William Westerfeld House

The William Westerfeld House sits across the street from the northwest corner of Alamo Square. Constructed in 1889 at a cost of $9,985, the home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is San Francisco Landmark Number 135.

William Westerfeld, a German-born confectioner, arrived in San Francisco in the 1870s. By the 1880s he had established a chain of bakeries. He hired builder Henry Geilfuss to design for his family of six a 28-room mansion with an adjoining rose garden and carriage house.

When Westerfeld died in 1895, the home was sold to John Mahoney, noted for building at St. Francis and Palace hotels after the 1906 earthquake. Mr. Mahoney replaced the rose garden with flats to meet the city's dire need for housing.

William Westerfeld House timeline

*1928 -- A group of Czarist Russians buys the home. They turn the ground floor ballroom into a nightclub called Dark Eyes and use the upper floors for meeting rooms.

*1948 -- The home is converted into a 14-unit apartment building. For about the next two decades, the units are rented mostly to African-American musicians who play in the neighborhood jazz clubs. John Handy is one of many to call the Westerfeld House his home.

*1965 -- Charles Fraccia purchases the building to use as a residence but never occupies it. It is mentioned in the book the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The Calliope Company, a fifty-member collective, moves in.

*1967 -- Underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger takes up residence. He films Invocation of My Demon Brother starring Manson family member Bobby BeauSoleil and Anton LaVey and featuring music by Mick Jagger.

*1968 -- Members of the Family Dog occupy the house while promoting acid rock concerts at the Avalon ballroom. Members of the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company are frequent visitors.

*During the 1970s, the first attempts to rehabilitate the building began. Two gay men purchased the home for $45,000 in 1969. They remodeled the fourth floor servants' quarters beyond recognition. The house was left standing despite an urban renewal project which claimed 6,000 Victorian era buildings over a 60 square block area in the Western Addition.

*In 1986, Jim Siegel purchased the home and has since retrofitted the foundation; removed the dropped ceilings; re-wired, re-roofed, and re-plumbed; restored the interior and exterior woodwork and the historic, ground-floor ballroom, and decorated the 25-foot ceiling with period wallpaper crafted by Bradbury & Bradbury.