{"nrhp_refnum":"85001914","name":"Wilford, Albert, Houses","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"2121 & 2127 Vallejo St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"San Francisco","county":"San Francisco","state":"CA","lat":37.79540186600008,"lon":-122.432043395,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1985-08-29","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Two nearly identical adjoining frame houses at 2121 and 2127 Vallejo Street on the north slope of Pacific Heights, San Francisco, built in 1890 by developer-builder Albert Wilford.","why_significant":"The houses are significant for their architecture, as a highly unusual variant among San Francisco's many Queen Anne houses. Features such as the ostrich-leather plaster fascia band and the equilateral-arched domical bay roof have not been documented elsewhere. Wilford, a little-known small-scale developer, built nothing else this inventive among his known work, and this pair is his most unusual and most intact.","narrative":"Two matching frame houses at 2121 and 2127 Vallejo Street sit high above the sidewalk on the steep north slope of Pacific Heights in San Francisco. Built in 1890 by Albert Wilford, a Swedish-born carpenter, contractor and developer, they are an individual variant of Queen Anne style, fitted onto a narrow 23-foot frontage. Distinctive features include a broad plaster band that imitates ostrich-skin leather, a domical turret roof with equilateral-arched windows, a Moorish-arched entry recess, and varied shingle textures. Inside, quarter-sunburst door corner blocks, Stick-style mantels and molded plaster ornaments survive. Wilford was part of a twelve-house development on the surrounding blocks, and the nomination suggests he mixed ideas from pattern books and a well-known Crocker mansion. Most of his other houses were conventional, so this pair stands out as his most unusual and best preserved work, and a 1976 city survey rated them highly.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899","architect_builder":"Albert Wilford","architectural_style":"Queen Anne (individual variant)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Occupied private residences in excellent condition; altered with few exterior changes, and interiors retain much original ornamentation.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:27.459915-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/85001914.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/85001914/dbacdc3d0b-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/85001914/dbacdc3d0b-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Sanfranman59","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albert_Wilford_Houses_(San_Francisco).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Sanfranman59</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albert_Wilford_Houses_(San_Francisco).jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123861361","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q133504616"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/san-francisco/wilford-albert-houses-85001914/"}