Top SF Designers Give Holiday Decorating Tips They Personally Use

Well, we have the first recommendation from Scot Meacham Wood covered, as he says don’t set up the tree and bust out all the holiday decorations until after Thanksgiving. A lot of people get going with Christmas home decorating the day after Thanksgiving Day, meaning they’re doing Christmas décor while also going through Black Friday shopping fun.

Wood, this year, ended up doing his home holiday makeover early as he had a photo shoot for it. He went for the holiday hosting look by transforming one of his bedrooms into a formal dining room. He draped the room in 78 yards of marine blue silk taffeta stapled to the walls—with a box pleat motif and a red grosgrain ribbon adding a trim to the edges. Three Christmas trees occupy the room: one with ornaments and garlands, and the other two with subdued variations of four lights. White roses and cedar branches festoon the table.

Kendall Wilkinson took to decorating her studio/retail space windows for the SF holiday window shopping season, and it translates well into the home. She says she took her holiday color ideas from a recent Elle Décor Showhouse exhibit of her work. “The audience there really seemed to respond to the palette of chartreuse, dark ocean turquoise and violet,” she said, referring to the office she designed. “So I thought, ‘Why not spin that into a fun look for the holidays?’ ” She also teamed up those colors with boxwood garlands illuminated with violet lights. In her own home she says she sticks with white light, mixing them with glass bulb ornaments in the soft palette of white, crystal, silver and lavender.

Click here for the full story, courtesy of sfgate.com.

Plans for Folsom Street 143 Below-Market Apartments and Arts Space

As reported on Socketsite.com this is good news for a more forlorn stretch of Folsom Street at the northwest corner of Folsom and 16th. Final plans for an eight story building covering the entire corner and housing 143 affordable below-market apartments and a very spacious arts center have been submitted to the city. The arts center will be 12,000 feet, and an accompanying childcare facility will be 4,400 square feet. The project is tentatively referred to as 1990 Folsom Street.

The plans were developed by Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects, and the funding is coming from Proposition A and is proposed by the Mission Economic Development Agency and the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Center.

Twenty nine of the apartments are dedicated to formerly homeless families, with the rest of the 143 apartments reserved for families earning between 50 and 60 percent of San Francisco’s Area Median Income—about $90,000 a year. The building will feature studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units.

The development team is intending to work with Art Space Development Corporation to run 1990’s PDR (Production, Distribution and Repair) space with affordable rates for artists “to ensure that the space is accessible to working artists in perpetuity, while also extending the experience of the Latino Cultural District to the northeastern, industrial portion of the community.”

The Ghosts of Pacific Heights Past Available on a Walking Tour

Charles Dickens should have used some very lugubrious ghosts from the Pacific Heights neighborhood in his books. Who knew? Pacific Heights, the uber exclusive, mansion-rich district has a past filled with ghosts—and there’s a walking tour to peek in on these ethereal shades. So goes a story from sfcurbed.com.

Local and professional magician Christian Cagigal is the in-the-know tour guide for his walking tours he’s been doing among Pac Heights (alleged) haunted houses since 1997. From Halloween onto Christmas is his most human-filled season—people wanting to hear all the fascinating ghost lore of the Height’s rich and not-so-famous.

What possibly could happen in Pac Heights that’s ghost worthy? About everything you can think of: murder, blackmail, voodoo, séances, blood feuds, hidden treasure, and wealthy heir’s bodies pickled in rum barrels.

The result is there’s quite a few hauntings in the Heights, and the residences themselves have been well preserved, and were not razed to the ground by the 1906 earthquake and fires. Plus the ghost adventures carry much of the city’s history.

One telling example of a historical ghost is Mary Ellen Pleasant, a 19th century entrepreneur and abolitionist whom Cagigal says, “She’s been called the mother of civil rights in California.” And he says she’s also been called the voodoo queen of San Francisco. She is purported to have blackmailed some of SF’s wealthy patrons. Her spirit has been seen since her death in 1904 in the 30-room Italianate mansion on Octavia Street.

Full story is here

San Francisco and SFO Thanksgiving Turkey Travel—Most Since 2007

Happy Thanksgiving to all who read this blog, and may this day bring you much to be grateful for in living with family, friends, and coworkers in our beautiful, bountiful city.

Today the city is gobble, gobble, gobble, busy, busy, busy with turkey-and-dressing traffic as we San Franciscans crisscross the city for the ultimate big-eating dinner with family or friends or to restaurants (booming today). Or off to the supermarket (the ones that are open) to get things forgotten.

But SFO has been taking the cake (actually, pumpkin pie) for being stuffed with travelers. The always predicting AAA is saying that more people will travel for Thanksgiving fests in 2016 than have since 2007—the year before the big real estate and bank crash. There’s been long, long lines at SFO but no delays reported over the past few travel days.

SFO officials are projecting that 6.5 million people will be traveling through the airport during the holiday season—from Thanksgiving through Christmas and New Years 2017. And about 160,000 turkey travelers will be coming home this Sunday through the airport—probably a couple of pounds heavier.

Airbnb Gets Curbed on Short Term Rentals by SF Supervisors

The battle between Airbnb and the city of San Francisco seems to be drawing to a close with a recent vote by SF supervisors legislating that Airbnb’s unregistered hosts will likely face an annual 60-day cap on rentals.

The problem to the city is that with Airbnb hosts most of them are not officially registered as rentals, thus the SF Budget Analyst office stated that over 1900 residences in SF were off the rental market—by scofflaw short-term hosts. There are thousands of these hosts in the city. Many of them list two or more residences—also against the law.

Despite a SF Board of Supervisors’ strictness in regulations in 2014 most of the hosts (including Airbnb’s) didn’t register. In June 2016 the supervisors passed legislation fining short term rental companies $1,000 a day per law-breaking host. Airbnb sued over this which a federal judge struck down.

Although Airbnb become resigned to the law and promised to track down unregistered hosts, the supervisors are now putting a 60 day maximum per year rental total on unregistered hosts. Already registered hosts can rent out for 90 days while being absent, and for as long as they wish as long as they are present in the residence.

San Franciscans Spend Only 26% of Income on Rent—That’s Low

One of the telling, useful figures that the U.S. Census Bureau tracks is what percentage of income for city dwellers goes to month to month rent. It turns out that San Francisco is one of the lowest rent-to-income ratios in the country, which is counter intuitive as the rents here are about as high as cumulus clouds.

The percentage we dole out to rent out of our hard won incomes is 26 percent. That is well below the 30 percent that the Census Bureau terms as “rent-burdened.” And 29 out of 50 cities in the US are rent burdened, so we’re in a pretty good position.

The reason for this surprising low rent-to-income ratio is that the salaries in San Francisco are just as sky high as the rents. SF residents who work in tech, science and other comparable professions pull in on average $98,000 a year—and they make up a good deal of the renters in the city. While there are a lot of us who make less than that living in the city (and the rent is higher in percentage of income), the median still keeps us at the 26 percent figure. That figure was higher: in 2012 it was 29% and it has dropped each successive year.

Way High and Way Low Home Sales in SF Last Week

SFcurbed.com logged the most expensive home sale in the city in the past week, and the least expensive sale so we get a seesaw view of residential real estate for seven days. Actually, in a disclaimer SFcurbed confessed that the really high sale was on November 10th, more than a week ago.

One thing that came out of this piece is that there are really a lot of $10 million-plus homes selling in 2016. It’s the year of living luxuriously.

The biggest price tag sale ($17.8 million with a $1.1 million haircut) is a fantastically lovely beachfront mansion in Sea Cliff, designed by Albert Farr, who among many claims to fame was one of the first Californians to receive an architect’s license. The mansion is laid out with six bedrooms and six bathrooms with a truly enormous living room, and enough French doors and glasswork to impress Charles de Galle. The view takes in Baker Beach and the Marin Headlands with the Golden Gate Bridge plunked in the middle.

The smallest price tag goes to a studio on Red Rock Way in the Diamond Heights area. For $492,00 the new owners got 590 square feet of contemporary and slightly cramped comfort.

A 1928 Tudor House On Pacific Avenue Wall of Presidio Up For Sale

San Francisco is known for grand old Victorian style houses, not for the more subdued, stately Tudor style. Nevertheless there are a goodly number of gorgeous Tudor homes in SF, coming out of the Tudor Revival period of 1890 through 1940.

A beautiful example of the Tudor Revival in SF is now on the market—a brick-stone-and-wood home built in 1928 and owned by only two families in its storied and well kept history. Located at 3383 Pacific Avenue the house boasts the lifestyle architecture of the rich and famous just before the 1929 stock market crash: manicured gardens, a solarium, capacious butler’s pantry, a resplendent library, and seven bedrooms, six full baths and a couple of half baths.

In a continuity of ownership that has both pluses and minuses, this Tudor has been owned by the same family since 1960. This means kitchen and bathroom remakes haven’t been done for modern use and indulgence, but all the original, historic crafting and materials (including leaded glass) are exquisitely maintained.

The asking price is a Tudor-worthy $14 million. And this includes gorgeous, tree-filled views of the Presidio and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Too Much Love For Mural Walls in Clarion Alley

SF is the city with the mostest when it comes to outdoor mural art adorning alleyways and sides of buildings. We blogged about mural artist Shepard Fairey being in town back in August, finishing large pieces in Hayes Valley and in the Mission District. But as sfweekly.com reports the epicenter of mural art in the city is Clarion Alley (used to be Cedar Alley), a block long scene of didactic art running from Valencia Street to Mission, between 17th and 18th streets.

The popularity of Clarion Alley for top-level mural art has endured for over 25 years, but now with the art form increasing in pop culture and tourism culture and bragging-rights culture the Alley is under threat from too much attention, or “love” as the sfweekly piece calls it. The Alley is actually run by volunteers who have taken it upon themselves to voice the grievances of the surrounding community. Now, tour buses come down the alley, tourists walk it, instagram carries it along with other social media broadcasters, and condo developers hype their closeness to Clarion to prove they’re “edgy” and “vibrant.” Ad campaigns are shot on its sidewalks, with or without permission, and often when city permission is denied.

The Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP) is striving to take all this on, and also deal with vandalism and the fact that the artwork is not permanent but is painted over (with permission) with new art.

Click here for full article