The mansion on the corner of Jackson and Laguna streets has seen better days. The front door, atop the stone steps where a dashing Nazi spy once regaled overeager San Francisco reporters, is locked today. The paint on its colossal, curved Romanesque twin towers peels in the sun, exposing the original cinnamon-colored sandstone beneath.

2090 Jackson Street is not like other San Francisco mansions. For starters, it’s big. With 30 rooms covering just under 20,000 square feet of space, it’s one of the biggest private residences in the city. It’s also very old. Built in 1896 for a very rich man named William Franklin Whittier, the home survived the great earthquake and outdates any other building on the block. And perhaps most notably, during World War II, it was a Nazi enclave.

As with most old, storied homes in San Francisco, some say the place is haunted. Ghosts may not be real, but ghost stories are a window into some wild histories of the city, and 2090 Jackson doesn’t disappoint. If a ghost does exist there — the fables say the dim outline of a figure often appears on a wall in the basement of the giant building — then there are a number of former residents who may seek to spook the aging sun-baked palace. Here are the candidates.

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William Whittier moved from Maine to California at the age of 22 and quickly entered the glass and paint business, with huge success. He founded Whittier, Fuller & Company, the paint and glass manufacturer, then built the town of Hemet in SoCal and was generally a rich white man making a fortune in California, which was the thing to do in the 1850s. Whittier was also a man-about-town. The San Francisco Chronicle once called him “one of the most widely known citizens of San Francisco.”

In 1896, architect Edward R. Swain celebrated Whittier built a giant mansion. Some stories say he built it as a gift for his wife, who died in a carriage accident during its construction.

He moved in at the age of 64 with his three children — Billy, Mattie and Jane. (Beyond losing his wife, Whittier lost two other children before the age of ten for undisclosed reasons, but times were indeed tough.)

Within a year of the relocation, all adult children married or moved out and left William alone in the 30-room palace, where he likely spent many lonely hours in the octagonal smoking room on the third floor. What drove Whittier’s children out of the home so soon, beyond marriage, is not clear. The San Francisco Examiner reported on his third child Jane’s lavish wedding in the Presidio a few years later, but noted that her father was not in attendance.

Billy, who is invariably described as the “black sheep” of the family, was reportedly a drunk and an endless disappointment to his dad. Whittier once bribed him with an offer of $300 a month to sober up and move down to sleepy Hemet by the lake to live a good life. Billy turned down the offer and continued to drink and party in San Francisco for the rest of his days. Whittier was so maddened he changed his will, deciding to no longer pass the mansion down to Billy.

2090 Jackson Street, San Francisco.

Andrew Chamings/SFGATE

San Franciscans were intrigued about the old millionaire in his mansion, as were the gossip columns of the era. One decidedly large San Francisco Chronicle article in 1907 eagerly reported that Whittier had left the city to lust after a “vivacious young widow” named Mrs. Tilden, whose husband, a Red Cross volunteer, had been shot dead in his car in the Mission the chaotic days after the earthquake.

Whittier, who was 75 years old at the time, was a “devoted admirer of Mrs. Tilden for some time and had showered favors upon her with the burning intensity of a youth.” Another Pacific Heights society watcher claimed that Whittier’s interest in the young widow was “purely parental.”

Either way, the paper announced that “The Whittier mansion at 2090 Jackson street is closed, and his whereabouts or the date of his homecoming are profound mysteries.”

There are many bizarre stories about the goings on of Jackson Street during the following years.

On a Sunday night in 1912, a chauffeur named HC Freeman working for Whittier at the mansion awoke to shattering glass in his bathroom. He reported to the police that two bullets were fired from the street, through the window, and into the looking glass. Quite curiously, Freeman told the cops that he had a habit of staring into the mirror at himself for long periods of time, and he suspected that the shots “were an attempt on the part of someone familiar with his habits to end his vain career. ” Perhaps coincidentally, Whittier’s glass and paint company is credited with being the first to manufacture mirrors on the West Coast.

Two years later, the archives reveal that during the mysterious and fatal bombing of the Old Vedanta Hindu Temple — a majestic building I once argued may be the most beautiful in the city — a resident at 2090 Jackson got hurt. Morris Walter, likely a tenant of Whittier’s, survived the bombing with a “destroyed right eye” and lacerated face. However, the brief mention in the papers states that Walter merely walked the few blocks up the hill and “went home” rather than to the hospital that day.

Whittier died of pneumonia in his giant home in 1917, and with black sheep Billy spurned from the will, Mattie moved in. The building was a private residence until 1941 when the mansion’s second, even stranger act began.

That year, as was raging in Europe, the mansion was sold to the German Reich. Dozens of Germans diplomats moved in to the new lavish consulate.

The Nazi who ran the operation, Captain Fritz Wiedemann, was a stylish former German soldier who once acted as Hitler’s personal assistant. The Chronicle described him as “Hitler’s most astute diplomatic and espionage agent,” while also complimenting his appearance as “suave and smiling,” just months before the US would join the war.

Fritz Wiedemann and a photo of his boss.

Archival / Unknown

Wiedemann appeared to live two lives in San Francisco. Herb Caen mentioned the Nazi in many columns, painting him as a playboy in the city, who friends referred to as “Bubbles.” At the same time, stories were surfacing that in his position in San Francisco, Wiedemann was directing all Nazis in Central and South America, and was “chief disseminator of all Nazi and German propaganda in the United States.”

But only weeks after moving into the consul’s new home, on June 16, 1941, the US government kicked all German diplomats out of the country.

Reporters gathered in Pacific Heights that day to interview Wiedemann. “I like the city and the scenery. Without politics, I would like to live here,” he said on the front steps of 2090 Jackson.

When asked if he would be heading back to Germany to fight for his fuhrer, Wiedemann replied, “No idea,” though consular staff said they were all being sent to South America.

The saddest Nazi that day may have been Wiedemann’s 15-year-old son, Eduard, a Lowell High School student who loved life in the city. “I like it here,” Eduard told reporters in his distinctly Californian accent while “sulking” around the grounds. “It’s swell.”

Young Eduard Wiedemann stares longingly over the Bay from his mansion after being told he must leave America due to his dad being a Nazi.

San Francisco Examiner / Archival

Outside of San Francisco, Wiedemann’s story took many more turns. Years later, it was revealed that as early as 1940, Hitler’s former right-hand man was spurned by the dictator after he had an affair with a Hungarian princess, who the fuhrer had been using for secret missions. Wiedemann then betrayed Hitler and urged the British to attack the Nazis, warning them that Adolf had a “split personality and numbered among the most cruel people in the world.”

Wiedemann didn’t make it to South America, but instead spied for the Germans in China, where it’s unclear if he worked for or against the Third Reich.

Back on Jackson Street, after the war, life normalized. The mansion was seized from the Germans in 1950 and became a private residence again. From 1956 to 1991, its tall wooden doors opened to the public as the home of the California Historical Society. It sold to a private resident in 1991 for $3,000,000 and hasn’t changed hands since. Its current worth is estimated at around $17,000,000.

So who haunts the basement on Jackson Street? Maybe one of Whittier’s children who died before adolescence, or maybe Billy the drunk who died just a few years after his father, returning to claim what was his. Maybe it’s the vain chauffeur, back to get one last look in the mirror, or maybe the one-eyed Hindu temple visitor, who crawled up the hill after the bombing. My money, however, is on Eduard, the sulking son of the double-crossing Nazi, back from exile in the swell city he loved.

The post The unusual San Francisco mansion that was as soon as a Nazi enclave appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Boris Fudym’s eyes light up with mischief as he sifts through a cooler in the back of his shop on 21st and Geary Boulevard. Retrieving a chilled red and yellow can from one of the shelves, he holds it up to me. I can’t read the language on the label, but it resembles a pint of beer. He raises his eyebrows, egging me on.

“If you try it, I’ll tell you what it is,” the proprietor of New World Market tells me. Noticing my apprehension — it’s just after noon on a Thursday, and I’m on the clock, after all — he adds, “It’s not alcoholic.” 

Hunched over jars of pickled vegetables and preserves in the cramped aisle, he pours some of the fermented brown liquid into a plastic cup, and I take a sip. It’s sweeter than I expected — almost kombucha-like, with a hint of bitterness, a slight effervescence and a tangy aftertaste. It sort of reminds me of iced tea, but it’s actually kvass — a drink Fudym tells me is very popular in Russia and is one he always makes sure to keep in stock.  

The secret ingredient? Rye bread.

“Imagine drinking this on a hot summer day,” says Fudym, downing his own cup and taking my blue shopping basket. “Come on, I’ll show you more.”

Boris Fudym, owner of New World Market and Hermitage Banquet Hall, stands in front of produce bins at his legacy business in an area of the Richmond that has come to be known as Little Russia. 

Amanda Bartlett/SFGATE

He greets his customers by name, recommending a brand of caviar cream to one of them as we weave past rows of frozen pelmeni, bagged lentils and buckwheat. In another corner of the store, there’s freshly baked breads, homemade sausages, beet-filled vinaigrette, chocolate bars and a display of seven different varieties of sunflower seeds. The aroma of smoked herring wafts through the air as we approach the delicatessen counter, where Fudym points out some of New World Market’s most popular dishes. There’s crispy, pan-fried blinchiki — crepes filled with a savory-sweet twaróg cheese that the market prepares in-house, usually served with a side of sour cream and coffee in the morning, and melt-in-your-mouth syrniki pancakes. Juicy shashlik made with pork and lamb glistens from a plate, waiting to be skewered and served with seared vegetables. 

He pauses in front of an olivier salad with potatoes, minced chicken, carrots, pickles and peas:  “No New Year’s celebration would be complete without this,” he says. “Two days before the holiday, we’ll sell 300 or 400 pounds of it.” 

Pastries filled with twaróg at Cinderella Bakery and Cafe in the Richmond District of San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2021.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Fudym leads me past the kitchen, where cooks are preparing trays of a beef roulade called zrazy, and down a narrow hallway to the adjacent Hermitage Banquet Hall, a popular event space boasting high, marbled ceilings and painted tapestries. Prior to the pandemic, weddings, birthdays and other special occasions were often celebrated here, with families arriving around 6 p.m. to eat, drink, talk and dance for hours, usually not leaving until after midnight. It’s clearly a source of pride for Fudym, who has carved out a modern social hub in this enclave of the Richmond District for the Russian-speaking community that has been around for decades.  

“It’s like a little home,” he said of the marketplace and adjoining event space. “People know they can come to us if they’re looking for a certain ingredient that reminds them of home. Sometimes people just find information and disseminate it. In addition to a store, we serve as a starting point for a lot of people in the neighborhood. They don’t know what to do or where to go, and we try to accommodate them and give them jobs where we can. It’s like a smaller community, where we keep helping each other to succeed.”

The Holy Virgin Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church, is a focal point of what has come to be known as Little Russia in the Richmond District of San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2021.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Scores of Russian immigrants have been coming to San Francisco since as early as the 1860s, with about 6,000 to 10,000 people constituting the first large wave that arrived in the city between 1918 and 1940 following the Russian Civil War and Bolshevik Revolution, according to Nina Bogdan, a historian and co-author of “Russian San Francisco.” Many settled in the Fillmore because the neighborhood not only had an existing Russian Jewish community but was also not far from the city’s first — and at the time, the only — Russian Orthodox cathedral, the Holy Trinity Cathedral, which is still on Green Street to this day (The original church on Powell Street was destroyed in a fire after the 1906 earthquake, and the new location was established three years later.) 

Many were impoverished by the time they came to San Francisco, arriving with “only the clothes on their backs and a single suitcase, if that,” Bogdan said. The Great Depression exacerbated these already challenging circumstances, but as time passed, the economic situation of many Russians did improve. They went to school and obtained degrees that allowed them to seek out higher-paying jobs, and by the late 1930s, many began to set out for the Richmond, where developers were constructing apartment buildings and single-family homes that they could now afford. 

Bogdan said most people aren’t aware of the history of Russians in the Fillmore because when the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency declared the neighborhood as a “blighted area” in 1948, demolishing nearly 40 blocks of development, the resulting impact displaced thousands of people from their homes — including more than 10,000 Black residents — and led to the loss of several Russian, Mexican and Filipino businesses in what was once one of the city’s most integrated neighborhoods. 

“There were many Russian-owned stores around O’Farrell and Webster, and they just don’t exist anymore,” she said. “All of that disappeared because people didn’t just leave or were forced out, but the redevelopment changed the physical appearance of that neighborhood. Most people think the Richmond has always been a huge Russian neighborhood, but that’s not exactly true. Much of it started in the Fillmore.” 

Two customers leave Royal Market Bakery, a Russian-Armenian grocery store in the Richmond District of San Francisco, on Aug. 11, 2021.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

One focal point of the Russian-speaking community remained, however: the Russian Center on Sutter Street. Built in 1911 and purchased by the community in 1939, the 550-seat ballroom and theater has historically worked to preserve their cultural heritage as they assimilated to life in the city, hosting plays, operas, folk dances, lectures and benefit events in addition to the three-day Russian Festival that is still held every February. 

“It was kind of an anchor that pulled people in from both neighborhoods,” said Bogdan.  

As the 1940s and 1950s progressed, more of the Russian-speaking community began to gravitate toward the Richmond, including Bogdan’s own parents, who arrived during what came to be known as the largest wave of Russian immigration to San Francisco following World War II. Her father was born in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union, and at the age of 14, he was forced to work in a German labor camp after the country was invaded by Nazis. 

Following the war, he lived in a displaced persons camp in Western Europe and eventually made his way to San Francisco, where his older brother was living, and established new roots on 2nd Avenue and Clement Street. Bogdan’s mother and great aunt arrived in the U.S. around the same time by way of Brazil after living in Harbin, a city in China built by Russians prior to the Bolshevik Revolution. Bogdan said her mother and father were introduced through the Russian community, and after exchanging letters, her mother came to San Francisco and they got married in 1959. 

Outdoor seating is available at Red Tavern on Clement Street during open hours in the Richmond District of San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2021.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

By this time, businesses either owned by or serving Russian people were steadily increasing — among them delis, jewelers, insurance brokers, ballet studios and piano instructors. The Russian Renaissance Restaurant was opened in 1959 by Boris Vertloogin, who served as president of the Russian Center for many years, and the iconic Holy Virgin “Joy of All Who Sorrow” Cathedral that many associate with the Richmond today broke ground in 1961. Designed by architect Oleg Iwanitsky, the place of worship was built with five domes covered in 24-karat gold leaf, and more than 4,000 people gathered in front of it in 1964 for the blessing of the crosses that would be hoisted onto the cathedral, which now towers over Geary’s busy thoroughfare.

It wasn’t the only Russian Orthodox church in the Richmond, however — others began to pop up around the neighborhood and are still standing today, including the Russian Orthodox Parish of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk on 15th and Balboa, Christ the Saviour Church on 12th and Anza and the Russian Orthodox Church of Our Lady of Kazan on 19th and California. 

The third wave of immigrants arrived in San Francisco in the 1970s, many of them Russian Jewish refugees who revived efforts to cultivate the neighborhood’s heritage. Globus Books, a Russian bookstore on Balboa Street, opened in 1971 and has been around for 50 years, catering to multiple generations of Russian people in the neighborhood. 

Globus Book in the Richmond District of San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2021. The bookstore specializes in Russian books.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, the Russian-speaking community in the Richmond continued to expand, and articles in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Examiner noted the rise in the population at the time, referring to the area as “Little Russia.” 

Alex Miretsky, owner of Europa Plus on 18th and Geary, came to San Francisco in 1988 by way of Austria and Italy, where he sought a U.S. refugee visa after he left St. Petersburg five months earlier. The grocery store, named after a popular Moscow radio station, specializes in discounted Russian imports, and he said people come from as far as Fremont and Sacramento to shop there, usually after visiting the cathedral.

“They drive great distances,” he said, “But we also have our regulars who have lived here for years, and many young Americans who are interested in trying the authentic stuff.” 

Today, many maps label the strip of Geary Boulevard between 17th and 27th Avenue, where Miretsky’s grocery store is located, with the Little Russia name.

Two customers leave Europa Plus on Geary Boulevard in the Richmond District of San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2021.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

“Many businesses are concentrated in the area and were established here because there was already an existing community for many years,” Miretsky said. “[The Little Russia name] is mostly for those outside — for tourists to more easily understand and navigate different parts of the city. But it makes sense, because there’s not a place in San Francisco like this.” 

Sandwiched among cotton-candy colored homes, boba shops, Irish pubs and pho restaurants, a number of Russian eateries are still around — Red Tavern on Clement Street, Gourmand Deli, Royal Market, and Moscow and Tbilisi, all of which are on Geary Boulevard. And just about every morning, you’ll find dozens of people lined up outside of a Russian bakery on Balboa Street with a cult following. 

Cinderella Bakery and Cafe is a Russian bakery in the Richmond District of San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2021.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Open since 1953, Cinderella Bakery and Café is the oldest Russian bakery in the Bay Area, and perhaps the most well-known in San Francisco. Mouthwatering piroshki, baked and fried, as well as boiled vareniki dumplings and borscht soup — often served with a side of crusty rye bread — are all highlights of the menu.

“I didn’t know I would become a baker,” says current proprietor Mike Fishman, flour dusting his navy blue zip-up jacket. “Now we make about a thousand loaves of bread a week and we do everything by hand.” 

The recipes, passed down from the original owners, Lydia Repin and Eugenia Belonogoff, are still used today, added Fishman, who started working for the bakery in 1988, when he was 16 years old and had recently moved to the Richmond from Moscow with his parents. 

Cinderella Bakery and Cafe owner Mike Fishman holds two loaves of his bakery’s signature rye bread outside his Russian bakery in the Richmond District of San Francisco, on Aug. 11, 2021.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

“Everyone said coming to this neighborhood meant it would be easier to acclimate, that people would show us around,” said Fishman, who lived at 19th and Clement at the time, adding that Repin and Belonogoff helped show his family around in addition to teaching them how to run the bakery. “When we came, all of Geary was packed with Russian stores and people, who had followed previous friends’ or relatives’ footsteps.” 

Today, he believes the neighborhood has seen a shift. There are fewer Russian markets than there once were, and he said many of his former neighbors who were fellow immigrants were either priced out of the Richmond, moved out to nearby suburbs to start families, or journeyed to Silicon Valley to pursue jobs in tech.

Freshly baked loaves of Berlin, top, and rye bread, below, cool on racks at Cinderella Bakery and Cafe, a Russian bakery in the Richmond District of San Francisco,. on Aug. 11, 2021.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

“It’s a different place than it used to be,” he said. “But we like maintaining this tradition here. People who used to live here when they were kids come back and bring their own kids. … Without places like this, we’d lose Russian heritage that’s been here for close to 100 years.”

Though Cinderella is still eyeing an expansion to a new space on 24th Street in the Mission, which used to be occupied by La Victoria Bakery, the original location isn’t going anywhere. It achieved legacy status in 2017, and two years later, so did New World Market, preserving some of the area’s rich Russian history.

“We’ll never try to pretend to be something else,” said Fudym. “We cook the food people grew up with, and that’s why they keep coming.” 

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It’s Inner Richmond Month at SFGATE. We’ll be diving deep into the neighborhood for the entirety of August as part of a new series where we’ll be highlighting a different corner of San Francisco every month this year.

A woman looks at the produce outside New World Market in the Richmond District of San Francisco on Aug. 11, 2021.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Some baked and fried piroshkis at Cinderella Bakery and Cafe, a Russian bakery in the Richmond District of San Francisco, on Aug. 11, 2021.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

A customer orders at the counter of Cinderella Bakery and Cafe, a Russian bakery in the Richmond District of San Francisco, on Aug. 11, 2021.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

A poppy seed roll is one of the many pastries available at Cinderella Bakery and Cafe, a Russian bakery in the Richmond District of San Francisco, on Aug. 11, 2021.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

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