the homes
2000 Gough
The Jones Schwabacher House
Illustrations by Kit Haskell
This two-floor residence is about as close to a country cottage that San Francisco has to offer. Built in 1885 for Michael P. Jones, this Stick-Eastlake building was a wedding present to his son, Webster Jones and his bride, Beulah Hobbs Jones. Michael P. Jones contracted in July 1885 with architect William F. Smith for a wedding gift his son and new wife would surely appreciate.
Soon after their marriage in June of 1885 the newlyweds moved into their completed residence. Webster Jones was the junior partner with his father Michael in the wholesale grocery business and lived with his wife in the house until 1898, when they separated. In November 1899, Webster and his wife Beulah divorced by going to court in Santa Barbara. The San Francisco Daily Call reported rumor of Beulah’s engagement to Count Vladimir Artsimovitch, Russian consul general in San Francisco.
In April 1900 the Count was transferred to Berlin and the couple’s official engagement was announced. What happened to Webster is another story. By December 1898 Webster Jones had sold the residence to Ludwig Schwabacher, manager of Crown Paper Company, a predecessor of Crown Zellerbach. In the 1910 United States Census, Ludwig is age 63, born in Germany, and married for 29 years to wife, Carrie Schwabacher, born in California, (age not given). Living with them are their two sons, James age 28, and Albert age 21, both single. The Schwabachers had no servants living in the house at the time of the census. James Schwabacher inherited the home upon his father’s death.
The architect William Frederick Smith was born in Massachusetts and began his career in San Francisco in 1881. When Michael P. Jones asked him to design this residence Mr. Smith was about the age of 31. William F. Smith was primarily a residential architect and most of his designs are in the areas of Pacific Heights and the Western Addition. His most impressive house is at the southeast comer of Pacific Avenue and Divisadero Street built in 1894 for C. N. Ellinwood. 2000 Gough has both Stick-Eastlake and Queen Anne elements. In Anne Bloomfield’s article for the New Fillmore she writes: “Pseudo- structural ‘sticks’ and other verticals divide the surface into a symphony of rectangles and there are nice Queen Anne bits as well, the round bay windows, fish scale shingles and a complex roof, all well harmonized.”
— taken from the Victorian Alliance‘s 2006 “Grande Dame Victorians... Along the Fireline in Pacific Heights” catalog