It’s almost as if all the garages I see are built “ex post facto”, i.e., added to the building long after the original structure went up. Even the structures on both sides of the skinny house have garages on the first floor. So, SF natives: What’s up with all the first floor garages in SF? Just the preferred design in SF (presumably as a space saving strategy) or is my suspicion that all these first floor garages are add-ons long after the original unit was built?
Randall, yes, many (most) houses in SF have garages that were added at a later date. Most of the 1-story-over-garage “Richmond Specials” and others of that era (1920s/30s) were built with garages. Earlier houses are retrofitted. Garage entrances are excavated into basement levels, or houses can be raised for a garage insertion. It has happened for many years, and continues to today, although the Planning Department is much more strict about allowing it. I suspect the skinny house may have been raised to insert a garage (Meaning it was originally 2 stories.) Maybe the house to its left, too. The apartment building on the right looks 1960s and certainly came with it’s garage. One could write a thesis on garage construction in SF!
Randall, to add to what Caitlin said…yes, these first-floor garages are space saving, but given the propensity for earthquakes here, this is the most unsafe construction model we could have. The garage is essentially a hollow space. During a large quake, the floors above can “pancake” (collapse into the garage).
Yup,adding to what renee said, a number of buildings in the Marina district collapsed in the quake of ’89 for exactly that reason. Another good arguement why structures built like that should be sheer walled and reinforced.