827 Guerrero St
San Francisco, CA 94110, USA

John McMullen House (Chateau Agspe) - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

827 Guerrero is a superb example of Queen Anne styling, one of the residential styles whose prevalence in the city creates San Francisco's unique visual environment. It is an important work by one of the most influential of California's 19th century designers. It’s almost totally intact interiors are the result of a series of alterations carried out between 1890 and 1904 for John McMullen, a contractor who made significant contributions to modern mechanical and hydraulic dredging technology.

With the recent re-examination of the architectural productions of the 19th century, Samuel Newsom has been revealed as a major California designer. The Carson House in Eureka, designed by Samuel and his brother, J. Cather Newsom, is one of America's best-known examples of its style and type — the Queen Anne residential extravaganza. The Newsoms had a wide and successful practice, and designed buildings from Pennsylvania to Hawaii, although the largest portion of their work is in California, both southern and northern. Well over a thousand buildings are documented as having been designed by them. Through publication of a series of plan books, and through unabashed and skillful self-advertisement, the Newsoms exerted an enormous influence upon other architects, and particularly over the vast army of untrained designer-builders of the era. They were, in their own time, identified closely enough with the ornamental styles of the 19th century to provide an easy target for the young Turks of the Bay Area Tradition (Willis Polk, in an attack on what he considered the aesthetic excesses of the time, referred in the public prints to 'The Gruesome Brothers'). More recently, the Newsoms continue to be seen as touchstone figures of the Eastlake and Queen Anne modes which provide the image of the residential areas of many California cities, particularly of San Francisco; in 1979 the Newsom Brothers were the subjects of an extensive traveling exhibition shown locally at the Oakland Museum.

The Newsoms used the standard elements of the design modes of the time (they were always abreast of the latest change in fashion), but deployed them with more daring than most of their contemporaries. They exploited the freedom of non-axial Queen Anne planning to create unexpected spatial sequences; they made their buildings visually dramatic even when this involved treating conventional ideas of proportion and composition with a creative lack of respect; their ornament was exuberant and sometimes unexpected in subject. It is this fusion of spatial richness, formal drama, and fertility of ornament which places their achievement beyond the decorated box which was frequently the best their imitators and competitors could manage.

These elements are all seen in skillful concert in the McMullen House, with its unusual plan and varied spaces, its emphatic contrast between Stick Style linearity/verticality and Queen Anne fullness/ horizontality, and such fanciful ornamental devices as the horseshoe entry arch with tiny carved human faces and the intricate, fake basketweave panels of the stair railing. The Newsoms built mansions and cottages; the McMullen House lies in the standard mid-range of their commissions in terms of its size, but it provides a perfect text case for the ideas which made their work at any scale an important component of the cultural legacy of their time.

The original house may or may not have been designed by the Newsoms (there is nothing to indicate that it was), but their remodeling was so thoroughgoing that they made the building essentially theirs. Later additions, whether by the Newsoms or others, respect the Newsom remodeling to a harmonious degree: the house as it now stands is a visual record of successive change which document the career of its original owner, the history of his evolving prosperity. John McMullen was a pioneer in the hydraulic dredging industry in the last decades of the 19th century. He had projects in the United States, Canada, and the Philippines, and was an innovator in the 'accomplishment of difficult construction tasks and in building new engineering precedents.' (Pioneers in Hydraulic Dredging.)

Mr. McMullen, a native of Connecticut, arrived in San Francisco in 1876 and became a carpenter/builder by trade. Numerous sources indicate that he established the San Francisco Bridge Company in 1877; "the scope of their operations embraces the building of bridges, canals, pipelines and water works, harbor improvements, etc., and their specialties are the building of hydraulic dredging machines and dredging by the hydraulic method—digging and putting ashore any material except rock." (San Francisco, The Imperial City, 1899.) Incorporated in 1883, the San Francisco Bridge Company was the first of a number of contracting and dredging companies which McMullen organized and served as president. Others include the Atlantic Gulf and Pacific Company of New York, which is still in existence; the Puget Sound Bridge and Dredging Company; and the Atlantic and Pacific Gulf Company of Manila. These various firms were responsible for such jobs as coal bunkers at the Green Street Wharf, dredging Oakland Harbor, construction of the tide canal between Oakland and San Leandro Bay, dredging at Mare Island Navy Yard, various bridges in the Northwest and Canada, including 47 bridges for the Canadian Pacific Railway, Section 6 of the San Francisco Seawall, filling in of the Island Bay, Hunter's Point Drydock, piers at Fort Mason, harbor improvements and construction in Manila Bay in the Philippines, and a contract for the hydraulic dredging of Boston Harbor. His obituary noted "McMullen's history is the history of contracting in the West." (S.F. Chronicle, August 30, 1921.)

In 1879, Mr. McMullen married a Swedish woman, Lena, whom he had met shortly after his arrival in San Francisco. In 1881, they acquired their original lot on Guerrero Street that was 25 feet in width by 100 feet deep. Later that same year, a typical two-story Stick Style Victorian residence was built there for them; the original architect or builder, if any, are unknown. The house contained a small front and back parlor, dining room, and kitchen downstairs, and two or three small bedrooms above. Sometime in the 1880's, McMullen acquired the adjacent lot to the south which allowed the later expansion of the house. In 1890 McMullen retained architect Samuel Newsom to upgrade his house. The contractors were William N. Concannon and John M. Shay, and the cost of remodeling was $7,775.00, a sum that in those days would have built a whole house. Newsom widened the house, added a tower, extended it to the rear, and created basement rooms under the new additions. (The rest of the house has only crawl space.)

But this by now elegant house was still not satisfactory to the McMullens. Sometime after 1892 the kitchen was widened and extended to the rear, and a garden was built with walkways and a fountain. In the late 1890's, still another section was added to the rear of the house, a large two-story and attic addition, with a grand Edwardian dining room on the main floor (probably the house's third dining room). This work may have been done in 1898 when McMullen took out a building contract with Moore and Cameron. The architect is unknown, but the style is compatible with the earlier Newsom work, and in San Francisco, the Newsoms often used the contracting firm of the Moore Brothers. It may be at this time that the one-story back porch was enclosed, to become two stories. In early 1904, there was still more work done on the house, for Mrs. McMullen signed a completion of work with building contractor A.T. Spence, and the Water Department noted: "Addition completed about one month. Contains butler's pantry — 1 sink.

In late 1907 or early 1908, the McMullens left San Francisco for New York, where McMullen was President of the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Company. By his death in 1921, McMullen was worth $2 million, largely in stock of that company. He willed the bulk of his estate to Cornell University, with nominal bequests to various nieces and nephews.

The sale of the Guerrero Street house from the McMullens to Joseph Young was recorded on January 11, 1908. Young was a druggist; in the 1907-08 City Directory he was listed as being at 20th and Folsom. The house continued to remain in his family until 1951. The house has been a residential care facility since 1956.

Later alterations include creation and alterations of bathrooms and kitchen, and the installation of a sprinkler system. Except for the removal of a wall between the kitchen and the large parlor, now used as a dining room, and the removal of one fireplace and mantel, the ground floor public rooms are intact.

There is no currently available documentation as to the original color scheme of the house, although there are general discussions of color by the Newsoms in their plan books. Generally, there was a varied collection of colors related by the subdued earth pigment quality they all shared.

The architectural importance of this particular building to its neighborhood and to San Francisco is borne out by its inclusion to citywide architectural surveys and inventories. These include the Junior League of San Francisco's architectural survey which was published as Here Today - San Francisco's Architectural Heritage, and the Department of City Planning's 1976 Architectural Inventory, which includes only the top 10% of all buildings in the city, in which it was rated in the two highest categories.