Polk, Willis Jefferson
Entry Author: David
Parry
Architect
 Willis
Jefferson Polk was born in Jacksonville, Illinois on October
3, 1867, the eldest of five children. His father, Willis Webb
Polk (1836-1906), was also an architect. At the age of 14
Polk became an architect's apprentice and in 1882 he won a
competition for the design of a six-room schoolhouse in Hope,
Arkansas, where his family then lived. In 1885 the partnership
of W. W. Polk & Sons, including Daniel Polk, Willis' brother,
was established in Kansas City. Between 1887 and 1889 Willis
traveled extensively and acquired experience working for many
architects including Ernest
Coxhead and A. Page
Brown. Brown encouraged Willis to follow him out to San
Francisco. Polk's family also then moved here and the new
firm of Polk & Polk was opened in 1892 with young Willis
providing the creativity, his brother Daniel doing the drafting,
and his father supervising construction projects.
Polk's earliest residential design work in the City was on
Russian Hill and is well documented in Richard Longstreth's
On the Edge of the World and Bill Kostura's Russian Hill
- the Summit 1853-1906. He remodeled the Horatio Livermore
home at 1045 Vallejo in 1891, and in 1892 he designed two
multi-level houses at 1013-19 Vallejo for his family and a
client, waiving his fee for the eastern portion of the lot.
The structure he designed for himself was recently listed
for sale for $4,000,000. Some of his other early residential
commissions were in Presidio Heights at 116 Cherry (in 1891)
and 3203 Pacific (an extensive remodel in 1892). A little
while later, in Pacific Heights he designed 2015 Pacific (in
1894), 2622 Jackson (also in 1894, for George W. Gibbs, San
Francisco Landmark #203), and 2550 Webster (in 1896, for William
B. Bourn, San Francisco Landmark #38).
The Gibbs Mansion at 2622 Jackson, pictured here, is in the
Italian Renaissance style and was declared at the time by
the Examiner to be 'the first classical residence in San Francisco'.
The round entrance portico is reminiscent of a Tuscan villa.
The exterior is gray Oregon sandstone and the home features
a Gladding McBean glazed tile roof. Sadly, George Gibbs died
only two months after moving into it, but his widow Augusta
continued to occupy it until her death in 1918. It later became
the Japanese Consulate until the outbreak of World War II.
It then served as headquarters for the local chapter of the
Red Cross until the late 1940's when it was purchased by the
San Francisco Music and Arts Institute. It was sold in 1993
to designer Agnes Bourne, who supervised the renovation of
it and made it available to University High School as their
1994 Decorator Showcase house. In May 1995 it was bought by
the present owner, a pre-eminent writer/movie director. Hidden
behind the house to the northwest, closer to Pacific than
to Jackson, is a little-known two-story structure originally
built as a caretaker's residence for the main house. Now subdivided
from the original parcel and separately owned, it was also
designed by Polk & Polk, and is included in the Landmark
case report as an unusual support structure for such a house
in the area.
Polk's father retired from the firm in 1896 and Daniel Polk
had already departed to play banjo in vaudeville, which left
Willis Polk struggling to survive in business. He was forced
to declare bankruptcy in 1897, which hurt his reputation and
his ego. He worked out of the Vallejo family house until late
in 1899 when he joined architect George
W. Percy after Percy's partner F.
F. Hamilton died.
In 1900 Polk married Christine Barreda, moving into her family's
home in Pacific Heights at what is now 2141 Buchanan. In 1901
they relocated to Chicago so Polk could work for famed architect
Daniel Burnham. Burnham had laid out the 1893 World's Columbian
Exposition in Chicago, which sparked the American Renaissance
of arts and architecture, and had already designed two important
San Francisco buildings - 690 Market (in 1889) and 220 Montgomery
(in 1891). While in Chicago, in 1903, Polk designed 465 California
for the firm. After a three-month trip to Europe, Polk returned
to San Francisco in the fall of 1903, beginning a partnership
with George A. Wright which lasted until 1906, being dissolved
just prior to the April earthquake.
Burnham had become a leader of the nationwide City Beautiful
movement and was asked in 1904 to produce a San Francisco
Plan. His associate, Edward H. Bennett, led the project, with
Polk assisting, and the plan was completed in 1905. The 1906
earthquake and fire killed its chances of being implemented,
but Polk convinced Burnham to reopen a San Francisco office
which Polk then ran for four years before they parted ways
again in July 1910.
Among the many D. H. Burnham & Co. commissions after
the earthquake was a remodel of the gutted shell of the Flood
mansion at 1000 California into the Pacific Union Club. It
was arranged by William B. Bourn, President of the Spring
Valley Water Company and owner of Grass Valley's Empire Mine.
Bourn was a patron of Polk's for whom Polk designed many projects,
including the aforementioned 2550 Webster and also Bourn's
country estate Filoli on Cañada Road in Woodside. Much
later Filoli was made famous as the Carrington house in the
television series Dynasty.
In 1914 the Livermore family commissioned Polk to further
improve the 1000 block of Vallejo. Polk designed the unusual
double access ramp from Jones Street and also the houses on
Russian Hill Place (1, 3, 5 and 7) that provide the flanking
wall on Jones, but look like simple cottages when you are
standing on Russian Hill Place. Among other notable post-earthquake
residences in Pacific Heights designed by Polk are 2820 Pacific
(1912), 2960 Broadway (1912), 2880 Broadway (1913), 1969 California
(1915), 2233 Lyon (1916), 2840 Broadway (1917), and 2255 Lyon
(1920).
In addition to his residential work, Polk played a leading
role in the planning of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International
Exposition as the initial supervising architect, generously
giving the design of the Palace of Fine Arts, which had been
assigned to his office, to Bernard Maybeck after being impressed
by Maybeck's initial sketches. The Palace of Fine Arts, rebuilt
in 1962, is the only significant structure that survived in
place after the Exposition ended.
Polk was an untiring advocate for civic improvements. A volatile
personality, he could sometimes be difficult to get along
with, but his talent was never in dispute. During the construction
of the Hobart Building at 582 Market (1914, San Francisco
Landmark #162) he mounted a protest while perched on a steel
girder ten stories up after a City building inspector tried
to have the work stopped. Polk had decided that lath and plaster
fireproofing of the structural steel in the building was better
than the concrete soffit called for by the building code of
the day. Polk won his case, but not before taking on and antagonizing
the City Hall hierarchy all the way up to Mayor Rolph.
Polk's Hallidie Building at 130 Sutter (1917, San Francisco
Landmark #37) is recognized world-wide as one of the first
glass curtain-wall structures. This retail and office building
was the last one built on the block and is not only innovative,
but does a wonderful job of tying a group of individual Downtown
structures into a cohesive whole. It was built for the Regents
of the University of California and named after Andrew Hallidie,
inventor of the cable car. Fittingly, one of the office floors
is home today to the local chapter of the American Institute
of Architects.
After Polk died, on September 10, 1924, his stepson Austin
P. Moore (Christine Barreda's son by her first husband Charles
A. Moore) came in to run the business affairs of Willis Polk
& Co. With the talented architects trained by Polk, including
James Mitchell and Angus McSweeney, the company completed
many projects including 2800 & 2808 Broadway, 2100 Washington,
the 1090 Chestnut co-operative apartments (all in 1927), and
the St. Francis Yacht Club (in 1928). After Mitchell left
in 1929, the company name and the Polk legacy were continued
well into the 1930's by McSweeney.
For his later career, the scrapbook kept by Polk, which can
be viewed at the California Historical Society, contains many
fascinating insights into his work and personality.
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: Jacksonville, Illinois October 3, 1867