The Painted Ladies Victorian Row Houses On Alamo Square, San Francisco

Above: The very famous row of comparatively humble Victorian row houses who lucked out with their position in the foreground of the view of downtown San Francisco.

The painted ladies victorian row houses are one of those tourist attractions that I have to admit I may have only visited once or so when I lived in San Francisco. A huge mistake friends, as the location of the painted ladies also includes the amazing Alamo Square, which I wrote about here. Plus, truly, the view of the San Francisco skyline, assuming it isn’t fogged in, is wonderful! Though the term painted ladies generally refers to this famous location, the term is actually much broader. In American architecture, “painted ladies” refers to Victorian and Edwardian houses and buildings repainted, starting in the 1960s, in three or more colors that embellish or enhance their architectural details. The term was first used for San Francisco Victorian houses by writers Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen in their 1978 book Painted Ladies: San Francisco’s Resplendent Victorians. Since then, the term has also been used to describe groups of colorfully repainted Victorian houses in other American cities, such as the Charles Village neighborhood in Baltimore; Lafayette Square in St. Louis; the greater San Francisco and New Orleans areas, in general; Columbia-Tusculum in Cincinnati; the Old West End in Toledo, Ohio; the neighborhoods of McKnight and Forest Park in Springfield, Massachusetts; and the city of Cape May, New Jersey.

^{So, if you can’t make it to San Francisco, make an effort to check out the gorgeous Victorian houses near you! In the meantime lets take a closer look at the beauties on Alamo square!}

Between 1849 and 1915 about 48,000 houses in the Victorian and Edwardian styles were built in San Francisco! The change from Victorian to Edwardian occurring on the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, and many of the houses were painted in bright colors. While many of the mansions of Nob Hill were destroyed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, thousands of the mass-produced, more modest houses survived in the western and southern neighborhoods of the city.

During World War I and World War II, many of these houses were painted battleship gray with war-surplus Navy paint. Another sixteen thousand were demolished, and many others sadly had the Victorian decor stripped off or covered with tarpaper, brick, stucco, or aluminum siding. In 1963, San Francisco artist Butch Kardum began combining intense blues and greens on the exterior of his Italianate-style Victorian house. While his house was criticized by some, other neighbors began to copy the bright colors on their own homes. Kardum became a color designer, and he and other artists / colorists such as Tony Canaletich, Bob Buckter, and Jazon Wonders began to transform dozens of gray houses into Painted Ladies. By the 1970s, the colorist movement, as it was called, had changed entire streets and neighborhoods. This process continues to this day, and on my walks around town I saw a frequent use of metallic gold, which is quite lovely.

Above: At the end of the row, a larger home sits on the corner site.

One of the best-known groups of “Painted Ladies” is the row of Victorian houses at 710–720 Steiner Street, across from Alamo Square park, in San Francisco. It is sometimes known as “Postcard Row”; they are also known as the Seven Sisters. The houses were built between 1892 and 1896 by developer Matthew Kavanaugh, who lived next door in the 1892 mansion at 722 Steiner Street. This block appears very frequently in media and mass-market photographs of the city and its tourist attractions and has appeared in an estimated 70 movies, TV programs, and ads.

Above: A lovely fountain in Alamo Square park, with the painted ladies in the background.
Above: From the fountain, one can see two sides of the park, to the right Steiner Street, to the left

I hope you’ve enjoyed this closer look at the most famous painted ladies in San Francisco, though interestingly enough they are actually the simplest versions of the architectural movement that is really quite fabulous in its attention to detail. Some of the massive Victorian homes are quite simply jaw dropping, so do have a look sometime if you can!