Inside San Francisco Real Estate

We recently had the pleasure of sitting down with friend and colleague Gary Beyrouti to discuss his restoration of an 1895 Queen Anne Victorian located at 925 Fulton.  Our goal?  To learn what it takes to perform a historical restoration, what challenges one can run into, and what lessons he learned from the overall project.  Gary’s experience should be able to help readers who are contemplating similar projects, and at the very least, provide an incredible tale of this labor of love.  Buckle up, because you’re not going to believe the details involved.

The story begins in 2003, when Gary and his partner purchased a dilapidated Victorian located in San Francisco’s Alamo Square historical district.  At the time, the home was the ugliest on the block.  Gary laughed as he recalled entering the home for the first time “…the home had no kitchen, no garage, and had not been lived in for many years.  There was no wall by the staircase, and for some reason there was a bath tub sitting in the middle of the dining room.”  But what Gary saw that day was a work of art… a piece of San Francisco history that had so much potential, if only it could be brought back to life.

BEFORE - 925 Fulton as it stood in 2003

What Gary would embark upon was a multi-year project, one in which he would live on the top floor of the home while work was performed throughout the rest.  Once the lower levels were finished, he would move downstairs and then finish the top floor.  Gary’s goal was to

restore the home to its original splendor right down to the last detail.  In the process, he would have to become thoroughly educated in local history, architecture, and building methods down to a level of granularity that had him searching for hard-to-find experts as well as impossible-to-find pieces.  Alongside the restoration goal, Gary aspired to update the home for today’s lifestyle, equipping it with modern-day amenities and staying away from the gaudy and dark interiors common in other Victorians.  Gary envisioned a balance of old and new, with the old being as historically accurate as possible and the new integrating seamlessly in.

The finished product is exquisite, and hearing the story of how it went from Gary’s imagination to reality makes the home that much more appreciable.  It takes a certain set of eyes to truly appreciate a restoration.  Working in real estate, we too often see people buy an old property, rip everything out, and stick in IKEA.  That would be a remodel, but hardly a restoration.  Remodeling may be ok in most areas, but around historical Alamo Square, it seems a blasphemy.  Thankfully, San Francisco has many artsy, sophisticated types who can appreciate the work that goes into restoring a home like this.

Gary couldn’t just start working on the home the day he moved in.  It required a ton of research and planning first.  He searched for old photos of what home looked like in its heyday and had to figure out how to recreate the same look.  After obtaining photos and talking to historical experts in the 1890′s San Francisco era, Gary began work.  He started with the basics (and also the big ticket items), such as the new roof, new plumbing (which included a new sewer pipe leading out to the street), new electrical, and foundation improvements.  One of the biggest expenses in the project involved the excavation of a 2-car garage and the rebuilding of the front stairs.  This presented some huge challenges, as Gary recalled.  Having a historical architect recreate the look of the late 1800′s home based on a few photos was pricey.  Not to mention, all proposed work had to be approved by the city (a 1.5 year permit process) and then once again by the neighbors and San Francisco Planning and Preservation Department.  Gary persevered and got the garage and front stairs done, and the transformation is astounding:

AFTER - The new garage, front stairs, and paint job

Next up, Gary began tackling interior items.  He had all the floors sanded and refinished, rebuilt that mysterious missing wall by the staircase, replaced all the windows, and restored the front door.  It’s easy to rip something out and replace it, but most of the items in the home were worthy of restoring.  He had all the woodwork and trim in the house stripped, sanded, stained, and re-installed.  The entire staircase was restored in this method as well.

Speaking of the staircase, there was an important piece missing from the newell post when Gary purchased it… the newell post light.  Gary consulted a historian to find out what type of light would grace the bottom of the staircase.  Based on this info, he would begin a quest to find the special piece, which took him all the way to a New York antiques dealer.  Turns out the newell post light he purchased in NYC belonged to an old Pacific Heights mansion.  It’s now back in its home City, just a mile or two from where it originated.

The restored staircase, complete w/ authentic newell post light.

The home has some beautiful stained glass windows and skylights, but not all were intact at the time of Gary’s purchase.  He had to hire a stained glass specialist to match the colors and design patterns of the existing pieces to fill in the gaps where glass was missing.  This included the transom above the front door, which was recreated to perfection.

Matching stained glass is no easy task.

Another big project was the wainscoting.  The home has a Victorian paper coating covering the walls from around waist-level down to the floor.  Entire portions of the “lincrusta” wainscoting were missing or incomplete.  Gary had to find a specialist that could recreate missing sections of the lincrusta by taking plaster molds of existing sections and replicating it.  The lincrusta then had to be color matched in the rich mahogany color that dominates the wood surfaces in the home.

Light fixtures were another challenge.  Gary had to find out what types of lighting were popular in the era and source the custom fixtures.  He selected domes made of alabaster, a valuable mineral.  Visitors will see alabaster domes pleasantly diffusing light around many rooms in the home.

Alabaster light domes hanging from authentic ceiling medallions can be found in many rooms

One of our favorite stories had to do with the interior doors.  Redwood is prevalent in the home and as a result, every bit had to be preserved (they don’t make ‘em like that anymore).  To restore the doors, they first had to be removed, stripped, sanded, and stained.  Then there was the hardware.  Did Gary install Home Depot knobs and hinges?  Of course not.  The old hardware was removed, stripped, polished, and re-installed.  But the doors weren’t quite ready to be installed.  You see, at the turn of the century this home was used as a boarding house.  Most of the bedrooms were rented out to visitors and as a result, had holes drilled in them for individual locks.  These holes remained in the doors through the years.  In order to complete the restoration of the doors, Gary had to get rid of those pesky holes.  How?  A custom dowel (small cylinder of wood) had to be made to fit precisely into  the shape of each hole.  Once the dowels were made and put in place, a faux finisher was hired to hand paint the dowels to match the stain of the wood, and then the wood grain was painted in by hand using a darker color paint.  Painstaking?  Yes.  Worth it?  You bet.  The doors look absolutely amazing (not to mention, serve as a good source of cocktail conversation).

Gary tackled the kitchens and baths, installing all new appliances, Calcutta Gold marble, and Waterworks tile.  Heated floors warm up the bathrooms.  And what about that old tub… did it end up in the dumpster?  Not a chance. It was professionally reglazed with porcelain, moved upstairs, and placed in the guest bathroom.  But it wasn’t quite as simple as that.  Gary chuckled as he explained “…the tub was of course missing a foot.  So we had to go on a wild goose chase to find a matching claw foot for this 1890′s tub.”

The tub was moved back to the appropriate room, complete with all 4 feet!

Master bath

Master bath

Kitchen

We covered the kitchen and baths in a paragraph but only wish it could have been that simple for Gary.  His next big project was the landscaping.  The home is situated on a unique oversized lot, 37′ by 137′ to be exact.  This left a big blank slate for Gary’s imagination to run wild in the backyard.  He consulted a close friend who is a well known landscape architect in New York to help him devise a master plan.  Problem was, before any work could be done, 2 tons of concrete had to be manually removed from the back.  Hearing Gary tell the story of the concrete removal had us sweating just thinking about it.  Once the yard was ready, new fencing was installed along with an irrigation system, exterior lighting, retaining walls, and new vegetation.  The one relic out back was the original 1895 fountain, which was salvaged, restored, and is now fully functional.

The south-facing garden

Gary’s home is now for sale, and sports 6 bedrooms, 3 full baths, and 2 half baths on 3 levels.  The home is approximately 4,188 square feet, has 2 car parking, and a glorious garden that gets plenty of southern exposure.  List price is $2,695,000.

The key lessons he shared with us from this experience are:

1)  Live in the house for 6 to 12 months before you begin any work.  Especially in a home this size, you may find that rooms intended for a particular use have a more sensible use after living in the home for a while.  If you begin renovating or restoring based on the original intention of the rooms and find a better function for the space later, you’ll be throwing your money away.

2)  Have a master plan.  Even if you can’t afford everything in the master plan, have one.  You can do it in phases.  Otherwise you are setting yourself up to waste time and money.

3)  A renovation is fairly straightforward.  But a restoration is a labor of love.  Finding specialty items and people who can advise you on such specific historical facts is a huge challenge, not to mention, time consuming.  Gary recalled, “When we were working on the exterior of the home, we realized that many of the pilasters were missing.  Pilasters are the decorative wedding-cake style mouldings and columns you find on the facades of these old homes.  We had to find a woman who specializes in pilasters.  She had to come out, find sections that were in-tact, create plaster molds of them, then recreate the pilasters one by one.  We also had to hire an expert in ceiling medallions of the era.  We ended up working with a lot of experts who specialize in little things like that.”

Details are easy to take for granted until you know what went into them...

We’d like to thank Gary for offering both his story and advice for our readers.  You can check out the home’s listing details HERE.  We highly recommend a tour.  And now that you know more than the average visitor, you’ll fully appreciate the work that was done!