Open House Report, SF: Live Out Your 19th Century Farmhouse Fantasies in Ashbury Heights
Author:Philip FerratoOne of San Francisco’s oldest extant farmhouses is on the market— and turns into a history lesson.
11 Piedmont Street, Ashbury Heights, $2.695M
On a short, quiet street near Buena Vista Park, this charming 4-bed, 4-bath house was built in 1860. Moved to its current location in 1888— people didn’t just knock houses down, they moved them on flats pulled by horses— it looks like it belongs somewhere in the Midwest.
New settlers to California built what was familiar and reminded them of home back East. While the Spanish settlers brought adobe north, Anglos brought with them a carpentry tradition, combined with the ship’s carpenters who came around the Cape, and took advantage of the abundant redwood. Window glass and marble fireplaces still came from the East Coast by ship. With less need for heating than back in, say, Illinois, they could build a house with high ceilings and big windows, all of which are still intact here. On a big, densely-landscaped lot with extensive decking, it’s not hard to imagine it surrounded by the remains of the coastal meadows that supported dairy farming in San Francisco until the turn of the century. Open Sunday, May 6 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
