The Blue Painted Lady

In early 1895, builder Matthew Kavanagh offered for sale six recently constructed Queen Anne style cottages across from Alamo Square. The first buyers of these dwellings, the now celebrated “Postcard Row” houses, were predominantly young couples eager to leave the older congested downtown area for the amenities of a more fashionable neighborhood. The young couple purchasing 712 Steiner in March of 1895 were Frank Lafayette Platt, a dentist, and his wife, Clare Emelia.

By the 1890s, the art of dentistry in urban areas had dramatically improved in technique, and Frank Platt was one of its foremost and respected practitioners. Dr. Platt practiced his profession out of an office in the Flood Building on Market Street. According to the Federal Census of 1900, Frank and Clare shared 712 Steiner with a boarder, Dr. Herbert Clement and a then 18-year-old Irish servant, Sarah McDonnell. The Platt’s purchase of their picturesque four-story gabled dwelling in the Western Addition was their first venture into homeownership and they no doubt would have remained there longer than eleven years were it not for the consequences of the earthquake and fire of 1906. Faced with the loss of his downtown dental office, Frank relocated his practice to 712 Steiner and changed his residence to 2733 Russell Street in Berkeley. Eventually, Frank re-established his practice in downtown San Francisco, commuting from the East Bay by ferry boat. It is probably shortly after they left the city that Frank and Clare adopted their only child, Polly Elizabeth.

This house and its neighbors, important components of the Alamo Square Historic District, are representative of the front-gabled, generously ornamented Queen Anne style row house popular in San Francisco during the 1890s. Missing features of the homes on this block are once prominent brick chimneys and, with one exception, fancily-fenced front gardens.
Inside, Kavanagh’s floor plans and built-in furnishings, like his exteriors, varied little from dwelling to dwelling. Although most of the interiors have been modified in some way, noteworthy features still shared by many of the houses include decorative plaster work that denotes the division of the parlors, ornate stairway balusters and the placement of an art glass window above the first landing.

The first floor of 712 Steiner is mostly intact. The long entry hall, as it leads to the kitchen, opens to the parlors and dining rooms to the right and a small half bath near its end. The public rooms are decorated in Victorian style ceiling and frieze papers designed and manufactured by Bradbury and Bradbury of Benicia.
Christmas Decorations and Current Owner George Horsfall.

Christmas has always been important in the household of George Horsfall, current Blue Painted Lady owner. Back in the 1970s, Horsfall rode with Santa Claus on a cable car from Powell to Market Street in the Emporium’s famed Christmas parade. He was also featured in the department store’s ice show in 1972 and 1973- as the father in “The Night Before Christmas” and as the Nutcracker in “The Nutcracker.” There are videos on the Internet of George skating and floating in the parade if you look!
The Christmas tree at the Blue Painted Lady reflects at least 93 years of Sheehan-Horsfall family memories. Every year since former owner Catherine Horsfall’s birth in 1932, a new ornament has been added that reflects a significant event of some family member from that year. For example: the Pinocchio ornament represents the year the current owner, George, did graduate work in Florence, Italy. Similarly, the pot of Boston beans represents the years George studied in Cambridge MA. The silver-framed puppy portraits are memories of every new Golden Retriever who was added to the family.

The Blue Painted Lady is lucky enough to also have tree ornaments that feature itself! There is also a whole fleet of Swedish fishing boats named after close friends and family members. The owner’s grandmother was from Sweden. She had 10 brothers, most of whom were fishermen. George lives 3 months a year on the same island, Resö, where his grandmother grew up. The candles on the tree are never lit, but are also a nod to George’s Swedish grandmother, Magnhild Dagmar (Mary).

The 4 large solid wood nutcrackers are from France. The dozens of nutcrackers corralled in front of the fireplace have been collected by the family for over 60 years. The oval portrait in the front parlor is of George’s great-great Swedish grandmother, Josefine Hansson, from the 1880s.

The two gilded cherubs holding up the garland in the entrance hall are from the former City of Paris department store, where the Neiman Marcus store now stands in Union Square. The Victorian Alliance fought to preserve the glorious building, and the stained glass dome remains in place, and… also here. The antique glass icicles were a gift from the late Joe Pecora, beloved neighborhood house historian and author of The Storied Homes of Alamo Square (2014). The tables have been set for the holidays with two of the family’s many antique china sets and place-setting cards for a fantasy guest list of colorful San Franciscans. Don’t miss former resident of this home, Rev. Freeman Daley Bovard, founder and first Vice President of the University of Southern California (USC).

In recent years, George has started a new tradition at the Blue Painted Lady: chamber concerts. The Insight Chamber Players perform in the double parlor-dining room, providing audiences with intimate musical evenings in a classic San Francisco location. In 2023, George expanded the concept by welcoming other renowned musicians, such as international prodigy Michael Andreas MAH, (who happens to be the greatX3 grandson of composer Franz Liszt), Members of The San Francisco Symphony and SF Philharmonic, jazz and blues band- Garuda Blue, and Great American Songbook headliner, Sven Söderland. Sven usually works with his own 17-piece orchestra, but for the Painted Lady, his holiday concert was scaled-down to an intimate 6 piece ensemble. Perhaps the greatest highlight of all was when $23 million dollars of rare violins performed a Vivaldi concert at the Blue Painted Lady- A Stradivarius from 1722 and an Amati from 1644!