Meyer, Frederick Herman
Entry Author: David
Parry
Architect
 Frederick
Herman Meyer was born on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco on
June 26, 1876, the son of German immigrant parents who became
naturalized citizens in 1877. His father John Nicolaus Meyer
was a cabinetmaker. Meyer had no formal architectural training,
but he started work in 1896 as a draftsman with builders Campbell
and Pettus. In 1898 he joined established Victorian-era architect
Samuel Newsom, who quickly promoted him to partner.
Examples of two surviving grand houses that Meyer designed
with Newsom in Pacific Heights in 1899 are 1916 Octavia Street,
now an Academy of Arts College facility, and 1901 Pacific
Avenue, now ten units. After the partnership with Newsom dissolved,
Meyer designed 2474-78 Broadway, a 3-flat building, in 1901
by himself.
In January 1902, Meyer entered into a partnership with Smith
O'Brien who was 8 years older and had been trained in architect
Clinton Day's office. That productive partnership was to last
for 6 years. Meyer and O'Brien visited Chicago to gain an
appreciation of office building architecture and returned
to design the Rialto Building at 116 New Montgomery in a U-shape
with a central light court and a uniform window arrangement
for flexibility in subdividing the floors.
They designed several more office buildings, before and after
1906, and several Pacific Heights residences including 2480
Broadway (1902), 2032-34 Baker (1903, now 2 condos), and 2021-23
Baker (1904, 2 flats). After the 1906 earthquake and fire
they were responsible for the Cadillac Hotel at the north-west
corner of Eddy and Leavenworth, which is now designated as
San Francisco Landmark #176.
Meyer opened his own office in 1908 in the Humboldt Bank
Building (785 Market, which he had designed with O'Brien and
which had been rebuilt after the 1906 disaster). Soon after
Mayor James 'Sunny Jim' Rolph was elected in 1911, Meyer was
appointed, along with John Galen Howard and John Reid, Jr.,
to lay out the plan for building a new Civic Center. The concept
of a Civic Center had first been applied in San Francisco
by architect and town planner Bernard Cahill to ideas he had
been working on since 1899. Prominent Chicago architect Daniel
Burnham, the instigator of the City Beautiful Movement which
had gained favor nationwide, had been asked to develop a City
Plan for San Francisco back in 1904 and Burnham had incorporated
Cahill's Civic Center concept in the Plan. The 1906 earthquake
set back development of it for several years, but Mayor Rolph
got the initiative underway in conjunction with the rebuilding
of City Hall.
Meyer wholeheartedly embraced the City Beautiful Movement.
Later, after a bond issue was passed in March 1912 to fund
the new City Hall, Howard, Meyer and Reid were given a second
assignment: to conduct the architectural competition for it.
Cahill got that competition restricted just to San Francisco
firms and it was won by Bakewell & Brown, resulting in
the magnificent Beaux-Arts structure that anchors the Civic
Center today.
Howard, Meyer and Reid themselves designed the Auditorium
on the south side of the Civic Center, which opened in time
for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. First
called the Exposition Auditorium, it now honors the memory
of concert promoter Bill Graham.
In November 1909, Meyer bought a 25' by 70' parcel of land
on the east side of Steiner just south of Vallejo, from Frederick
Drinkhouse and his wife Alma. Meyer set about designing the
house which stands there now and is the subject of this month's
article. Almost a year later Meyer was able to buy an L-shaped
extension to the lot, which provided an extra 25' of rear
yard and an unusual, but convenient, 5' wide side pathway
out to Vallejo Street. Instrumental in arranging that sale
was fellow architect T. Paterson Ross. Ross had designed the
corner home in 1909 on what was then a 26'6" by 70' lot,
but he was able to distribute the remaining 30' by 51'6"
of the corner parcel owned by Drinkhouse between the 3 adjoining
properties, 2375 and 2395 Vallejo and 2756 Steiner. A deed
in August 1910 from Ross and his wife Lillian shows the transfer
of the rear yard and the Vallejo access strip to Meyer.
2756 Steiner has a classical Meyer design, with symmetry
and elegance. The brick-faced first story provides two balanced
openings, the one on the left for pedestrian entry and the
one on the right leading to a recessed garage and providing
additional off-street covered parking for visitors to the
home. On the main level, three full-length French doors with
curved arches above them open from the living room to a wrought-iron
balcony, which has scroll brackets below it. On the bedroom
level, three matching windows continue the symmetry and the
composition is capped by a formal and 'correct' classical
cornice with block modillions. Note the absence of bay windows,
which would have been tempting on a north-south street to
extend the living space and draw in the Bay view down Steiner
Street. The living room and dining room still have original
hand-painted beamed ceilings and woodwork.
It is interesting to review some of Meyer's larger residential
work from that period and to notice the similarities in the
use of brick cladding and the absence of bay windows. He was
responsible for several substantial Downtown apartment buildings
including two opposite each other at 980 and 999 Bush, both
designed in 1910, of 73 and 35 apartments respectively. Some
of his other major residential buildings include 775 Post
(1913, 84 apts.), 795 Sutter (1913, 18 apts.) and 956 Post
(1915, 32 apts.). In Pacific Heights he designed the corner
apartment building, now condominiums at 2195 Green (1914,
10 apts.), a house at 2430 Pacific in 1917, and the apartments
at 2595 Washington (1918, 9 apts.).
The garage at 2756 Steiner would have been an early innovation
for a 1910 house, but is consistent with Meyer's strong interest
in motoring and transportation. He was an early member of
the California State Automobile Association, which was formed
in 1907, and a founder of the Redwood Empire Association,
which was established in 1920 to promote tourism in the Northern
California and Southern Oregon coastal redwood counties. Frederick
Meyer and his wife Lilian lived at 2756 Steiner for over 20
years, selling it in January 1932 and moving to Sausalito.
During World War II Meyer was appointed San Francisco's Administrator
of Defense Transportation, refusing a $10,000 p.a. salary
for the position, which was admired as a master-stroke by
an editorial in the local press at the time, "......
an encouraging exhibition of prudence, not to say astuteness.
He will serve without salary, which means his appointment
did not have to go to the Board of Supervisors ....... his
avoidance of the status of a paid city official reduces to
lowest terms the possibilities of meddling and monkey-wrench-hurling
by City Hall and other professional and amateur meddlers and
monkey-wrench-hurlers."
In his long and distinguished career, Meyer formed several
other professional partnerships, including with Albin R. Johnson
(until 1926) with whom he designed the Elks Club at 456 Post
Street and such houses as 2950 Broadway (1922); and also with
Albert J. Evers after World War II, designing schools and
office buildings. He was a Regional Director of the American
Institute of Architects and was made a Fellow in 1934. He
was also a member of the State Board of Architectural Examiners,
the licensing authority, for 15 years from 1927 to 1941 and
its President for 5 of them, 1928-30 and 1936-37.
Meyer died on March 6, 1961 in Marin General Hospital after
a long illness. He had a namesake working in the Bay Area,
another Frederick H. Meyer, who was prominent in the Bay Area
Arts and Crafts movement, had taught at the Hopkins Institute
of Art on Nob Hill prior to the 1906 earthquake and after
that institution was destroyed in the fire, founded the California
College of Arts and Crafts in 1907. This Meyer had been born
in Hamelin, Germany in 1872. Both had fathers or uncles who
were cabinet makers. The older Meyer had died exactly two
months earlier, on January 6, 1961. Researchers should be
aware that the Examiner obituary of architect Meyer published
on March 7, 1961 managed to confuse the accomplishments of
the two and had to be corrected the following day!
Entry taken from the website of David Parry at www.classicSFproperties.com
and is used by permission. Unauthorized use of this copyrighted
material is strictly forbidden without permission from the
author.
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Born: San Francisco, California, June 26, 1876