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You are about to embark on a tour of five of San Luis Obispo’s most
distinctive houses. One of the distinguishing characteristics of
today’s tour is the emphasis on the house’s social history, that
is, the story of the people who not only lived but worked in these
distinctive domiciles. Hence, the title … "Deliveries 'Round
the Back". Thank you for joining us in this special fundraising
event for the San Luis Coastal Unified School District. Your tour
starts at the City Parks and Recreation office; please be sure and
view the maps and exhibits and enjoy some refreshments before or after
your tour. We encourage you to take the tour at your own pace, and
view the houses in whatever order you choose.
The Kaetzel House
Johnson Gallery
547 Marsh Street
The Kaetzel House neighborhood is older than it first appears. For
decades Marsh Street (so-named because it runs through the originally
marshy flood plain of San Luis Creek) has been a major thoroughfare. The
lots along this busy corridor have hosted a succession of commercial and
residential structures, so the present streetscape reflects substantial
architectural turnover through time. In the 500 block only the Jack
House (536 Marsh) and the Kaetzel House (547 Marsh) recall the era when
this now largely commercial strip was a prestigious residential address.
Chronology and family history link the Jack and Kaetzel Houses. In
1905, when their daughter Gertrude married the up-and-coming attorney
and realtor, Charles Kaetzel, Robert and Nellie Jack presented the
newlyweds with a house at 547 Marsh, across the street from their own.
There had been a sizeable dwelling on the site since at least 1886; the
evidence suggests that the Jacks enlarged the earlier structure rather
than starting from scratch. Between 1903 and 1926 the Kaetzel house
assumed the basic form it has today.
The structure sits on a raised foundation and has a high-pitched gable
roof. Elements of Queen Anne styling appear in its window treatment,
surface detailing, and bay windows, but the overall impression is an
eclectic blend of several vernacular dwelling styles popular in turn of
the century San Luis Obispo. The original grounds included the adjoining
lot (539 Marsh), and, before the widening of Marsh Street, the house
enjoyed a deeper front set-back. The old stone wall, visible behind the
back yard garden, is probably a remnant of the boundary wall of the
Thomas Higuera tract dating from the Californio era.
The Kaetzels reared four children, Margaret, Jack, Katherine, and
Frances at 547 with the help of a live-in servant. At that time they
also had a lodger who probably lived in the back outbuilding. The
configuration of the house during the Kaetzel years is uncertain, but in
all likelihood the present main gallery space was the living room. The
front half of the present frame shop was the dining room, the back half
the kitchen (note the high, over-the-sink window). The small gallery
space to the right rear of the main gallery was the servant’s
quarters. The staircase split at the landing, with a secondary flight
leading to the working back end of the house — the hall, servant’s
quarters, kitchen, utility entry area, and the wide porch, now enclosed.
The second floor featured a bathroom in one street-facing corner, with
the rest divided into a master bedroom and a large room for the
children.
In the 1920s the Kaetzels moved. Thereafter the house passed through
a succession of owners and uses. In the early ’30s it was briefly a
hotel, then a private residence. During the ’40s it remained a private
dwelling, but may also have served as a rooming house. During the ’50s
it was divided into several apartments, then in the ’60s became a
commercial archery shop. In the ’70s main dwelling and the
outbuilding became student housing. During the last two decades 547 has
housed a real estate developer’s office, a chiropractic clinic, and
since 1994 the Johnson Gallery & Framing Studio. The present owners
recaptured much of the structure’s original residential character when
they remodeled the first floor into an art gallery and the second into
living quarters. A framing studio now occupies the outbuilding.
The Biddle House
Lenz Residence
559 Pismo Street
This “high Victorian” house was constructed between 1893 and 1897 at
a cost of $3,590 for the widow of John Biddle. It is a 3,000-square foot
irregularly shaped, three story structure, on a raised stone foundation
with steeply pitched gables covered with composition shingles. The house
has a variety of influences: Queen Anne, Eastern Stick and Carpenter
Gothic. The house’s actual design, however, is prototypically
Victorian-Carpenter Gothic Revival. The detailing is largely Eastlake
and Queen Anne, such as the spindled porch. All windows had stained
glass framing with the same pattern, even on the hand carved wooden
doors. The house had four fireplaces; the one in the parlor incorporated
an intricately carved wood and tile mantle. The house has six bedrooms,
with the attic forming the third floor and the servant quarters.
John Biddle was born in 1840 in Indiana, and educated by subscription
schools on the frontier. He arrived with his father, Phillip, and four
siblings in California at the age of 9 years. John’s mother, Rebecca
Votau Biddle, died in 1849. John’s sister Mary Biddle Plummer of San
Francisco became a noted linguist and California’s first female
lawyer. John Biddle married Miss Elizabeth Motz, a native of the
Evansville, Indiana, in the St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in San Luis
Obispo. When John married Elizabeth, they moved into a little white
house on Pismo St. between Nipomo and Beach that they had purchased from
Mr. Motz. In 1891, at the age of 51, John Biddle died in San Luis
Obispo. “He broke his leg while he was breaking a horse”, said his
granddaughter, Beverly Biddle Rosso of Templeton. “They were going to
amputate it, but he wouldn’t let them. He got gangrene in the leg and
died.” John was a member of the Odd Fellows and the Society of
California Pioneers. Two years after his death Elizabeth Biddle arranged
for the construction of the house. Plans for the 3,000-square foot house
were drawn in July 1893 by contractor Thomas Dawson. It was completed
about three years later. In the meantime, Mrs. Biddle and her children
lived in a house near the stable behind the present structure.
The house was built for Mrs. Biddle and her family by a minister
named Pauson, who completed construction in 1897. It was painted tan
with dark trim by a painter who also did the family portraits. The old
house, behind the new one, was rented out for a while and then moved to
Pacific Street. Mrs. Biddle went back east and married Charles Smith
returning to live in San Francisco. After three years Mrs. Biddle
returned to the house on Pismo, but without Mr. Smith, whom she
divorced. Mrs. Biddle died in 1915 from a long-standing heart condition.
Three of her children remained in the house until their deaths. Since
then the house has remained either vacant or rented out by Mrs.
Biddle’s last surviving child George Biddle.
John and Elizabeth had four children, John (Jr.), Phillip, Minnie
Pauline, and George. John (Jr.) married Ruth Wilson and moved to the
ranch near Arroyo Grande. The other family members continued to live in
the old home in San Luis Obispo, and were joint owners in the estate of
some eight thousand acres of valuable range and agricultural land in the
Arroyo Grande section. John Jr. died in 1953. Phillip collected
phonograph records. He never married. The only daughter, “Mints”,
played the piano, perhaps the century-old, carved redwood, square grand
piano listed as part of the estate sale. Mints married a lawyer who
ended up in prison. George Curtis Biddle went to Healdsburg College, in
Sonoma County, where he studied horticulture, raising strawberries and
redwoods. He liked to drive, touring throughout California and the
southwest. He died at the age of 96 in November of 1985. George had not
lived in the house since he was a child but couldn’t bear to sell it.
Beverly Biddle Rosso, daughter of John Jr., and her relatives
occupied the house for more than half a century; renting it out as
family members died.
The Vetterline House
Walter Residence
1504 Broad Street
Franklin W. Vetterline was a locally prominent merchant. Born in
Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1854, his family came to California while he
was still a young boy, eventually settling in the Gilroy area. Franklin
entered the tinsmithing and plumbing trade — a wise choice in an era
when the notion of indoor plumbing was beginning to catch on. He
evidently prospered, for at the tender age of 22, he succeeded in
wedding 17-year-old Laura Ellis, a daughter of one of the wealthiest and
most socially prominent families in the area, in 1877. For the first two
years of their marriage, Franklin and Laura continued to live in Gilroy.
Their daughter, Laura May Vetterline, was born there in 1878. The young
family moved to Quincy in Plumas County for a year before making the
move to San Luis Obispo.
In San Luis, Vetterline continued in the plumbing trade. By 1883, he
had acquired A. Williamson’s hardware and plumbing business, located
on Higuera Street opposite the Central Hotel. Like his competitors,
Vetterline published advertisements in the Tribune, touting his stoves,
including the “celebrated Wedgewood Range,” windmills, pumps and
iron pipe, plumbing and gas fittings, tin and granite ware, and a full
line of boilers, tanks, vats, and other fixtures necessary for dairy
farming.
By 1888, the Vetterline family had established itself on Buchon
Street, an area which was beginning to distinguish itself as San Luis
Obispo’s own version of Nob Hill. Records indicate that they were
probably living near the southwest corner of Buchon and Garden at this
time. While at this location, tragedy struck: their only child, who had
just celebrated her eleventh birthday, succumbed to a sudden and
mysterious illness
In about 1895-96, the Vetterlines began building their Queen-Anne
style home at the corner of Broad and Buchon. By the turn of the
century, their immediate neighborhood was dotted with stately homes
occupied by San Luis merchants and Southern Pacific Railroad middle
management.
Vetterline retired from the hardware business in 1908. The following
year he was appointed by Governor Gillett to finish out the unexpired
term of a county supervisor who died in office. His retirement years,
however, were to be of short duration. By the end of 1910, Vetterline
was suffering from an unknown malady that prompted him to seek medical
treatment in the Los Angeles area. In early 1912, he rallied long enough
to return to San Luis, where he and Laura sold their home, with the
intention of retiring to their extensive properties in Gilroy. Franklin
Vetterline died in Gilroy on February 25, at the age of 57. Laura
Vetterline survived him by nearly 30 years. She eventually remarried and
moved to Oakland, where she died on February 12, 1940, at the age of 80.
The Sandercock House
Tait Residence
591 Islay Street
In the 1870s William and Adelaide Sandercock established their transfer
business at the corner of Leff and Beach Streets. About 1905 they built
a spacious new bungalow just down the street at the corner of Beach and
Islay (535 Islay). There the Sandercock's reared their four children,
Frank L. (1876-1944), William F. [Fred] (1894-1980), Norman W.
(1872-1952), and Helen (?-1978). The 535 Islay house remained in the
family until the early 1940s. ‘William S. Sandercock,’ is still
visible, cast in bold letters on the first step of the original (corner)
entry sidewalk.
William and Adelaide’s son, Norman, married Fannie Reese Keyser
(1872-1943) in 1899. In 1927 they moved from their previous home at 1346
Morro to their new house at 591 Islay, located at the other end of the
block from his parents’ place at 535. A few years after Norman and
Fannie moved to 591 Islay, their son Warren (1902-1973) and his wife
Florence (1900-1952) moved to 1645 Nipomo (the corner of Nipomo and Leff).
Three Sandercock generations thus boxed three corners of City block 58,
while the fourth corner abutted the Sandercock yards at Beach and Leff.
Sandercock family members remained on block 58 until Warren moved to
Arroyo Grande in the mid-1950s.
The social structure of this 20th century block area has been
remarkably consistent over time, a stable residential mix of small
shopkeepers, trades-people, skilled railroad employees, teamsters,
clerks, and laborers. There have been relatively few students, even
fewer professional people, and not many children; residents have
primarily been single, childless, or older couples whose children had
already left home. The majority of dwellings have been single family and
owner-occupied, with a scattering of renters, live-in maids, and
surviving spouses living alone. During World War II several neighbors
built back lot houses or converted garages into dwellings to accommodate
military families stationed at Camp San Luis Obispo.
The house has seen only minimal structural changes through the years.
In 1936 a frame and stucco addition enclosed a formerly open laundry
area attached to the two car garage and maid’s quarters in the back
yard. Ceiling cracks in the back hall/ back bathroom area suggest that
this portion of the structure may have been added later, but the
addition is undocumented in city records.
After Norman’s death in 1952, his house at 591 Islay passed through
a succession of owner-occupants: Henry/Agnes Sherrick in the 1960s;
William/Michel Hinote in the ’70s; John/Dorothy Schewe in the
’80s-early ’90s; and David/Cathy Holmes, 1994-2000. The current
owner is Cathy Tait.
The Judge Unangst House
Sicanoff Residence
1720 Johnson
This approximate 4,000 square foot, 2 story residence
was easily seen from the time of its construction in 1888 through the
1920s as it sat in isolation above the City of San Luis Obispo. The
building is now obscured from view, the result of a widening of Johnson
Avenue in 1976, which also dramatically altered the approach to the
home.
The original six-room structure was enlarged in 1902.
The additions included a new foundation, an exterior porch entry of
“free set” stone quarried in Adelaide, an entrance hall and formal
parlor, a downstairs formal study/library, and a master bedroom,
upstairs. Custom Spruce woodwork was done for all windows, some with
stained glass, doorways and staircases. Other distinctive features
include a fireplace in the library that was crafted by E. P. Unangst
himself, of local stone. On the northeast corner of the property is an
original playhouse that was used as a darkroom for Unangst. In a line
running along the east side of the main residence there are four rental
units constructed during World War II; these were occupied by women
whose husbands were stationed at Camp San Luis Obispo. In 1953 these
units, as well as the main house, were converted for use as housing for
students enrolled at California Polytechnic. In 1960 further alterations
were made, enlarging a room on the lower floor and closing off a room on
the upper level with a separate entrance. From 1953 to 1980 the home
housed as many as 34 people (at one point the master bedroom had triple
bunks on all four walls). Beginning in 1980 the residence received
another extensive restoration and a modernized kitchen. The present
owners continue with restoration and additions to the property.
In the late 19th century this single-family residence was occupied by
one of the more prominent families of San Luis Obispo County. Edwin
Peter Unangst had arrived in the county from Nebraska in the 1870s. He
taught school and then, with a law degree from Hastings College, began a
career in law. He was instrumental in negotiating the Southern Pacific
Railroad’s entrance to the city in 1894. In 1902 he was elected the
Superior Court Judge for San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties
serving until 1916. He passed away in 1926. His wife, Anita Murray, was
the daughter of Walter Murray, who had arrived in the county in 1853,
practiced law and was central to organizing the Committee of Vigilance
in 1859, the same year he co-founded the San Luis Obispo Tribune.
Anita’s father served as the area’s representative to Sacramento and
then as its Superior Court Judge. E. P. and Anita Unangst raised three
children in the home, Harold, Edwin Jr. and Dorothy. Anita continued to
reside in the home until her death in 1949. Dorothy married into the
Warden family of Los Osos and Cambria, and had two sons, Lew and Murray.
She received the property in 1949 and it remained in her possession
until her death in 1983.
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Agricultural
History Forum
Chinese San Luis Obispo
Heritage Home Tour
San Simeon Point
