2503 Clay St
San Francisco, CA 94115, USA

The Real Estate Associates (TREA) Houses - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance

The Real Estate Associates (T.R.B.A.) houses on Clay Street near Fillmore are significant representatives of the work of T.R.E.A., San Francisco's most prolific housing developer of the l870s. 2503 Clay is one of the first thirteen houses the company ever "built and sold. At the time, I87O-I87I, the area was totally undeveloped, and no one knew if people would want to reside so far from downtown. House construction was then an experimental branching out from T.R.E.A.'s established business of buying, subdividing and selling land. The success of this first construction venture laid the foundation for the company's nearly total dedication to housing construction for the next half dozen years. T.R.E.A. (the logo they used) so dominated the city's housing market in the 1870s that its version of the bay-windowed Italianate style house became the decade's local standard. The four subject houses typify the T.R.E.A. Italianate style, its variants, and T.R.E.A.'s typical range of customers. All four are essentially intact.

In the 1870s T.R.E.A. constructed nearly a thousand San Francisco houses, over two hundred of which survive, (l) Almost all were two-story, bay-windowed Italianate style, free-standing frame structures, built in groups where the company had purchased and subdivided tracts of empty land. T.R.E.A. realized economies from mass construction techniques, from a standard floor plan, self-contracting (except plumbing) and simplifying ornament. It achieved sales through liberal advertising, generous prices, installment plan financing, practical houses, and a variety of models to suit different pocketbooks. All these factors except the last were present in the company's very first housing venture, as represented by 2503 Clay Street and described in the April 1871 San Francisco Directory:

An organization known as The Real Estate Associates, has graded three blocks in the Western Addition, the first bounded by Webster, Fillmore, Sacramento and Clay Streets, the second by Steiner, Fillmore, Sacramento and Clay, and the third by Steiner, Pierce, Sacramento and Clay. Upon the second block thirteen houses, two stories each, have been built, 20 feet front by 32 in depth, divided into seven rooms having bay windows and modem conveniences, altogether making a fine appearance. These houses and lots are sold on the homestead principle, each for $3,200, of which $800 is in advance and the remainder in monthly payments of $50.

Thus T.R.E.A.'s whole operation as a housing developer was born full-grown, prepared by a total re-organization of the board of directors, conceived and brought to fruition by its manager William Hollis. The editor of the March 1877 directory remembered the idealism Hollis had expressed to him at the outset:

Six years ago, the President and Manager, William Hollis, staked his private for time and business reputation on his faith in the future of this city. With a vision far in advance of many of his daily associates, his ideas were generally pronounced utopian. The writer well remembers riding out with Mr. Hollis, about the time mentioned, to survey three blocks of land in the Western Addition. Driving to a mountain of sand, Mr. Hollis rose up in his buggy, and said: "Mr. ----, if I could control twenty blocks of land in this vicinity, I would bring the whole of San Francisco out here to reside." As nothing but sand was in sight, as no street-car facilities then existed in that neighborhood, the writer put little faith in what he deemed the chimerical proposition of Mr. Hollis. But time has proved the foresight of this gentleman. One hundred handsome houses now cover three of these blocks, the majority of which have all been paid for in monthly installments by those who occupy them.

Since the three adjoining blocks listed in the first quotation are the only three blocks together that T.R.E.A. ever owned at one time, the "mountain of sand" must describe the subject neighborhood up to the time 2503 Clay and its fellows were built.

The company bought the three blocks about the first of October 1870 for S80,000, and it transferred title to the subject block to William Hollis for a token $1.00 early in May 1871. (4) Hollis sold 2503 Clay Street on 23 June 1871 for $3,620. In the previous month he had sold his first five houses, and on 29 June seven others, all in this same square block. The actual sales prices, $3,300 to $4,235, were all above the directory announced $3,200, (5) Of these original thirteen houses, five are now demolished, six are significantly altered; only 2503 Clay and 2564 Sacramento remain reasonably intact.

Hollis bought the half square block on the north side of Clay in November 1873 for $15»000. In March of 1875 he sold the three subject houses; 2524 Clay Street on the sixth for $4,300, 2530 Clay Street on the thirteenth for $5,500, and 2536 Clay Street on the 27th for $4,726. (6) The price differences probably reflect the sizes of the lots and houses, the degree of ornamentation and the amount of special-order work, as most customers bought houses still under construction. Of this period the directory said;

In January of the present year, they T.R.E.A finished and sold 33 houses, in February 31, and in the first ten days of March 14. Thus, they open the campaign of 1875 by turning off considerably over a house a day. Wherever they buy they build; and almost before they finish building, they have sold. The total number of houses which they had built up to March 10, 1875, was 514—no inconsiderable town of itself. Of the whole number of new buildings erected in 1874, this company built nearly one-fourth. The annual aggregate of their operations already exceeds a million and a half. In the entire history of the city no company has even remotely approximated this in the style and extent of its building, or ever succeeded as well in supplying the great popular demand for beautiful and permanent homes.

Together the four Clay Street houses represent the T.R.E.A. Italianate style which became San Francisco's standard in the l870s to the extent that today one can estimate a San Francisco Italianate house's construction as before, during or after this decade by its degree and type of conformity to this T.R.E.A. standard. Photographs 15-19 are a selection of non-T.R.E.A. Italianates in San Francisco that illustrate the movement into and out of this standard. Photo 15 shows 109 Liberty Street (in the Liberty Street National Register district), probably built in 1869 by carpenter-builder Thomas McMahon, it looks pre-T.R.E.A. because of the lack of a serai-octagonal bay window, because of the individual ornamentation, especially the window pediments and the oversize, busy-worked door hood brackets. Photo 16, 77-79 Liberty Street (in the same district), built in 1872, shows the nascent standard as used by minor carpenter-builder Robert H. Wheeler; a two-story semi-octagonal bay window, linear moldings, outwork spandrels, the certain proportions, but a conflict between bay and cornice. Photo 17 is the fully developed standard as built in 1877 at 8l9 Grove Street (in San Francisco's Alamo Square district) by an important speculative builder John Hinkel. The house was later remodeled as two flats. Photo 18 is another 1877 house, 1045 Hayes Street (also on Alamo Square), built by carpenter William Swayne for his own use. Either of these 1877 houses could be guessed on looks as a T.R.E.A. product, but their builders were simply using the popular and successful style. Photo 19» 824 Grove Street (same district), an 1886 design by architect Henry Geilfuss, shows the growing away from the l870s's standard in its two windows on the bay face and the wider vocabulary of ornament.

Although some T.R.E.A. houses are already on the National Register in the Bush Street and Liberty Street historic districts, the company's houses on Clay Street near Fillmore significantly represent in one small area both the earliest work of T.R.E.A. and its variety of ornamentation fer individual customers. 2503 Clay Street is the simplest and cheapest ($3,620). All its windows are rectangular, the entry has only a hood with very simple brackets and paneled pilasters, moldings are minimal and linear. 2524 Clay Street is the next more costly ($4,300), with segment-headed windows, pipestem colonnettes, cut-work spandrels and a few dentil moldings. 2536 Clay Street ($4,725) has all the above plus a small Corinthian-columned portico and a cornice wrapping around the east side. It is a little larger than 2503, but the proportions are identical. The most expensive of the four, 2530 Clay Street ($5,500), had all the above plus a large lot, an original side bay window, and Ionic portico columns, very rare in the T.R.E.A. opus. The interiors were probably originally graduated in ornament in a similar fashion.