William Westerfeld House — Attraction in San Francisco

The Westerfeld House is San Francisco Landmark 135. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

It was designed by Henry Geilfuss and built in 1889 for banker and candy baron William Westerfeld, one of many prosperous German immigrants who built grand homes in the area around Alamo Square. This great wooden palazzo is a pure expression of the style, Stick Italian Villa, with its tower, square bay windows and strong vertical line.

"Up at Fulton and Scott is a great shambling old Gothic house, a freaking decayed giant, known as The Russian Embassy" Tom Wolfe wrote in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, published in 1968.

By The Summer of Love and The Autumn of Love, like many of San Francisco's grand but derelict old mansions, its roof leaked, and it was home to a commune, and it was this commune called Calliope that Wolfe visited.

San Francisco tour books and tour guides, eager to exploit The City's perverse past, have decided that Charles Manson once lived here. He did live in San Francisco but not here.

But Bobbie Beausoleil did live here just before he joined The Manson Family. He and his buddy Kenneth Anger, also in residence, would spend nights in the tower on the look-out for flying saucers. According to Anger he had "a couple of very good flying saucer sightings."

Anger shot his movie The Invocation of My Demon Brother here. Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, used to practice witchcraft in the tower, employing a lion cub and...

Constructed in 1889, it was designed in the Stick/Eastlake style for owner William Westerfeld, a German confectioner, and cost about $10,000 to build.

Westerfeld died just six years later, but the place lived on to host an unimaginable cast of characters, including John Mahoney, who built the St. Francis and Palace Hotels, a group of Czarist Russians, jazz musician John Handy, The Calliope Company (a 50-person commune mentioned in The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test), and members of The Family Dog (famed promoter Chet Helms’s...

The name is William Westerfeld House and it's an absolute hidden gem!

This historic mansion is like a step back in time. The ornate Victorian architecture and intricate details are simply mesmerizing. Even from the outside, it's a sight to behold. If you're a fan of architecture and history, you won't want to miss this little piece of San...