Ladies Home commemorates the 125th anniversary of its founding

October 24, 7:23 PMSF Architecture & Design ExaminerKaleene Kenning

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the SF Architecture & Design Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Photograph of the present Ladies Home
Courtesy of Michael W. Morrow, used with permission

The University Mound Ladies Home, a little-known part of San Francisco’s past, present, and future, will be celebrating the 125th anniversary of its founding on Thursday evening, November 12, and the public is invited to attend. The Ladies Home is a non-profit assisted living residence for women over sixty, founded in 1884 with a bequest from noted businessman and philanthropist James Lick. Tours of the home will be offered at the celebration, and two San Francisco leaders in eldercare will be honored: David Werdegar of the Institute on Aging, and Mary Schembri of Catholic Charities.

History

As chronicled in a history of the home compiled by Percy Roberts, while preparing his will, James Lick pledged to “take care of the old ladies,” and he followed through by leaving $100,000 to establish a ladies’ home. The original trustees used a portion of Lick’s bequest to purchase a sprawling three-story wooden building that had formerly been a boys’ school, located on 25 acres of land. This was incorporated on November 20, 1884, as the somewhat amusingly named Lick Old Ladies Home. The home raised its own cows, chickens, pigs, and vegetables on its substantial acreage.

In 1896, in hopes of attracting additional donors who, it was thought, were not inclined to give to a home already named for someone else, the trustees had the name officially changed to the University Mound Old Ladies Home. The neighborhood was known as University Mound at the time because of plans (never realized) to locate a city university there; the streets bear names such as Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard for the same reason. For many years the area was home to University Mound Nursery and other businesses named after the Mound.

Over time the home’s surrounding lands were sold, and the present Ladies Home was erected in 1932.

Architecture

Located on an otherwise unassuming stretch of University Street in San Francisco’s Portola neighborhood, the Ladies Home offers considerably more of interest to fans of historical architecture than the average assisted living residence. Designed by San Francisco architect Martin J. Rist, the home features a Georgian Revival exterior and an interior that evokes the Spanish Colonial style, especially in the common areas such as the front parlor, chapel, and dining room.

Passersby are frequently struck by the Ladies Home’s grand Georgian Revival façade, which fronts a circular driveway. The curious visitor enters the home via a portico that features four tall white columns framing an outdoor porch accented with inviting tables and chairs. A dentillated cornice and an understated frieze accentuate the roofline above the second story, while three dormers peek out from the hipped roof of the third floor. To the north and south of the entryway, clad in red brick, extend the two-story wings of the home that house a total of seventy-four rooms for residents.

The home’s main entryway, a latticed glass door, is adorned with an ornamental pediment to distinguish it from the row of tall, rectangular latticed windows on either side. Through the doorway, the visitor steps into a large front parlor offering a Spanish Colonial feeling, with an intricately stenciled wood-beam ceiling, grand archways, and rustic chandeliers. A wood-burning fireplace, which is lit on wintry days, is framed by small white columns in a modest echo of the striking exterior.

At the end of the north wing, the home’s interdenominational chapel continues the Spanish Colonial theme, with a dramatic peaked ceiling featuring prominent exposed wood beams and hanging lanterns. A majestic Palladian window at the rear of the chapel reveals the trees outside, while smaller windows along the side walls are graced with intriguing curved interior shutters.

The dining room features a stenciled wood-beam ceiling similar to that in the front parlor, as well as a row of floor-to-ceiling Palladian windows that look out on the home’s trees and gardens and flood the room with light on sunny days. The architect’s frequent use of expansive windows in the home’s common areas is particularly welcome in a home for the elderly; the windows help residents retain a sense of the outdoors, whether or not they feel hardy enough to venture outside.

The sunroom adjoining the dining room, created in the 1960s, is the home’s only significant addition since its construction in 1932.

The home’s Spanish Colonial elements are echoed in other buildings designed by its architect, Martin Rist, including St. Cecilia Catholic Church in San Francisco (at 17th Avenue and Vicente Street), and St. Bernard’s Church in Tracy, CA. During his long career, Rist also designed buildings for San Francisco General Hospital as well as working on Lincoln High School (at 24th Avenue and Rivera Street, in the Parkside neighborhood), along with fellow San Francisco architects Frederick H. Meyer and Timothy L. Pflueger, according to a Parkside history compiled by Richard Brandi and Woody LaBounty.

Present

Today the Ladies Home is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, continuing its 125-year mission of providing affordable, compassionate assisted living for women over sixty in a beautiful, homelike setting. Residents pay a monthly fee and receive three meals daily plus snacks, assistance with medications and daily activities, and laundry and housekeeping services. The home is also enjoying an extra burst of activity as it begins a partnership with San Francisco State University, serving as a clinical training site for SFSU nursing students. "It's very rare to have a clinical training site in an assisted living facility," says executive director John Fecondo. "We're hoping some of the students will be inspired to devote their careers to working with the elderly."

For more information: To RSVP for the 125th anniversary celebration on November 12, and to receive the time and details, email 125@ladieshome.org. To learn more about the Ladies Home, visit www.ladieshome.org. For a profile of James Lick, visit the San Francisco City Guides website at www.sfcityguides.org/public_guidelines.html. For the Parkside history compiled by Richard Brandi and Woody LaBounty, visit the Western Neighborhoods Project website at www.outsidelands.org/parkside-statement.php.