Bernal Heights architecture overview

June 22, 10:33 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

Bernal Heights Earthquake Refugee Shack photograph courtesy of Kaleene Kenning

Bernal Heights is located on a 325’ hill rising above the Mission District and Noe Valley, bordered by Cesar Chavez Street, San Jose Avenue, U.S. Highway 101, and Interstate 280. Left out of most conventional San Francisco guidebooks, Bernal Heights offers city living with many suburban charms.

Bernal Heights was part of the Rancho Rincon de las Salinas y Potrero Viejo, and owes its name to Jose Cornelio Bernal, to whom the land was granted by the Mexican government in 1839. In the 1860s the rancho was subdivided into small lots primarily populated by Irish immigrants who farmed the land and ran dairy ranches. According to legend, a mini gold rush was triggered in 1876 when con artists planted the hilltop with traces of gold.

Of the more than 1,500 individuals and companies building, moving and remodeling houses in San Francisco in the 1880’s and ‘90’s, only about a quarter of them were high art architectural practitioners (and even they were primarily self-trained architects) who designed unique homes for specific clients. Low art architectural practitioners (including builders, contractors and developers) who purchased multiple lots and constructed clusters of two or many homes, identical in plan, to take advantage of mass-production and offer low prices were actually the most important force in shaping San Francisco’s built environment during the 1880’s and ‘90’s, the decades of intense building. Initially all houses in a cluster were built to look alike, but soon this became undesirable and builders began to offer minor choices in exterior detail and paint color to the prospective buyer. Eventually all houses varied at least slightly. Owners-builders – as several hundred people described themselves – were another important influence on Victorian era construction; the majority built only the houses in which they lived, but a few became real estate developers.

The Bernal Heights district survived the 1906 earthquake and fire, thanks to its bedrock foundation. Many people, burned out from other areas of the city, moved to Bernal Heights in the days and months following the disaster. In addition to the pre-earthquake architecture, Bernal Heights also has houses constructed out of timber salvaged from the wreckage, as well as a number of earthquake refugee shacks and bonus plan cottages. Over 600 houses were built or relocated to Bernal Heights in 1906 and 1907.

Since most records were lost when city hall burned in the 1906 earthquake and fire, we do not know who designed and built many of the city’s Victorian era structures, or if indeed anybody did design them as we define that term today. The fact that some of the buildings did, indeed, have architects is today almost incidental; it is not in their origins that value exists but in the fact that they survived the 1906 earthquake and fire and, in many cases, misguided improvements, years of neglect, and looming demolition for newer construction.

World War II brought an influx of people who came to work in the naval shipyards of nearby China Basin.

This neighborhood was one of the first to show signs of the Victorian era architecture revival movement. Entire blocks on streets such as Liberty, Fair Oaks, Hill and Guerrero were brightened with new paint and restored to their former elegance. The architecture found in Bernal Heights is a mixture of elegant Victorian era mansions to working class cottages, from the most meticulous restorations to the shabbiest clusters, to industrial age relics to the current proliferation of ultra-modern lofts.

Like so much of San Francisco, the area has become gentrified in recent years, but it remains unpretentious and primarily residential, with a pace and atmosphere more reminiscent of a country village than a major city. In the 1980s Bernal Heights had a reputation as a dangerous place to venture. Cortland started to be cleaned up in the early ’90s, when the Good Life Grocery (1991) moved in, followed by restaurants like the Liberty Café (1995), Bernal’s first “destination restaurant” attracting people from outside the hood. The small streets are lined with an eclectic mix of locally owned small markets, trendy boutiques and innovative cafés and restaurants instead of chains.

While real estate prices were affected during the late ‘90s dot-com boom, this offbeat, charming neighborhood has largely avoided cyber-yuppies, high-priced condos and SUVs. With progressive and earthy artists, writers, musicians and film-makers living here, Bernal Heights is one of the last real arts communities left in San Francisco and offers activities such as Bernal Open Studios in October, Music on the Hill concerts, and author readings at the library and Bernal Books. The neighborhood is also popular with the lesbian community and young families looking for a first home. Bernal Heights merchants are very kid-friendly, and every wise storeowner keeps a jar of doggie biscuits on the counter for the four-legged family members. Thanks to a high concentration of single-family houses with yards and nearby Bernal Park, Bernal Heights is a great place for dogs.

The main commercial streets are Cortland Avenue - between Mission and Bocana Streets - to the south and Precita Park, to the north. Liberty Street, a remote main drag, can be pleasantly under-crowded compared with those in more central neighborhoods.

Many San Franciscans never travel to Bernal Heights, served by only a few city bus lines and perched atop a steep hill. Those who do wander up the incline may be surprised by this quaint urban village and, from the top of the hill, treated to a little-seen view revealing most of eastern and southeastern San Francisco (best viewed in the morning). The park is surrounded by residential streets, including a handful of dirt roads, appearing like they just popped out of a Dr. Seuss book, curving and criss-crossing every which way and heaped with funky homes and homemade staircases. Some traces of its rural roots remain in the lush gardens, both private and community run, that thrive in its sunny climate, far superior to the weather around Twin Peaks, and with views equally lovely.

Learn more about Bernal Heights by attending the San Francisco History Association monthly meeting, June 30, 2009 at St. Philip’s Catholic Church on 24th and Diamond Streets. Bernal History Project members Tim Holland, Molly Martin, Sheila Mahoney, and Vicky Walker will present a slideshow and lecture on the history, landscape, architecture, and residents of the Bernal Heights neighborhood. Doors open at 7:00 pm. $5 for non-members.

For more information: For information about the San Francisco History Association, visit www.sanfranciscohistory.org.