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The Robert Louis Stevenson Connection 1896

10/24/2021

1 Comment

 
Picture
Alvarado Street, Monterey California by Jules Tavernier. (Note the Bohemia Salon (sic) on the right)
   In 1896 the San Francisco Call newspaper featured an article referring to "Sanchez' bar" in Monterey. The big news was that architect Willis Polk and artist Charles Rollo Peters were prepared to enjoy a drink and view the famous art and writing on the walls when they found the bar with a new name and new ownership. Worse yet, the new owner had destroyed the precious work by painting the walls. The destroyed vignettes were known works by William Keith, CR Peters, Jules Tavernier, Daniel Polk, Albert Bierstadt, John Muir, Ernest Piexetto, Xavier Martinez, Robert Louis Stevenson and many more. Willis was so upset at the destruction, he immediately took a train back to San Francisco.
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  Monterey was the go-to getaway for the Bay Area artist/literati set before Carmel usurped her place as an artist colony. (Another story, another time). Monterey had the added benefit of a train station that took you straight to the Del Monte Lodge, conveniently built by the same investors in the train. And while plenty of drinking went on at the Lodge, the artists frequented this small bar downtown. The owner Adulpho Sanchez encouraged the paintings which were often gifts in lieu of paying a bar tab. It was famous long before the murals at Coppa's in San Francisco.
     Sanchez's bar was The Bohemia Saloon on Alvarado Street. T
he bar was owned by the Sanchez brothers. Adulpho and his brother were well known in Monterey and to the creative set of the time. Adulpho was married to Nellie Vandegrift, sister to Fannie Vandegrift Osborne Stevenson. And what does that mean? Adulpho was Robert Louis Stevenson's brother-in-law. In fact it is Adulpho's son for whom "to my name-child" from  Child's Garden of Verses was written. Well Bob's your uncle, literally! 
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TO MY NAME-CHILD (excerpt)
Some day soon this rhyming volume,
if you learn with proper speed,
Little Louis Sanchez, will be given you to read.
Then shall you discover,
that your name was printed down
​By the English printers,
​long before, in London town.
​
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    Nellie Vandegrift Sanchez served as the amanuensis for "Bob" Robert Louis Stevenson when he wrote Prince Otto on his sick-bed in Oakland, and she later penned a biography. Stevenson died in Samoa in 1894 seeking the benefits of a warmer climate after battling ill health his entire life.
     When news reached San Francisco of his death, it is alleged that Willis Polk and his friend and artistic collaborator Bruce Porter
met at the Palace Hotel to dine, wine and design a monument to Stevenson. Polk drew the plan on the tablecloth, paid the complaining waiter a dollar for the loss, and walked off with the cloth tucked under his arm. They created the Stevenson Memorial in San Francisco's Portsmouth Square with money raised by the Stevenson's good friend Dora Williams.
     Dora Williams was also an artist and the sole witness at the Stevenson wedding. She was the widow of Virgil Williams, a founder of the Bohemian Club and founding president of the San Francisco Art Institute. Dora met Fanny and Robert through the Art Institute. While little is known about exactly when she met Willis, it is likely through the same artistic circles and their Russian Hill neighbors. Willis and Daniel lived at 40 Florence while remodeling for Horatio Livermore. Dora lived at 826 Green Street. They all were part of the 
Worcester Group of artists and writers on the hill.
     The entire Polk family moved to Russian Hill in 1892 when Dora and the Polk's became partners in the creation of the duplex that tumbled down the steep "unbuildable" hillside in six stories at 1019/15 Vallejo Street (Polk-Williams House). 
Dora lived in the western unit and the Polk family in the eastern. In 1895, Fanny Stevenson and her daughter Isobel returned to San Francisco from Samoa and stayed in one of Dora’s lower floors for six months. The Polk/Williams house was always humming with artists in tenancy or visiting one side or the other.
     In 1899, a now wealthy Fanny hired Willis to design a home for her at Hyde and Lombard close to her Russian Hill circle of friends. 
The Stevenson home located at 2323 Hyde (the street name a coincidence as RLS wrote Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), was huge. A stained glass window designed by Polk depicts the ship Hispaniola from Treasure Island and was likely created by Bruce Porter. The home was bigger than it is today, stretching around the corner west down Lombard Street. The property was split off at a later date and once used as a convent after Fanny’s death.

Have anything to add to this web of interconnectivity? I would love to hear about it! 

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Polk/Williams House 1019/15 Vallejo Street, San Francisco
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Livermore House 40 Florence Street, San Francisco
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Stevenson House 2323 Hyde Street, San Francisco
Credits:
Nancy Everett. Dora Norton Williams... in the Argonaut, Volume 21 No. 1., Spring 2010
Scott Shields. Artists at the Continent's Edge. University of California Press. 2006
1 Comment
Paul Hershey
12/8/2021 11:24:47 pm

Well, Porter Garnett was the youngest son of Louis A. Garnett, who was involved with the SF Mint in his earlier years. Porter was raised on Rincon Hill before Knob Hill became THE address of the hoi-polloi. Having studied at the Art Institute and a member of the Bohemian Club (with club pals George Sterling, Jack London, et al), Porter was part of the 'artsy' crowd that gathered up on Russian Hill. As a contributor to 'The Lark', 'The Argonaut' and other publications in the Bay area, Porter knew the art and academic folks from the East Bay / Oakland / Berkeley area as well. His future wife (Edna Foote) was from Knight's Valley, Sonoma County, located at the foot of Mount St. Helena (MSH) - where Stevenson had his honeymoon with his new bride Fanny Osborne. Having found a camping spot at an abandoned Cinnabar mine (Quicksilver) - that location was upon the recommendation of Virgil Williams, (the head of the Art Institute) who had a country cabin on the slopes of MSH. Supposedly, Stevenson got his inspiration for Looking Glass Hill from Sugarloaf Mount in Knight's Valley after a visit to see Williams. In addition, Garnett was related to both Martha Hitchcock, (Lillian H. Coit's mother) and was socially connected to all the well-to-do 'knobs' of San Francisco. So, both Porter's peers and his parent's generation were well aware of Stevenson and the artistic, literary crowd of the later quarter of the 19th Century. The artistic and literary threads that run through San Francisco (Florence Lundborg, Maynard Dixon, Fred Yates, et al) and the Bay area (The Partingtons, Yone Noguchi up atJoaquin Miller's 'The Hights', Xaviar Maritinez, et al) are very extensive and continued on even after the 1906 Earthquake/Fire - down in the new Art Colony which started up in Carmel. But that's another several paragraphs to name names and define those relationships...with Arnold Genthe, Nora May French, Herbert Heron, again George Sterling and Jack London, and more... whew!

(Note: I researched and wrote a biography of Calvin Hall Holmes, a California '49er and Sonoma County rancher. His eldest granddaughter was Edna Foote of the above mentioned Knight's Valley. Concurrent and later research put me on the trail of all of the above mentioned individuals.)

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    STORIES
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    SONG: DAISY
    HOT SPRINGS 1882
    A WILLIS POLK GIFT
    THE RLS CONNECTION 1896

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    PANDEMIC OF 1889
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    MILAN:CITY OF WATER
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    POLK ON THE MAP
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    1906 SAN FRANCISCO
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    THE WHITE DEATH
    THE SYMBOLISM OF FLOWERS
    POSTE DE SECOURS  WWI
    TRAVEL 1900: LONDON TO PARIS 

    DAISY: REST IN PEACE
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    KEITH'S, DRANE'S & KENTUCKY
    ​MOTHER: MISSOURI COMPROMISE 

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