Abner Phelps House

Hi, I’m Craig, and I’m a licensed California General Building Contractor. Way back in the early 1970s I was hired by a now-​defunct enterprise known as The Preservation Group, founded by architect Hal Major and a millionaire lawyer, as I recall, and I think his first name was Keith. Oh, and Keith had a very attractive, slender, red-​haired associate who later on became involved with Austrian Fritjof Capra. Mind you, this was a LONG time ago, and I don’t have much in the way of written records.
I was the foreman of a 5-​man group of carpenters hired to work on the Abner Phelps house. We were told that it was the oldest house in The City, and that it had been built of lumber from New Orleans, shipped around Cape Horn (because there was no Panama Canal) in 1851. One of our group, incidentally, was a then-​55-​year old African American named Roosevelt Turner. He wound up working with us only for a short while because he was a member of the People’s Temple, and received orders to relocate to Jonestown, S.A. On the payday before he departed, Roosevelt came to work with a velvet-​covered jeweler’s display tray of rings that he offered to us for sale. Rings that had come off the fingers of new members joining the Temple (and that they wouldn’t need in Jonestown…).
After getting completing the necessary paperwork for the Landmarks Board and the Planning Commission we did the following. Because the Phelps house had been the first house on the block it had been COMPLETELY surrounded by other houses — it was utterly landlocked, without even a driveway to access it. Essentially, it was in the backyard of the surrounding homes. Thus, to give it the access and exposure it deserved, we moved one of the surrounding homes to an empty lot two blocks away. Then we detached a small addition that had been added on to the original Phelps home, and rotated the Phelps building and moved it to a new foundation at its present location, 1111 Oak St. Incidentally, before we renovated it, the house had been subject to major abuse. I believe it had been occupied by hippie squatters for some time, who did not provide the care and loving that the house deserved.
I’ve heard that at least one other house claims to be the oldest in SF, and of course Mission Dolores and one wall of the Presidio Officers Club are both reputedly a good 75 years older than the Abner Phelps.

A little known historical gem sits on 1111 Oak Street and I knew nothing of its existence until today. It’s the Abner Phelps House, the oldest house in San Francisco, dating back to 1851. That’s old for us folks here in S.F. though it would get a chuckle from those in New York, London or Paris.
It was owned by Abner Phelps and his wife, Augusta Roussell, who was originally from New Orleans. The story has it that the house was shipped in pieces around the Horn and reassembled on a part of the 160 acres Col. Phelps owned (329 Divisadero). Others say it was locally constructed. It is an Early Gothic Revival style and, to me, looks very Southern with its raised veranda. Many houses are raised on blocks in the South to protect them from flooding. All of this was farmland and sand dunes then and Col. Phelps rode his horse down to his law office on Montgomery St.!! I had heard it was a B&B but there is no signage stating so although the gate is open and you can walk right up to the door. I am taking the S.F. Historical Tour tomorrow in that neighborhood so I hope to have an update.