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Roos House

Architect
Bernard Maybeck
Style
Tudor Revival
City
San Francisco, CA
Roos House
Photo: Sanfranman59, CC BY-SA 3.0
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The Roos House is a 9,000-square-foot wood-frame residence built in 1909 in what was then Presidio Heights, designed by Bernard Maybeck in a Tudor Revival style laced with Gothic ornamentation. Maybeck didn't stop at the walls: he also designed the light fixtures throughout the house and some of its furniture, treating the whole interior as a single work. It's been a San Francisco Designated Landmark since 1973 and joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.

the building

T-shaped plan and gables. The three-story-over-basement house is arranged in a rough T-shaped plan, with each wing of the house capped by its own gable roof, giving the Tudor Revival massing a picturesque, asymmetrical silhouette.

Maybeck's fixtures and furniture. Beyond the architecture itself, Maybeck designed the light fixtures found throughout the house and some of the furniture, extending his hand into the smallest details of daily life inside.

The lost vegetable garden. The rear lot originally held a formal vegetable garden, also designed by Maybeck. It was sold off in 1989 to help cover the cost of repairing the house after that year's Loma Prieta earthquake.

the style

Maybeck rendered the Roos House in Tudor Revival dressed with Gothic ornamentation, a combination that let him experiment with steep gables and medieval detailing on a private commission rather than a civic or academic one.

More on Tudor Revival

the architect

Bernard Maybeck was one of California's most inventive architects, and the Roos House shows him working in full residential mode, carrying his design hand from the exterior gables down to the light fixtures and furniture inside.

significance

The Roos House has been San Francisco Designated Landmark No. 56 since 1973, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 8, 2009, in recognition of its architecture.

nearby

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