One of Citys Most Prolific Builders was Early Automobile Enthusiast

By Judith Kahn

Fernando Nelson was one of San Franciscan's most prolific residential builders, as well as one of its earliest automobile enthusiasts.

Nelson built as many as 4,000 houses in San Francisco - in the Richmond, Haight-Ashbury, Noe Valley, Eureka Valley, West Portal, Sunset and the Presidio Terrace - nearly 75 percent of which still stand today. It is said that if all the houses he built were placed side by side they would stretch from the Ferry Building to the Presidio.

During his construction career, he boasted that he had built more houses in San Francisco that any other individual or corporation.

Nelson's career began in 1890 and continued through the late 1930s - a span of more than 60 years. Equally impressive as the number of houses Nelson built was the variety of architectural styles he employed and the quality of his craftsmanship. He set the standards other builders followed.

Nelson was also known for his efficiency and cost-cutting practices. He would bargain for mixed nails from broken kegs and bring them home for his children to sort. Born in New York to a Danish father and German mother, Nelson came to San Francisco in 1860 at the age of 15. He began his work in San Francisco primarily as a carpenter for other builders, but he would occasionally take on projects of his own in between jobs.

At the age of 22, he built his first home, which is no longer standing, at 30th and Church streets.

Over a short period of time, Nelson the carpenter became Nelson the developer, going from building one home at a time to developing entire blocks.

He built Victorians in the Mission and Castro districts during the 1870s and 1880s. He also went on to build homes in the city's first "restricted neighborhoods."

The restricted areas provided spacious lots, well-designed homes and prohibited urban nuisances, like laundries, stables and saloons.

In 1897, he purchased groups of adjoining lots in the area of Castro and 20th streets. He then built a house just off the southeast corner of the intersection to serve as a home for his family and a model of the quality of homes he would be building in the neighborhood. His shop and lumberyard occupied an adjoining lot.

Nelson developed most of what is now called the West Portal neighborhood (roughly bounded by Taraval, Kensington, Portola Drive, Sloat Boulevard and 19th Avenue).

By the turn of the 20th century, his strategy was to buy land and build homes as soon as new streetcar lines were laid. By the late 1930s, he was building some of the first modern suburbs in the City.

Nelson would offer customers two floor plans, which he kept on each side of a card. The customer could select Plan A or B. As for the home's exterior trim, the buyer could choose from pattern books supplied by mills or leave the selections to Nelson.

One of patterns most frequently used by Nelson was called doughnuts - a series of joined circles cut out of redwood and attached over the front porches of the houses he built. This pattern was used by Nelson as a way to cut costs and soon became his signature design - it became a way of identifying a home built by Nelson before 1912.

Nelson always carried a leather receipt book in his hip pocket for any on-the-spot transactions. Oftentimes, he would get an idea and scrawl it on an envelope or paper bag.Then he would take it to the Timly Brothers, who would then produce the design details. When it came time to build, Nelson would have them place the appropriate design on the house.

Although Nelson was know as a Victorian builder, he employed other architectural styles. He borrowed freely from others and adopted prevailing tastes of the day while adding his own signature details.

In the Richmond District, he built a variety of homes including late Queen Anne, Edwardian and Craftsman style homes.

Nelson was not an architect and built modest homes for working class families. For example, Nelson's last large -scale development was Merced Manor, built in the 1930s. It ran from 19th to 26th avenues, between Sloat Boulevard and Eucalyptus Drive. Homes in this area were built on wide lots and were of Spanish style, with characteristic red tile roofs. The utilities were built underground and garages faced an alleyway. In the 1930s, these features were considered unique.

After the earthquake in 1906, Nelson's building career was briefly interrupted when the Army confiscated all of his lumber supplies to build temporary refugee shacks. Nelson and his crew spent the first weeks after the catastrophe jacking up buildings and realigning them on their foundations.

As lumber became more available, Nelson resumed construction in the Inner Richmond, first building a corner home for his son William at 10th Avenue and Fulton Street.

By 1907, Nelson once again started to build singe-family homes. He had established his reputation as an excellent builder after the earthquake and had made good money selling lots and building homes.

In 1909, he bought property in the Presidio Terrace and for the first time had an architectural firm, Mac Donald and Applegrath, design a house for him. He referred to this house as an "Elizabethan cottage on a monumental scale." He lived there with his family until 1916. It was said that the design had a profound effect on him because he started to build stucco Mediterranean-style homes rather than Victorians.

The West Portal Park development was Nelson & Sons largest and occupied them for more than 10 years. The business was incorporated, stock was issued and family members served as officers. The company erected a sales office at 2 West Portal Ave. and sold the remaining lots along the avenue for commercial development.

His son William occupied the showcase home on the lot that adjoined the sales office at 935 Ulloa St.

Nelson was also known for his automobile exploits, which served as a promotion for his business. He was able to indulge in his passion for road racing at a time when cars were a luxury. He was the first president of the San Francisco Motor Club and the first person to drive an automobile into Yosemite in 1903.

In the early years of automobile touring, he set numerous records between San Francisco and various destinations on the Pacific Coast.

In 1908, with a team of relief drivers, Nelson's steam-powered car set the speed record from San Francisco to Los Angeles at 17 hours and 17 minutes.

Nelson died in 1953 at the age of 93, leaving a legacy of 4,000 homes in San Francisco. His contributions to the City's architectural heritage will live forever.

Editor's Note: Thanks to John Freeman, writing in Heritage News, a publication for members of SF Architectural Heritage, for providing information for this article.