More Square Footage Than Typical Sunset Style House

I saw a really interesting house in the Parkside / Central Sunset today, a Spanish/Mediterranean Revival house built in 1930. The main thing that is unique about it is for a Sunset style house, it is one of the largest I've seen. Most Sunset style homes have a square footage of 1000 to 1250 square feet (all upstairs), unless it also has a built out downstairs which was a premium feature. Not only does it have a sunroom in the back (which was also a premium feature, typically adds about 170 to 200 square feet), each room in the house is slightly larger than normal, resulting in a total square footage of 1,744 square feet, all upstairs. Feels very roomy! Another reason why this house is awesome is it has loads of intact original features, yet feels well maintained. The entire downstairs is undeveloped, and looks light there may have been shear walls put in downstairs to strengthen it for earthquakes. Here's the link:

https://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/2219-25th-Ave-94116/home/1693597

What the house looks like on the outside, and what the street looks like (sits on a hill):


It's got a nice entry and diamond patterned wood floors:


Nice living room with barrel ceiling, decorated fireplace, and two cute little original lights. The lights in the house are all original! Nice wooden doors separate the living and dining rooms.


The dining room has cool detailing and chandeliers and a window that looks into a light well. Very unusually, the light well is not a side patio; rather, it is a second set of stairs that goes downstairs.


There is a breakfast nook with original built-ins:


The kitchen is all original (backsplash, sink, countertop, cabinets) except for appliances and flooring:

The hallway to the bathrooms has a cute telephone kiosk:

The bathroom is all original- old tiling, bath, sink. The toilet is in a separate room from the rest of the bathroom which is nice, used to be a standard feature of 20's houses. The bathroom also feels unusually roomy for a Sunset style house. Finally, the bathroom leads into a make-up style room with closet space which leads directly into the master bathroom. Really nice floor plan.


There are two bedroom, both with original little cute chandeliers, both with unusually large closets for that era, one of them has a laundry chute in the floor. The windows in the back all have views of the Pacific ocean. Finally, both bedrooms have entry into a sunroom in the back. The sunroom is best used as a recreation room or a shared office, might be awkward to use as a third bedroom as you have to go through one of the bedrooms to get to the sunroom. Nice little backyard.

Exceptional Rousseau Home on 34th Avenue

Just saw a beautiful Rousseau home today, built in 1933. Listing at:
https://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/1537-34th-Ave-94122/home/639198

For those of us who love Sunset style homes, homes designed by Oliver Rousseau are among the finest examples of these houses. Rousseau focused on building high end homes with beautiful storybook decorative touches, inside and out. In addition to the finishes, the floor plans that Rousseau tended to put together were particularly nice, from pleasing large center patios with round natural shapes, to master bathrooms that linked directly with the master bedroom, to a finished downstairs den with wet bar. This was in an era when most floor plans in San Francisco had standard rooms with standard sizes, and the downstairs was just the basement.

First, the Mediterranean exterior and exterior balcony:


Exquisite living room with painted wood beams:


Raised dining room that is open from the living room and opens into a large center patio:


The center patio and as seen from the hallway:


Exquisite original bathroom with separate bath and shower stall with beautiful and colorful vintage tiles:


The downstairs den/social room with fireplace, and the original wet bar (there is also two car tandem garage downstairs):


This house has 4 bedrooms- two on the main level, and two on an additional floor above. The upstairs may or may not be original to the house, but it's nicely done. There are ocean views from all 4 bedrooms:

Rousseau home

I saw a really nice Rousseau home last weekend.  Oliver Rousseau is known in San Francisco for building basically much nicer versions of your typical Sunset style house.  So these houses would more or less be similar size and on same lot size as your typical Sunset home, but with a lot detailed exterior and interior features, possibly a custom floor plan, and fancy features like a finished "social room" on the ground floor (most houses of this period had an open basement ground floor). 

See http://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/Brightening-the-Sunset-Oliver-Rousseau-a-2703046.php for more info.  There are houses designed by Rousseau and then other homes that are listed as "Rousseau style", as in the sellers consider the home to have some more interesting detailing than the typical mass produced house of the period. 

Here's the listing of the house that I saw - really marvelous:
http://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Francisco/1587-34th-Ave-94122/home/1839970

Very nice living room with painted patterns on the wood beams on the ceiling (the wood beams themselves would be a nice extra feature for a home built in the 30s in San Francisco).  The corner fireplace you see here looks similar to a lot of other houses' photos I've seen built from 1932 to the late 1930's and helps date this house to that period (and in fact this house was built in 1932). 

 



Nice dining room as well, really interesting inlaid oval that I haven't seen before in the houses I've seen in San Francisco, again, seems pretty custom.

Some photos that I took:

 

Looking at the house (blue one on the left):

 

 

It was typically for the 1930's to use outrageously brightly colored bathroom tiling, like bright green or purple.  Still, this tiling seems much more elaborate than in your typical Sunset home.  That makes this house extra special because most Sunset style homes' bathrooms have been remodeled since when they were built with the tiling removed.

 

Many nice Sunset homes came with a center patio which added sunlight to rooms in the house and provided a nice outdoor sanctuary.  In many houses ( like mine), they have become indoor patios with the addition of a skylight to cover the roof.  In this house, there are evidently very nice custom touches with the floor tiles, the big size of the patio, the red roof tiles, and the very pleasing oval shape of the patio itself.

 

This shows the downstairs social room.  This was the first time I've seen an original social room in a Sunset style home.  Again, a really nice bonus feature (and adds to the offical square footage).  On the right is a large room where you might use as a family room.  It comes with a cute fireplace.  To the left is the bar where you can store your drinks.  The room to the right leads out into the backyard.  Truly a nice place for social gatherings! 

 

All in all, a very very nice house.  Wish I could afford it!