Presented in September of 2002, the Heritage Home Tour took participants to the Kaetzel House, Biddle House, Vetterline House, Sandercock House, and Unangst House.
You are about to embark on a tour of five of San Luis Obispos most
distinctive houses. One of the distinguishing characteristics of
todays tour is the emphasis on the houses 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 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 servants quarters. The staircase split at the landing, with a secondary flight leading to the working back end of the house the hall, servants 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 developers office, a chiropractic clinic, and since 1994 the Johnson Gallery & Framing Studio. The present owners recaptured much of the structures 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.
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 houses 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. Johns mother, Rebecca Votau Biddle, died in 1849. Johns sister Mary Biddle Plummer of San Francisco became a noted linguist and Californias first female lawyer. John Biddle married Miss Elizabeth Motz, a native of the Evansville, Indiana, in the St. Stephens 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 wouldnt 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. Biddles 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 couldnt 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 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. Williamsons 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 Obispos 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 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 Adelaides 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 maids 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 Normans 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 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 Railroads 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. Anitas father served as the areas 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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