I had never heard the term ‘bucket list’ before I came to
America, but we all have one – a list of things to do before we die, turn 30
(uh-oh), have children and so on. My San Francisco bucket list is extremely
lengthy, and, although I’ve ticked off a few of the big ones (hiking in
Yosemite, visiting Alcatraz, climbing Twin Peaks), there's an awful lot left
to go. It’s far too easy to say ‘must do that’ and never get round to
going, as I’ve proved too many times with plays and exhibitions, so I decided
to spend a few afternoons ticking things off.
The view from Twin Peaks towards the Financial District
First up was a walking tour of Pacific Heights with the
brilliant San Francisco City Guides. Established in 1978, the Guides lead tours
all over the city, showing visitors the parts that seldom feature in guidebooks
and revealing the stories behind the façades. There are tours of
Alfred Hitchcock’s San Francisco, Nob Hill, the city’s theatres, the Japanese
Tea Garden and the ‘hidden history’ of Fishermen’s Wharf, among others. They’re free, although tips
are encouraged. I joined a tour of Pacific
Heights to learn more about the spectacular architecture and spectacle-loving owners of
the mansions that run east-west along the granite spine of the city. We started
in Alta Plaza Park, and wound north and east along Jackson and Pacific, stopping to examine nine-over-one windows, the false-fronted Captain’s
House, home to ferry-boat captain John Leale who made more than
125,000 trips across the Bay, the Italianate Flood Mansion built
after the 1906 fire as ‘a house of marble on a hill of granite’ by James Leary
Flood for his wife, Maud, and the Spreckels Mansion, now owned by Danielle
Steel, where Rodin collector Alma Spreckels would swim naked in the glass-covered pool every
morning. When residents of the neighbouring apartments complained of the sight,
she said, unarguably: ‘Don’t look.’ These tours are a great way
to see hidden San Francisco, but remember to wrap up warm. Much time is spent standing on street corners that, this being America's second windy city,
are extremely gusty.
Sumptuous detailing around the Flood Mansion doors. The lower part
was cluttered up with the schoolgirls who currently occupy the building!
Classical detailing and clinker bricks on the Bourn Mansion. Clinker bricks
were cast-offs that had been blackened in the making and snapped up cheap
by architects wanting to create the illusion of old buildings. They became so
popular that brick companies started to singe new bricks intentionally!
The adorable one-storey Italianate house used as a studio by author Danielle Steel
The former German consulate was built in 1894-96 in Arizona sandstone, which was
incapable of withstanding the Pacific gales. To stop it weathering, it was coated
in a creamy stucco that made the problem worse. The one corner turret that has
been cleaned and treated cost $1 million to do, so it may be a while before
the whole thing is returned to its original pink colour
The magnificent Spreckels Mansion, behind the hedge.
The apartment building on the left gave residents a grandstand view
of Alma Spreckel's morning swim sans bathing suit
Next, taking advantage of free opening on the first Tuesday of the
month, I climbed the steps to the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate
Park, a glass palace along the lines of the Palm House in Kew Gardens.
Sultry and steamy inside, swing doors lead from the Potted Plants Gallery to
Lowland Tropics, Highland Tropics and finally Aquatic Plants, where waterfalls
of green and unexpected gleams of red and deep pink spill from raised beds and
climb to the glass roof. Misty water vapour drifts from a network of pipes
overhead and glistens on velvety mosses. Orchids – astonishingly, one in 10
flowering plants on Earth is an orchid – are everywhere, a profusion of huge
petals in delicate colours set off by the dark green of palm leaves and banana trees. The Conservatory itself, gifted to the Golden Gate Park in
1877, is the oldest public glasshouse in America. It survived the 1906
earthquake, but was closed from 1933 to 1946 due to structural instability and
again in 1995 after being damaged in a storm. It was placed on the World Monuments Fund’s list of 100 most endangered monuments in 1998, but, after a
$25 million restoration campaign, reopened in 2003 in all its former glory.
Now, surrounded by mown lawns and bright flowerbeds, it is a favourite with
all those who visit the Golden Gate Park.
The Conservatory of Flowers...
...restored and resplendent in white paint with stained-glass details
Misty air and tropical temperatures inside the glasshouse
One of the many fabulous orchids
San Francisco’s architecture is one of the main reasons I
fell in love with the city in the first place. Crammed up against each other
are Italianate, mock-Tudor, Spanish, and Arts-and-Crafts confections in
glorious profusion, but foremost among the city’s styles is Queen Anne. A far
cry from the English image of a neatly proportioned red-brick rectory, the name
here denotes a Victorian house choc-a-bloc with witch’s-cap turrets, corner bays,
fish-scale shingles, gilded plasterwork, porticos and random Classical details,
all bundled together in a riot of light and shade to make a Baroque lover weep.
In the Haight, they’re painted every colour of the rainbow, as befits the
centre of the flower power movement, and even in 1885 a newspaper accused the new houses of being painted with every colour 'that is loud in fashion'. By contrast, the best preserved Queen Anne, the Haas-Lilienthal House, is an elegant grey-blue. The
headquarters of the SF Heritage society, it gives an insight into the daily life of a prominent Victorian family. Built by Peter R. Schmidt for William and Bertha Haas, it sheltered
their family, and, after William’s early death, that of their daughter Alice,
who married Samuel Lilienthal in 1909. Samuel died in 1957, but Alice, a lover
of riding and swimming, lived until 1972. Her heirs donated the house to the Foundation
for San Francisco’s Architectural Heritage the following year and it has been
open to the public ever since for events and tours.
The south side of the Haas-Lilienthal House. The family bought the
neighbouring plot and knocked down the house that stood there, in order
to have a bigger garden and show off their house's intricate façade
The witch's cap turret on the south-east corner
The interior is typically Victorian, with dark panelling and
heavy furniture, but with some notable pieces, including a handsome long-case
clock. The layout is odd for someone used to the English
tradition of servants’ quarters downstairs and grand public rooms on the ground
floor. Here, the kitchen and butler’s pantry are only steps away from the
dining room – convenient, but perhaps a tad noisy? – and the ballroom is in
what one could inelegantly term the basement, with a low ceiling and visible
pipes. One would imagine Mr Darcy being even less inclined to dance than usual
in such a place. But it’s a comfortable, welcoming house, with all the
latest mod cons, including a splendid kitchen range with six gas hobs and a
bathroom complete with ‘rainwater’ shower. Apparently, such showers were as
much in vogue in the late 19th century as they are now.
The wide hallway, with its panelling and dark walls, would have
been warm and welcoming on a foggy San Francisco day
The dining-room table could be extended with 10 leaves
The state-of-the-art Victorian bathroom
Unexpectedly, as I have never considered myself to have any
particular feelings for Disney films beyond nostalgia for the cartoons of my
childhood, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and so on, the
highlight of my bucket-list week was a visit to the Walt Disney Family Museum in the
Presidio. It is one of the best museums I have ever been to, imaginatively
curated with an astonishing array of memorabilia laid out with a care to sound as
well as image. Many of the displays, often more than one in a room, have
soundtracks to them – something that I, being partially deaf, usually struggle
with. Here, careful design of ceilings and booths meant I could hear
everything easily and focus on the sounds that went with what I was looking
at. Drawing from a vast amount of raw material, the curators have created something coherent and
consistently fascinating.
The Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio. Don't think the word
'Family' implies it's only for children, far from it!
As in this room, which shows how sound first enters Disney's films, stands
are designed with every care for acoustics, a rare and welcome idea
The museum takes you through Walt Disney's whole life, from dressing
up as Abraham Lincoln on the late president’s birthday and reciting the
Gettysburg Address in front of his class (he did it so well that the teachers
asked him to repeat the performance for every class in the school), to drawing
cartoons for a newspaper and the trials and triumphs of Hollywood. You feel his
delight in the little mouse that made his name – indeed, became a form of
himself on screen – the thrill of finding a way to sync music to pictures (by
having a metronome link picture and manuscript) and his determination to keep
the highest standards of artistic quality. Art schools could learn a thing or two
from his belief that one must have the basic skills in order to create
something new. He organized life-drawing classes for his staff and brought in
animal models to study for films such as Bambi, saying in 1935: ‘I definitely feel that we cannot do
the fantastic things, based on the real, unless we first know the real.’
A cleverly executed collage cartoon, one of several illustrating
Walt Disney's childhood, complete with voiceover
Disney illustrators drawing from life, ensuring Bambi and Dumbo were
fantasies with a firm foothold in reality, and thus more believable
Feature-film success, with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, cemented his position at the heart
of Hollywood, but a Communist-influenced strike halted production for three
weeks and damaged his relationship with a workforce with whom he had always had good relations. It was said that, if the Union leaders had
simply consulted him first, he would have agreed to their requests, but such a
reasonable approach seemed, then as now, to be inconceivable to Union stalwarts.
During the Second World War, he turned to making patriotic films, often using
beloved characters such as Mickey Mouse, Pluto and Donald Duck, and operated at
cost to do his bit for the war effort, thus emerging in 1945 with coffers
severely depleted. Disney insisted no expense was
spared in making the best films possible, preferring to risk bankruptcy than allow
a production to cut corners. He spent money to make money
after the war, fulfilling his lifelong dream to make live-action movies such as
the spectacular Twenty-Thousand Leagues
Under the Sea, and delved into films about the natural world. No aspect of film-making escaped his insatiable attention.
A Disney cartoonist's desk
Disney's nature films, housed in a striking, glass-walled passageway
that offers views of the Golden Gate Bridge
Next came one of his most enduring legacies – Disneyland.
From not being particularly worried about going there, it has now jumped up
my bucket list. As a friend put it, ‘that’s the one that Walt built and walked
in’. Having visited other theme parks, dismissed by his wife, Lillian, as
dirty, he determined to build a park that was clean and easy to
navigate – by the simple expedient of arranging it like the spokes of a wheel,
so footsore patrons could return to the centre for a rest. Disney wasn’t just
imaginative, he was realistic and thoughtful. His energies touched another
cause close to my heart – deaf children. With Spencer and Louise Tracy, he founded and supported the John Tracy Clinic, named after their son, which is still active today. I already knew of the connection between Disney and
Spencer Tracy, as they were both followers of the West
Hills Hunt, now amalgamated with the Santa Fe, which I visited in January for Horse and Hound.
Sadly, although there were some great photographs of Disney playing polo, there
were none of him hunting. Political correctness, perhaps?
The saddle used in Zorro, one of Disney's popular forays into television
Room of dreams: how Disneyland came to life
Tears came into my eyes three times in this museum, at a
clip from Bambi and a poster of Old Yeller, but especially at the end,
which came abruptly and heartbreakingly after a segment on Mary Poppins. I had had no idea how
young Walt Disney had died – from lung cancer aged only 65 – and how suddenly the end came for
his family, friends and colleagues. A whole wall is given over to the cartoons
and quotes that spilled out when news of his death broke,
and I couldn’t suppress a lump in my throat at the drawing of a grief-stricken
Mickey Mouse. As Eric Sevareid said on CBS: ‘He probably did more to heal – or at
least soothe – troubled human spirits than all the psychiatrists in the world…What
Disney seemed to know is that while there is very little grown-up in every
child, there is a lot of child in every grown-up. To a child, this weary world
is brand new, gift-wrapped. Disney tried to keep it that way for adults.’ There
are the usual ranks of nay-sayers, who assume that he must have been bad in
some way, whether racist, anti-Semitic or whatever, but there is no evidence
that he was anything of that kind. He moved beyond the prevailing wisdom
– Jews were appallingly treated in 1920s America, for example – to devote his
brilliant brain to finding new ways to entertain and comfort. It was not for
nothing that he received the Showman of the Year award in 1965 from the
National Association of Theatre Owners. Of course he wasn’t perfect, no one is,
but he was human, and no one could deny his energy or imagination. He created
enduring characters and films that were both technologically brilliant and
still entertaining, and built up a Hollywood studio that trained and employed
the very best in the business. The loyalty of his brother, Roy, never wavered
through all the difficult times, and he earned the respect of everyone in the
business. I loved a quote from him
during the making of the ever-more expensive Mary Poppins: ‘I never saw a sad face around the entire studio…No
prophets of doom. Even Roy was happy…The horrible thought struck me - suppose the
staff had finally conceded that I knew what I was doing?’ He certainly did. As
Sevareid put it, he was a ‘happy accident, one of the happiest this century has
experienced’. When so many people were embroiled in war and depression, he took
them away from it all, and not by denying the troubles existed, but by
reminding everyone of the sunny side of life. The Walt
Disney Museum is a credit to his memory.
Hollywood - the land Walt Disney conquered
(and a random visitor!)
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