Although set in a supremely serene environment, the property is exceptionally convenient to both San Francisco and Oakland International airports, major commute routes (the financial district is a ten minute car ride) and upscale shopping and dining in the fashionable Marina and Pacific Heights neighborhoods. Other nearby amenities include the Saint Francis Yacht Club, the Presidio and Crissy Field, the Fort Mason Center, and the celebrated Marina Green.

LANDSCAPE HISTORY
by Sam Whiting

Guarding the Palace

The story behind the Palace of Fine Arts' garland ladies and their sisters across the street.

Twenty-six “garland ladies” link up to guard the Palace of Fine Arts, but only two guard the lagoon, and they are all the way across Baker Street in front of Frank and Anna Pope’s house.

There ought to be more ladies watching the water, because a 6-foot Cyclone fence was to come down this week to open the newly embanked, benched and landscaped park after a year of reconstruction.

The project cost $2.4 million, which is about what Walter S. Johnson donated 40 years ago to save the Palace grounds the first time. Johnson, an old-time one-man industrial holding company, was going through the longest and costliest divorce in California history and may have been extra generous towards the Palace to keep his millions from his estranged wife.

That story may be unsubstantiated, but the money wasn't. It got the grounds named The Walter S. Johnson Park, though the only signage is off to the side on a plaque on a stumpy column near the corner of Bay and Lyon streets. The much better monument to Johnson is at the corner of Baker and Beach.

As thanks for his largesse, he was given two bas relief sculptures, which were cast as extras for the 26 on the colonnade, not to be confused with the "weeping maidens" atop the columns. Johnson was by then so enamored of the Palace rotunda that he bought the house at 3460 Baker Street, directly across from its main archway, and displayed his two ladies on the fence.

When the Popes bought the house in 1997, they took the long view that the architecture fit neither the garland ladies nor the rotunda. So they tore it down and built a new three-story villa with rooftop loggia in the Venetian style and interior columns and pedestals designed to mirror the Palace. They even had the sidewalk at their entry recast in matching color by the same firm that cast the concrete for the rotunda and colonnades.

The ladies - made of reinforced concrete and each about 6 feet tall on a 1-foot pedestal- stand sentry on either side of the arched entryway. They are easier to hug up to than the ones on giant urns in the park. And they are easier to take pictures of.

"It's one of the most photographed houses in San Francisco," says Frank Pope, an investment banker. "Everybody takes a picture of the Palace, then turns around and takes a picture of the house."

It is also on the historic approach to the restored lagoon. The original pedestrians came right through here, moving east to west along the central block of eight great exhibit halls ending at the Palace. The Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 was touted as a worldwide celebration of both the Panama Canal (opened in 1914) and the 400th anniversary of Vasco Nunez de Balboa discovering the Pacific Ocean and claiming it for the Spanish - hence the novel abridgement Panama Pacific in the name. Both ties were a reach for San Francisco, but nobody minded. The practical reason for the fair was to show the world that the city was back from the ruins of 1906, not only rebuilt but willing and able to frivolously construct an entire city just to tear it down.

It was architect Bernard Maybeck's notion that the Palace of Fine Arts rotunda and colonnade would look like it was falling down even before it could be torn down. Framed in wood and covered with staff - a mixture of plaster and burlap - it was designed to commence crumbling into the lagoon about a year after it was built, starting Dec. 8, 1913. Maybeck failed because the rotunda and colonnade lasted nearly 50 years before it started doing what he wanted it to do all along.

By then it was too late to allow the faux Roman ruin to sink into the mire. It had to be wrecked and scraped in order to be saved. This is where Walter Johnson came into play, pledging $2 million, which shamed the state into a matching grant and the city into a bond issue. The demolition contract was awarded on July 20, 1964, just as Johnson's own empire was facing demolition in divorce court. "Johnson was in the middle of a divorce when it was going on," Pope says. "His wife was arguing that he was taking money that was community property 6and giving it here."

The trial took 85 days and cost Johnson more than $1 million. At the end, Johnson, describe The Chronicle as "spry and jaunty in a gray plaid suit and red bow tie," appeared before Judge John B. Molinari, who said he'd miss him and admired his work on behalf of the Palace restoration.

"How much will you give to the Palace?" Johnson shot back at the judge from the docket. On way out of court, the 79-year-old Johnson to Chronicle reporter, "I've been turned inside, pockets and all." But it wasn't quite true, as he tapped for another $2 million in 1975 to finish colonnades.

"If it wasn't for Walter it would not be there today. The Palace would be gone," says Donna Ewald Huggins, a 1915 World's Fair fetishist who has 7,000 items in her collection.

As Chair of the Campaign for the Palace of Fine Arts, Ewald has led the charge to refurbish the construction. About $16 million has been raised a job that is estimated to cost $21 million, which she says, is about what it cost to put on the world’s fair - 11 main exhibit palaces on 625 acres. The Walter S. Johnson Foundation, based in Palo Alto gave one more time and might give again.

"This is the final restoration," promises Ewald, "when they did it in the '60s they just didn't know much about historical rehab as we do now."

One example of not knowing was the rotunda dome. When it was refinished in 2005, some Pal purists grumbled that it was pumpkin colored. They preferred the previous gray. But primer g was a cost-cutter done in the '60s. Orange was original color, and after a year's fading, it looks, right.

The lagoon, which was in the process of claiming its paved shoreline, was the second phase after the dome. Now there is a new seeded (not sod) lawn, and wider sidewalks. There is a raised lip along the lagoon's edge to reduce fall-ins and a dozen double-wide benches of iron and wood are bolted along the east shore. If you've forgotten what back-breakers the old green plank benches e, there are a few left, up by the Exploratorium. The new benches are curvaceous and outfitted with center arm rests to keep all but the shortest of people from sleeping on them. There is no way to keep off the resident seagulls, geese, swans, ducks, egrets and herons, though. Once used to these benches, they’ll never migrate again.

In the next phase, the rotunda and the colonnade, including the 26 garland ladies, will be completely rehabilitated. They were originally made of plaster Ulrich H. Elerhuesen, a notable sculptor at the turn-of-the-century. Then they were affixed in strings of six or seven, standing 4 feet off the ground, he sides of four urns at the base of the rotunda.

There are several variations on facial expression hairdo, but each looks slightly sad. Perhaps it is because their urns are empty and have been forever. Or perhaps it is because they are waiting for the roof of the rotunda to fall in, which may not be too far from the truth. Since the earthquake of 1989, it has worn a giant hairnet on the underside, to protect people below from falling debris.

Both of these worries will be corrected in the third phase, to be completed in a year unless the money stream dries up.

The insides of the basins will finally get the foliage and be used as the planters they were intended to be," says Charlie Duncan of Carey & Co, executive architects for the restoration of the 17-acre park. As for the garland ladies, "the concrete has chipped and you see broken noses and broken toes," Duncan says. When they are finished the 26 garland ladies should again stand as proud as their sisters in Frank Pope's front yard.

“They'll get pedicures on the third phase," Higgins says.

The house, just unwrapped after its own updo, is being put up for sale. It could be north of $8 million, but "whoever buys it," Pope says, "they get ladies." Minus the pedicures.

TAXES: To be reassessed upon sale, currently expected to be approximately 1.135% of the purchase price.

NOTE: Prospective buyers are advised to review, prior to making any offer, the "Real Estate Transfer Disclosure Statement", on file with the listing agent.

TO SHOW: By appointment with the listing agent.