Native San Franciscan here! As a kid I remember going into my family's Victorian house. I can still remember the stair case pull you had to use at the top to allow guests in. You had to walk up steep stairs to a landing & turn to go up a short to the main hallway. I can still remember the smell of redwood or other hardwoods used throughout the home. My uncle restored many of these painted ladies in his career. I still have a special place in my heart for them on Diamond St & Square.
Native SFer. Born, raised and lived in the city for 32 years until marriage. The city needs the colorful side! Miss SF as I don't get home as often to see family and friends.
Great video! I live in San Francisco and while the last decade has seen a rise of monochromatic colors I’d say the majority of Victorians are still colorful. The last couple years I’ve also noticed more color reappearing- on my block alone this year 2 places have been painted from white to yellow and blue. The colorful houses are one of my favorite things about SF.
I remember seeing the painted ladies for the first time when we moved to the Bay Area and went to SF for the first time and they're beautiful. IMO, the painted ladies should always be colorful, I hope they never go monochromatic, I've seen the monochromatic colors around the city and some make sense since they're more modern buildings and I have also seen the color that's been reappearing. Actually, I'm referring it to over a year ago, since we moved to Southern Cali since then (job), no matter what we miss the Bay Area, it's just a different vibe over there. Anyhow, retouching the painted ladies is one thing but please please I hope they don't make them gray.
Lifelong Californian here, some of my ancestors lived in San Francisco. My family has been in California since the Gold Rush. Victorians were not that brightly painted originally. They were mostly white, yellow, green, and varying colors of reddish brown. Sure, that is a lot brighter than battleship gray, but it is far from the psychedelic palette that became popular in the 60s during the Hippie movement. Aniline dyes have been around since the mid 19th Century, but they were not ubiquitously applied to things like paint as far as I know. And black, or charcoal, was actually a color that was used at times in the Victorian period, although it was probably applied more as a trim than the entire body of the house. Painted Ladies are definitely a mid 20th Century phenomena. I prefer San Franciscan houses to be painted bright Easter colors, but that doesn't mean a dark gray or muted earth tones would be inaccurate, or a complete departure for these homes, I would bet that a lot of the rich people that are snatching up these houses are going with olive greens, clay reds, and browns in the future, to be more in keeping with the original history of the houses and the era they were originally built in, But back to the original question, am I worried that they're gonna paint the entire city gray? No, I am not. gray is becoming tired and old in the design community. Since the pandemic designers are really fascinated with maximalism. The things that are capturing attention and are chic are design concepts like Dark Academia and cottagecore. Color is also making a comeback. Saturated colors are really in style. So if you've got 8 million in your back pocket that you want to invest in property I am betting you're either gonna go with historic restoration motif or for saturation in your palette. I am not saying that no one will paint their houses gray, but it is considered off trend now.
Here are a couple of the sources I utilized for this video. While white was certainly a popular color, most would have been painted with at least 3 different colors. Not so much the "Easter-egg" palettes we see today, but not monochromatic. UPenn: repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1663&context=hp_theses ; NYT: www.nytimes.com/1979/02/15/archives/design-notebook.html
@@ThisHouse If I recall correctly, the 1978 book, 'Painted Ladies: San Francisco's Resplendent Victorians', by M. Larsen and E. Pomada stated the 'three-color rule', as well. (It's been a bit since I've read it, though.) :)
@@curiousworld7912 Yes, tri-color was very popular. I did a lot of research into the color trends for that era because I plan to buy a large Victorian in Eureka to turn into a B&B. One of the most common colors was that olive green, with cream and clay red trim. On the one hand historic renovation seems appropriate, but I do love those grand painted ladies, like bright pink with white trim. Lots of properties in Eureka are large Victorians that were split up into small rental units. I want to return one of those back to what feels like a single family home, but retain kitchenettes with on-suites.
@@karenholmes6565 It sounds delightful! :) And, the 'green/cream/red' color combination can be very attractive on a home, but I'm not at all adverse to bold choices (although, maybe not to the 'how many different colors can we throw at this' extent of the '60s) :). I love Victorian architecture, and when there is that much detail; it seems only right to accent it.
Another great video, Ken. This one was extremely informative and I had no idea about the surplus of grey paint due to the battleships. It makes perfect sense. I am now all the wiser because of you. Thanks! Darryl
I always enjoy your videos. Thank you for your continued content! One thing to add about demolished Victorians in San Francisco, is that in the 50's and 60's in the guise of "urban renewal", a large part of a neighborhood known as the "Western Addition" was bulldozed. This area was a low income area, and many homes were in disrepair, as a result. The owners could not afford to update their properties, and as a result, it became a less desirable area to live, with much crime. The city lawmakers decided to deal with this by bulldozing many square blocks of beautiful old Victorians, and building "modern" low income public housing units. Those that were spared became choice properties, that were spared "modernizing", leaving most of the original detailing was still intact, inside and out, some with original gas lighting. Many future owners bought and restored them to their original splendor.
BUT Fillmore was The Tin Pan Alley 4 the blues population, before them the nisei population. There s a nice strech left on McAllister still in voluptuous color. A long documentary on the forum concerning the after hours jazz & r&b scene is available.
I lived in SF in the late 60's/70's.... the old Victorians were amazing, and unfortunately, still being torn down here & there. You could even find original stained glass windows in the construction dumpsters... sad that they weren't valued, except for those in the know. How times have changed😌
I hate when people destroy the types of buildings that give a city charm. Go buy a building somewhere else, dont buy a victorian home and destroy it! That make me so sad to hear about. I can relate. I grew up in a suburb of LA that was built in the 50s. Googie architecture came out of LA in the 50s. So my suburb had a ton of googie and midcentury architecture which was trendy at the time. My neighborhood looked like it came straight out of the 50s. But most the googie architecture has veen destroyed, so it looks like a boring suburb now. The buildings that got built were boring fastfood chains. America looks so bland now
Gray will be the new avacodo green, but not before they paint every house in my neighborhood gray. They're even painting over perfecty good bricks and beautiful stone. STOP IT!
My mom was stationed in San Francisco during WWII. She was an officer and shared a place on Cole Drive with 5 other female officers. She was still in San Francisco when the war ended.
Ah, I've lived here over half of my life now and still love color and details on houses! San Jose tract houses started out with great and striking primary colors and by the 70s, 80s and 90s that drab "earth tone" trend dulled everything down and I'm sure here in San Francisco that was the case too, unfortunately! Even when you see reproductions of The Painted Ladies they usually brighten up the color scheme to more than what they actually look like in reality! I love this row of six gingerbread houses along Waller Street and Masonic near the All Saints Episcopal Church here! Way under appreciated!
The boutique pastel colors of San Fran began in the 1960 by hippies living there. These bright colors actually helped save a lot of these houses since it brought awareness to the fancy trim-work. These Victorians would never have been painted these colors originally. Blue was only used as a trim until WWII. Earth tones were used and by today's standards there was more of a gloomy feel. A dark trim with light body - never white windows was most popular. These Painted Lady colors, although pretty are far from authentic.
Yes, unfortunately, "millennial gray" is everywhere, even in historic LA neighborhoods too. This trend, too, shall pass. In 5 years no one will want it (like brown granite and travertine bit the dust about 8 years ago). Hopefully, the next generation of home owners will come to their senses.
Before the 1906 disaster; they didn't have the paint colors of today. They greens and browns..The SF Italianates would have been white or light grey to look like stone houses. The Eastlake would have been stained wood. Charles Eastlake (British furniture designer)rebelled against painting wood....he felt the natural wood colors were preferable. The Queen Anne's would have been more colorful as a reaction to the earlier style. Logically, there would be a reaction to the very ornate Queen Anne for Mission/Craftman's styles. You don't mention Eastlake style...very prominent ones left today. You don't mention how much the hippies added to colors (psychedelic) to the scene.
As a 33-year-resident of San Francisco, who chose to move here shortly after the devastating 1989 earthquake that caused 10's of 1,000's of people to flee this sleepy little oceanside town, I can unequivocally declare that a "greying" of San Francisco's houses is all too fitting a symbolic indicator of just how drab the latest influx of tech nerds has detrimentally transformed this once diverse, social class interactive, disarmingly friendly town into a self-isolating handheld device worshipping socially maladroit (at best) jamboree of zombies who might as well be living in North Nowhereville Idaho!
There is a deep 21st Century irony in painting a multimillion dollar home grey because it's trendy, when, only 70 years ago, that same building was a deteriorating affordable home painted gray out of cheap necessity.
Nooo when I think of grey paint I think of the modern flipper who buys a home then replaces everything with grey and sells it on the market. the only people painting these homes grey are those trying to sell, no real home owner would want one of these homes in dull monochromatic neutrals.
While I have yet to get to Tallyessent, I have many times visited the hermitage of Paramahansa Yoganada in Encitas California. Years before the first tragedy at Wright’s home, a young man had traveled from Switzerland to study architecture with Frank Lloyd Wright. With this new knowledge he left the colony working with Mr. Wright to become a monk and study the Science of God Realization with Yoganadaji in California. After a few years an affluent student of Yoganadaji purchased some ocean front property in north San Diego County in Encinitas. This hermitage building possesses much of Wright’s style & elements in integrating the natural beauty into the building. Yoganada teaches a system of yoga that incorporates both a western perspective of Christianity into a yogi practice. Few may realize that Wright recognized the reality of reincarnation as a fact in this world. But I don’t think that the young man who left his company to be with Yoganada wanted to prolong his period of stay in this ocean of suffering. Onward and upwards and he built a beautiful hermitage building by the seaside. 🌊
We're back to beige and green for neutrals. Gray is being heavily discouraged by the design community. Once flippers started filling houses with gray everything it became out of style.
A lot of 'folklore' mis-information here. Actual paint anaylsis of historic SF buildings has shown that most victorian homes in San Franscico were originally painted in tans, buffs, ochre or light greys and greens and they usually had a lighter color trim. They were never 'brightly colored'. The colorist movement of the 1960's resulted in the bright colors we associate with San Franscico but they are not 'period correct". Howener the solid gray or black homes being done today are just as inauthentic as the painted ladies of the 1960'/70's.
Here are a couple of the sources I utilized for this video. While white was certainly a popular color, most would have been painted with at least 3 different colors. Not so much the "Easter-egg" palettes we see today, but not monochromatic. UPenn: repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1663&context=hp_theses ; NYT: www.nytimes.com/1979/02/15/archives/design-notebook.html
The gray that is presently rearing it's head in San Francisco is the color of the current times. There is color underneath but you need to scrape the gray away. Hopefully the next generation to move there will find the color that was once there and waiting biding its time to brought back to life.
When reading about these houses online, it appears that they were originally a "chalky" white to imitate stone. They were not "painted ladies" until that 1963 paint job. This is what I've found online - not sure where you have found that they were originally brightly colored.
Here are a couple of the sources I utilized for this video. While white was certainly a popular color, most would have been painted with at least 3 different colors. Not so much the "Easter-egg" palettes we see today, but not monochromatic. UPenn: repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1663&context=hp_theses ; NYT: www.nytimes.com/1979/02/15/archives/design-notebook.html
@@crazynamehere6701 I've lived in San Francisco for over 40 years. For a more accurate picture of what "houses" are for sale, in the city are, focus on just San Francisco, not the SF "area", which is a completely different picture. Also, narrow your focus on "houses", not condos or T.I.C.s.
The price of real estate has far outstripped income, making home ownership out of reach for the average earner. In 1940, the "greatest generation" enjoyed an economic climate in which average income was equal to average home price. Income now lags 8xbehind nationwide and closer to 20/25x in the SF Bay Area. That means, to enjoy the same buying power as our grand or great granparents, we'd either have to make $750K yearly or houses would have to average at $40K
Actually, I’ve seen the opposite trend in New Orleans and Atlanta. Everybody is painting the houses and brick in fluorescent colors. That’s not historically accurate. I’d rather take battleship gray over bright yellow any day. I stand by my words.
Retrofitting the victorian houses with a few pipes and wires for electricity was NOT at all ”incredibly expensive”, but way cheaper than demolishing and building new. Instead, the owners were simply too snobbish and prefered the latest and the shinest because of a change in style/taste and of course, because of how easy its always been in the US to demolish a previous style/age/era building and thats why ALL the american cities have in their centres-downtowns now huge PARKING LOTS instead of pedestrianized and picturesque old towns, full of outdoor eating-drinking spaces and bars and clubs and souvenirs shops... etc. 😉😒
There's a lot of 'slum clearance ' in those parking areas. Post WWII Levittown type suburbs went up everywhere, federally mandated to exclude Blacks/Afro-Americans who were left behind in the inner cities. The 50s and 60s saw millions of the homes occupied by these same excluded folks demolished, leaving fewer and fewer places to go. This occurred in San Francisco's Western Addition, which still boasts some great examples of Victorian architecture, but is mostly newer less attractive development built decades after the original homes (many previously owned by Japanese-American citizens interred during the war) were leveled.
@@scottbraun9615 Gosh, I dont even dare to read all u wrote above, but there were or there still are BIG reasons for which big american cities have plain and concrete parking lots downtown instead of cute, picturesque and popular areas in the same central areas 🤨
@@civfanatic8853 well, it's hard to have a one-sided discussion. I do have a degree from Stanford in Urban Studies with lots of Urban History under my belt. (If I had a brain I'd have chosen Cal...) Petaluma, CA, where I lived many years is one such cute Urban place, shops, cafés and all. Why? Because they couldn't afford to tear it all down in the 60s. If you're interested as your handle would suggest, look into an older book called The Transformation of San Francisco. It's all there.
@@scottbraun9615 Thank You. I know even your post is weird for your fellow americans, but I do NOT care about SanFrancisco in particular. I care about caring for buildings of any age and thus the opposite of the silly and the yucky USA which erases everything for parking lots in the Historical Centres(downtowns) of ANY american town or city 😉😉😀
Paint can be painted over again (unless it is on brick). I’m disturbed by the primary blue color of the same uneducated trend permanently damaging structures in the form of bright blue vinyl siding. Don’t get me started on vinyl flooring referred to as “luxury” glued down on real hardwood floors EVERYWHERE. The flippers are destroying historic character at unprecedented rates & the mid-century want-to-be’s are attempting to morph older homes into their twisted, watered down version of the old formerly wonderful aesthetic. It is a final blow to what little we have left. When will historic preservation be popular?!?!
"The flippers are destroying historic character at unprecedented rates" This is an understatement. They are ruining the beautiful mid century houses in my neighborhood. They are painting everything gray. They are gluing ugly grey tile over beautiful wooden floors. These houses are worth a fortune and I'm afraid they're going to erode the value of my correctly restored house. STOP PAINTING EVERYTHING GRAY.
@@69eddieD sucks! They don’t even recognize true mod-century modern architecture & interior design when they’re standing inside it! What they seem to want is modern construction with its vinyl base cove, windows & siding. There they can “renovate” all they want without leaving a trail of destruction.
Gray and black houses are bland and ugly. 😢 And it's sad people think it's stylish. It's like living in a colour blind world. I can't wait for this fad to pass 😊
Trendy grey paint ??? for real ? the same is happening in california mansion all white square boxes with grey interiors or black and white , so tasteless
Native San Franciscan here! As a kid I remember going into my family's Victorian house. I can still remember the stair case pull you had to use at the top to allow guests in. You had to walk up steep stairs to a landing & turn to go up a short to the main hallway. I can still remember the smell of redwood or other hardwoods used throughout the home. My uncle restored many of these painted ladies in his career. I still have a special place in my heart for them on Diamond St & Square.
I have one of those stair case pulls in my Edwardian home, which still works!
Ken your passion to these historical homes is 1/2 of what makes these videos so entertaining 💛💕
Native SFer. Born, raised and lived in the city for 32 years until marriage. The city needs the colorful side! Miss SF as I don't get home as often to see family and friends.
Great video! I live in San Francisco and while the last decade has seen a rise of monochromatic colors I’d say the majority of Victorians are still colorful. The last couple years I’ve also noticed more color reappearing- on my block alone this year 2 places have been painted from white to yellow and blue. The colorful houses are one of my favorite things about SF.
I remember seeing the painted ladies for the first time when we moved to the Bay Area and went to SF for the first time and they're beautiful. IMO, the painted ladies should always be colorful, I hope they never go monochromatic, I've seen the monochromatic colors around the city and some make sense since they're more modern buildings and I have also seen the color that's been reappearing. Actually, I'm referring it to over a year ago, since we moved to Southern Cali since then (job), no matter what we miss the Bay Area, it's just a different vibe over there. Anyhow, retouching the painted ladies is one thing but please please I hope they don't make them gray.
Lifelong Californian here, some of my ancestors lived in San Francisco. My family has been in California since the Gold Rush. Victorians were not that brightly painted originally. They were mostly white, yellow, green, and varying colors of reddish brown. Sure, that is a lot brighter than battleship gray, but it is far from the psychedelic palette that became popular in the 60s during the Hippie movement. Aniline dyes have been around since the mid 19th Century, but they were not ubiquitously applied to things like paint as far as I know. And black, or charcoal, was actually a color that was used at times in the Victorian period, although it was probably applied more as a trim than the entire body of the house.
Painted Ladies are definitely a mid 20th Century phenomena. I prefer San Franciscan houses to be painted bright Easter colors, but that doesn't mean a dark gray or muted earth tones would be inaccurate, or a complete departure for these homes, I would bet that a lot of the rich people that are snatching up these houses are going with olive greens, clay reds, and browns in the future, to be more in keeping with the original history of the houses and the era they were originally built in,
But back to the original question, am I worried that they're gonna paint the entire city gray? No, I am not. gray is becoming tired and old in the design community. Since the pandemic designers are really fascinated with maximalism. The things that are capturing attention and are chic are design concepts like Dark Academia and cottagecore. Color is also making a comeback. Saturated colors are really in style. So if you've got 8 million in your back pocket that you want to invest in property I am betting you're either gonna go with historic restoration motif or for saturation in your palette. I am not saying that no one will paint their houses gray, but it is considered off trend now.
Here are a couple of the sources I utilized for this video. While white was certainly a popular color, most would have been painted with at least 3 different colors. Not so much the "Easter-egg" palettes we see today, but not monochromatic. UPenn: repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1663&context=hp_theses ; NYT: www.nytimes.com/1979/02/15/archives/design-notebook.html
@@ThisHouse If I recall correctly, the 1978 book, 'Painted Ladies: San Francisco's Resplendent Victorians', by M. Larsen and E. Pomada stated the 'three-color rule', as well. (It's been a bit since I've read it, though.) :)
@@curiousworld7912 Yes, tri-color was very popular. I did a lot of research into the color trends for that era because I plan to buy a large Victorian in Eureka to turn into a B&B. One of the most common colors was that olive green, with cream and clay red trim. On the one hand historic renovation seems appropriate, but I do love those grand painted ladies, like bright pink with white trim. Lots of properties in Eureka are large Victorians that were split up into small rental units. I want to return one of those back to what feels like a single family home, but retain kitchenettes with on-suites.
@@karenholmes6565 It sounds delightful! :) And, the 'green/cream/red' color combination can be very attractive on a home, but I'm not at all adverse to bold choices (although, maybe not to the 'how many different colors can we throw at this' extent of the '60s) :). I love Victorian architecture, and when there is that much detail; it seems only right to accent it.
Another great video, Ken. This one was extremely informative and I had no idea about the surplus of grey paint due to the battleships. It makes perfect sense. I am now
all the wiser because of you. Thanks!
Darryl
So beautiful! I love the old homes and so glad the gray is going away! NO not gray again!!!
I am so surprised,how you collect these much information and pictures,it's a great effort and your videos documents the forgotten life
This was very interesting. Love those houses in any color.
So do I.
I always enjoy your videos. Thank you for your continued content! One thing to add about demolished Victorians in San Francisco, is that in the 50's and 60's in the guise of "urban renewal", a large part of a neighborhood known as the "Western Addition" was bulldozed. This area was a low income area, and many homes were in disrepair, as a result. The owners could not afford to update their properties, and as a result, it became a less desirable area to live, with much crime.
The city lawmakers decided to deal with this by bulldozing many square blocks of beautiful old Victorians, and building "modern" low income public housing units. Those that were spared became choice properties, that were spared "modernizing", leaving most of the original detailing was still intact, inside and out, some with original gas lighting. Many future owners bought and restored them to their original splendor.
BUT Fillmore was The Tin Pan Alley 4 the blues population, before them the nisei population. There s a nice strech left on McAllister still in voluptuous color. A long documentary on the forum concerning the after hours jazz & r&b scene is available.
I love going to San Francisco around the first week of October... ✌
This was a fascinating story incorporating history, artistry, and beauty. Made me smile. :)
Saw san Francisco and loved it
I lived in SF in the late 60's/70's.... the old Victorians were amazing, and unfortunately, still being torn down here & there. You could even find original stained glass windows in the construction dumpsters... sad that they weren't valued, except for those in the know.
How times have changed😌
I hate when people destroy the types of buildings that give a city charm. Go buy a building somewhere else, dont buy a victorian home and destroy it! That make me so sad to hear about.
I can relate. I grew up in a suburb of LA that was built in the 50s. Googie architecture came out of LA in the 50s. So my suburb had a ton of googie and midcentury architecture which was trendy at the time. My neighborhood looked like it came straight out of the 50s. But most the googie architecture has veen destroyed, so it looks like a boring suburb now. The buildings that got built were boring fastfood chains. America looks so bland now
As a designer I call this sad trend "Greige" beige and gray, the color of death
Gray will be the new avacodo green, but not before they paint every house in my neighborhood gray. They're even painting over perfecty good bricks and beautiful stone. STOP IT!
@@69eddieD people are creatures of habit--copycat habit--sadly, they know not who they are to express themselves anymore
My mom was stationed in San Francisco during WWII. She was an officer and shared a place on Cole Drive with 5 other female officers. She was still in San Francisco when the war ended.
Ah, I've lived here over half of my life now and still love color and details on houses! San Jose tract houses started out with great and striking primary colors and by the 70s, 80s and 90s that drab "earth tone" trend dulled everything down and I'm sure here in San Francisco that was the case too, unfortunately! Even when you see reproductions of The Painted Ladies they usually brighten up the color scheme to more than what they actually look like in reality! I love this row of six gingerbread houses along Waller Street and Masonic near the All Saints Episcopal Church here! Way under appreciated!
Thanks Ken as always great video!!✌️🇺🇲
The boutique pastel colors of San Fran began in the 1960 by hippies living there. These bright colors actually helped save a lot of these houses since it brought awareness to the fancy trim-work. These Victorians would never have been painted these colors originally. Blue was only used as a trim until WWII. Earth tones were used and by today's standards there was more of a gloomy feel. A dark trim with light body - never white windows was most popular. These Painted Lady colors, although pretty are far from authentic.
Thanks for your hard work. Loved your narration and video/pictures. 🤗
Why anyone would want to live in a drab and cheerless house is beyond me.
Mine is yellow, by the way.
MINE is electricity/russian bright pale blue, brighter than sky blue. Extremy therapeutic, esp. during approachin WW3 time. N Europe.
Yes, unfortunately, "millennial gray" is everywhere, even in historic LA neighborhoods too. This trend, too, shall pass. In 5 years no one will want it (like brown granite and travertine bit the dust about 8 years ago). Hopefully, the next generation of home owners will come to their senses.
Before the 1906 disaster; they didn't have the paint colors of today. They greens and browns..The SF Italianates would have been white or light grey to look like stone houses. The Eastlake would have been stained wood. Charles Eastlake (British furniture designer)rebelled against painting wood....he felt the natural wood colors were preferable. The Queen Anne's would have been more colorful as a reaction to the earlier style. Logically, there would be a reaction to the very ornate Queen Anne for Mission/Craftman's styles. You don't mention Eastlake style...very prominent ones left today. You don't mention how much the hippies added to colors (psychedelic) to the scene.
As a 33-year-resident of San Francisco, who chose to move here shortly after the devastating 1989 earthquake that caused 10's of 1,000's of people to flee this sleepy little oceanside town, I can unequivocally declare that a "greying" of San Francisco's houses is all too fitting a symbolic indicator of just how drab the latest influx of tech nerds has detrimentally transformed this once diverse, social class interactive, disarmingly friendly town into a self-isolating handheld device worshipping socially maladroit (at best) jamboree of zombies who might as well be living in North Nowhereville Idaho!
Funny thing! I moved to CT and was asked to join the "Seven Sisters Club". It was a small town and I lived across the street from the governor of CT.
There is a deep 21st Century irony in painting a multimillion dollar home grey because it's trendy, when, only 70 years ago, that same building was a deteriorating affordable home painted gray out of cheap necessity.
Nooo when I think of grey paint I think of the modern flipper who buys a home then replaces everything with grey and sells it on the market. the only people painting these homes grey are those trying to sell, no real home owner would want one of these homes in dull monochromatic neutrals.
Definitely prefer the vibrant colors!
Sincere wishes from your sincere subscriber
Please do a video about Melrose in the Natchez Plantations in Mississippi. It was used in the movie Beulahland in 1980.
So over grey, white and black on Victorian Renovations. Italianate styles look incredible when painted in their original colours.
Another fascinating historical video. Thank you Ken and team! It's a shame to paint over these vibrant homes.
While I have yet to get to Tallyessent, I have many times visited the hermitage of Paramahansa Yoganada in Encitas California. Years before the first tragedy at Wright’s home, a young man had traveled from Switzerland to study architecture with Frank Lloyd Wright. With this new knowledge he left the colony working with Mr. Wright to become a monk and study the Science of God Realization with Yoganadaji in California. After a few years an affluent student of Yoganadaji purchased some ocean front property in north San Diego County in Encinitas. This hermitage building possesses much of Wright’s style & elements in integrating the natural beauty into the building.
Yoganada teaches a system of yoga that incorporates both a western perspective of Christianity into a yogi practice. Few may realize that Wright recognized the reality of reincarnation as a fact in this world. But I don’t think that the young man who left his company to be with Yoganada wanted to prolong his period of stay in this ocean of suffering. Onward and upwards and he built a beautiful hermitage building by the seaside. 🌊
They should be listed and protected buildings and that includes their historic colour I say
If you're going to have a cookie cuuter house it is nice to have it brightly colored and look different than the rest of the block. 🙂🇨🇦
Sorry gray is unhappy color to me on a house. We have beige now years before was light green.
We're back to beige and green for neutrals. Gray is being heavily discouraged by the design community. Once flippers started filling houses with gray everything it became out of style.
I would check with the historical society.
A lot of 'folklore' mis-information here. Actual paint anaylsis of historic SF buildings has shown that most victorian homes in San Franscico were originally painted in tans, buffs, ochre or light greys and greens and they usually had a lighter color trim. They were never 'brightly colored'. The colorist movement of the 1960's resulted in the bright colors we associate with San Franscico but they are not 'period correct". Howener the solid gray or black homes being done today are just as inauthentic as the painted ladies of the 1960'/70's.
Here are a couple of the sources I utilized for this video. While white was certainly a popular color, most would have been painted with at least 3 different colors. Not so much the "Easter-egg" palettes we see today, but not monochromatic. UPenn: repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1663&context=hp_theses ; NYT: www.nytimes.com/1979/02/15/archives/design-notebook.html
The gray that is presently rearing it's head in San Francisco is the color of the current times. There is color underneath but you need to scrape the gray away. Hopefully the next generation to move there will find the color that was once there and waiting biding its time to brought back to life.
When reading about these houses online, it appears that they were originally a "chalky" white to imitate stone. They were not "painted ladies" until that 1963 paint job. This is what I've found online - not sure where you have found that they were originally brightly colored.
Here are a couple of the sources I utilized for this video. While white was certainly a popular color, most would have been painted with at least 3 different colors. Not so much the "Easter-egg" palettes we see today, but not monochromatic. UPenn: repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1663&context=hp_theses ; NYT: www.nytimes.com/1979/02/15/archives/design-notebook.html
@@ThisHouse Thank you! I love your channel!
Houses are NOT being sold in SF for "upwards of $8 Million". I live here. I have lived here for over 20 years. The average is closer to $2 million.
I just looked on zillow. There are about 10 pages of homes above the $8 million mark in the SF area.
@@crazynamehere6701 I've lived in San Francisco for over 40 years. For a more accurate picture of what "houses" are for sale, in the city are, focus on just San Francisco, not the SF "area", which is a completely different picture. Also, narrow your focus on "houses", not condos or T.I.C.s.
The price of real estate has far outstripped income, making home ownership out of reach for the average earner. In 1940, the "greatest generation" enjoyed an economic climate in which average income was equal to average home price. Income now lags 8xbehind nationwide and closer to 20/25x in the SF Bay Area. That means, to enjoy the same buying power as our grand or great granparents, we'd either have to make $750K yearly or houses would have to average at $40K
I would always try and get to the original color work through the layers. Just my 2¢ worth.
I'll let you know late July after I visit.
Check out the painted ladies of Columbia Tusculum in Cincinnati
I like gray, but it has its place and time.
They painted a red brick chicago bungalow gray near me. Im conflicted as it should be a crime. But it actually looks better than it did.
Actually, I’ve seen the opposite trend in New Orleans and Atlanta. Everybody is painting the houses and brick in fluorescent colors. That’s not historically accurate. I’d rather take battleship gray over bright yellow any day. I stand by my words.
Retrofitting the victorian houses with a few pipes and wires for electricity was NOT at all ”incredibly expensive”, but way cheaper than demolishing and building new. Instead, the owners were simply too snobbish and prefered the latest and the shinest because of a change in style/taste and of course, because of how easy its always been in the US to demolish a previous style/age/era building and thats why ALL the american cities have in their centres-downtowns now huge PARKING LOTS instead of pedestrianized and picturesque old towns, full of outdoor eating-drinking spaces and bars and clubs and souvenirs shops... etc. 😉😒
There's a lot of 'slum clearance ' in those parking areas. Post WWII Levittown type suburbs went up everywhere, federally mandated to exclude Blacks/Afro-Americans who were left behind in the inner cities. The 50s and 60s saw millions of the homes occupied by these same excluded folks demolished, leaving fewer and fewer places to go. This occurred in San Francisco's Western Addition, which still boasts some great examples of Victorian architecture, but is mostly newer less attractive development built decades after the original homes (many previously owned by Japanese-American citizens interred during the war) were leveled.
@@scottbraun9615 Gosh, I dont even dare to read all u wrote above, but there were or there still are BIG reasons for which big american cities have plain and concrete parking lots downtown instead of cute, picturesque and popular areas in the same central areas 🤨
@@civfanatic8853 well, it's hard to have a one-sided discussion. I do have a degree from Stanford in Urban Studies with lots of Urban History under my belt. (If I had a brain I'd have chosen Cal...)
Petaluma, CA, where I lived many years is one such cute Urban place, shops, cafés and all. Why? Because they couldn't afford to tear it all down in the 60s. If you're interested as your handle would suggest, look into an older book called The Transformation of San Francisco. It's all there.
@@scottbraun9615 Thank You. I know even your post is weird for your fellow americans, but I do NOT care about SanFrancisco in particular. I care about caring for buildings of any age and thus the opposite of the silly and the yucky USA which erases everything for parking lots in the Historical Centres(downtowns) of ANY american town or city 😉😉😀
@@civfanatic8853 where do you live?
Grey is a depressing color to me.
Not all gray.
The homeless population anywhere near them?
Paint can be painted over again (unless it is on brick). I’m disturbed by the primary blue color of the same uneducated trend permanently damaging structures in the form of bright blue vinyl siding. Don’t get me started on vinyl flooring referred to as “luxury” glued down on real hardwood floors EVERYWHERE. The flippers are destroying historic character at unprecedented rates & the mid-century want-to-be’s are attempting to morph older homes into their twisted, watered down version of the old formerly wonderful aesthetic. It is a final blow to what little we have left. When will historic preservation be popular?!?!
"The flippers are destroying historic character at unprecedented rates"
This is an understatement. They are ruining the beautiful mid century houses in my neighborhood. They are painting everything gray. They are gluing ugly grey tile over beautiful wooden floors. These houses are worth a fortune and I'm afraid they're going to erode the value of my correctly restored house.
STOP PAINTING EVERYTHING GRAY.
@@69eddieD sucks! They don’t even recognize true mod-century modern architecture & interior design when they’re standing inside it! What they seem to want is modern construction with its vinyl base cove, windows & siding. There they can “renovate” all they want without leaving a trail of destruction.
Gray is soooo boring!
I hate grey, I hope they keep the candy colors. Battleship gray lol... amazing
After all there's 50 shades of grey
I'm so tired of people painting the interior of their houses gray and white. It's so boring and sterile.
Absolutely NOT!
Gray and black houses are bland and ugly. 😢
And it's sad people think it's stylish. It's like living in a colour blind world. I can't wait for this fad to pass 😊
Maybe San Francisco is tired of the rainbow trend.
Trendy grey paint ??? for real ? the same is happening in california mansion all white square boxes with grey interiors or black and white , so tasteless
Who cares?
I do! And so do others.
People who care about the value of their property care deeply.