A much-criticized bike lane that runs through the middle of a San Francisco street could be relocated less than a year after it was built.

It was a bold and different plan. Cyclists would ride in the middle of Valencia Street between the traffic lanes. The center bike lane was installed last August between 15th and 23rd streets in the Mission District.

The goal was to make cyclists feel safer and create an efficient traffic artery along the Mission. But the project has since come under criticism. People in the area say there are no clear directions for cyclists or motorists, leading to confusion and danger.

The SFMTA is currently seeking approval from the city's Department of Transportation for a side-by-side bike lane. Two concepts are under discussion:

• One proposal would force cyclists to ride around restaurant parklets, bringing them closer to traffic.
• The other design would have cyclists ride between the curb and the parklets.

Some local business owners KPIX spoke to are fed up with the whole thing.

“It's terrible. It's not an attractive part of town anymore. Nobody wants to be here,” said Sahar Milani, owner of Rossi Mission SF.

Kevin Ortiz, a member of VAMANOS, a newly formed coalition against the current design of the bike lanes, expressed the community's concerns.

“We have seen 20 companies close, the latest being Los Amigos. So the question is how many more companies will have to suffer,” he said. “The problem is that the SFMTA has not reached out to our organization. We want to meet with them, but they are basically only making contact a week before the actual hearing, which is next week,” he added.

“They don’t ask us or discuss with us, and then they ask people,” says Eiad Eltaweil, owner of the Yasmi restaurant.

In fact, some business owners have filed a lawsuit with the city because they're upset about the loss of parking and other changes in the neighborhood. KPIX spoke with a cyclist today who understands their concerns but still enjoys the ride.

“From a cyclist’s perspective, it’s safer for bikes,” said Craig Sakowitz, a cyclist.

Sakowitz said that while the center bike lane reduces the risk of being hit by a car door or colliding with pedestrians, it also makes it more difficult to turn onto other streets.

All of this information will feed into the next debate on moving the lane to the curb. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will hold a public hearing on the issue a week from now, on Tuesday, June 18.

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Anna Makovec

Anne Makovec is the Breaking News Anchor for the KPIX 5 Morning News. She reports breaking news from across the Bay Area and around the world every weekday from the Live News Desk and compiles reports from Bay Area neighborhoods for later KPIX broadcasts.

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The Mission District will have one less place for casual vibes and upscale beer and burgers: The Monk's Kettle is closing its original location at 3141 16th Street and moving to Oakland's Rockridge neighborhood. According to a press release, the 16th Street location will remain open through June; The Monk's team will then move operations to the Oakland space and plans to host a grand opening in early fall. In the press release, co-owner Christian Albertson cites an expired rental agreement and the possibility of a new location with larger space and better offerings as the reason for the move. The San Rafael outpost remains unchanged.

As part of the farewell, Albertson also wrote a letter titled “Reflections on a 16-Year Run on 16th Street,” in which he discussed the vastly different landscape in San Francisco than when the dimly lit destination for hazy IPAs and pretzel rolls opened . Albertson says that when he opened in 2007, San Francisco was a “community.” [that] was more focused on going out and experiencing the world through its restaurants, bars and shops.” The app-based delivery boom in the early 2010s for a gastropub was never a good thing, he writes. If 20 percent of every sale goes to another company, the money dries up—plus the experience of hanging out with friends over a basket of fries and a Cellarmaker beer. “For the first nine years of our tenure, our kitchen was open until 1 a.m. every night and we kicked people out at 2 a.m.,” the note reads in part. “These days, closing at 11 p.m. often feels too late.”

The monk's kettle

The monk's kettle

In addition to changing restaurant trends, Albertson cites the recent influx of tech workers as a major problem for his industry. Instead of people in neighborhoods like the Mission investing and taking the time to become regulars at bars and restaurants, “the workers at these companies are here on short-term contracts with contracts for a year (or less)” and “that's what they are.” far less inclined to support their local district; They're more likely to head to desirable hotspots before heading to wherever the next job takes them.” He says these reasons and more make San Francisco more ephemeral than ever, adding to the reality of being a small business owner here make challenge.

The Monk's Kettle will take over the former Citron space at 5484 College Avenue. The release touts an open floor plan for a large bar — fans of the business can expect the lion's head bar to move to the East Bay — and a dining room with a large back patio next to a lemon tree and a trellis overhead. Parklets in front of the restaurant expand seating capacity. Closing events and sales, including a time travel tour of vintage menus and cellar beers, will take place in the following months. Updates will be posted on Monk's Kettle's social media channels. “So we head to Rockridge to start the new neighborhood bar,” Albertson’s letter continued. “We hope to see you all there.”

Monk's Kettle (3141 16th Street) will remain open through June and is open Sunday through Thursday from noon to 11 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from noon to midnight.

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The post Traditional Mission District Gastropub Monk’s Kettle to Shut San Francisco Location and Head to Oakland appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Part 1 of a 2-part article on the high-performance attributes of 350 Mission in San Francisco.

A very high level of sustainable design characterizes 350 Mission, a 30-story office tower on Mission Street in San Francisco. The building is certified LEED Platinum under LEED v2.2, and it also meets the 2011 California Green Building Code (CALGreen) and the San Francisco Green Building Code. To get to that point, the owner, Kilroy Realty Corp., and the design team explored a wide range of innovative high-performance MEP solutions.

The mechanical and lighting systems incorporate numerous energy conservation measures. As in all mechanical design, the primary drivers of the design were occupant comfort, space, resource efficiency, and cost. All occupied spaces must meet the thermal comfort criteria of ASHRAE Standard 55, which sets forth guidelines on temperature and air speed under various installation conditions, and acknowledges the benefits of users’ control over their local thermal environment.  

The high-performance HVAC solution is an underfloor air delivery (UFAD) strategy. The primary drivers for this decision were reduced operating energy, improved indoor air quality (IAQ), individual occupant comfort and controllability, increased air economizer hours, and tenant space flexibility. The UFAD system, when coupled with a high-efficiency chiller plant and air-side economizer, provides a superior HVAC solution. In addition to air distribution, the UFAD plenum also provides for power, voice, and data distribution.

While other high-performance HVAC alternatives were considered, the project drivers pointed to UFAD. Some system alternatives provided even higher levels of energy savings, such as chilled beams with a dedicated outside air system (DOAS). Another option studied was an optimized overhead VAV system.

Ultimately, the comparative studies showed that the UFAD system achieved all the project goals, including the owner’s vision for a flexible office space, improved IAQ, and energy savings. The system also achieved the required cooling capacity output needed to offset the envelope thermal loads.

The building’s direct digital control (DDC) building management system is fully interoperable, controlling both the base building core-and-shell plant systems and the tenant systems. This includes the underfloor fan-powered boxes, chilled water temperature sensors, lighting system, carbon dioxide occupancy sensors, and demand control ventilation.

The HVAC system maximizes energy efficiency, providing conditioned air directly to the occupants at floor level, where it then stratifies and is returned above the occupied zone (via a ceiling plenum or open ceiling) back to the floor-by-floor unit.

The supply air can be warmer (60 to 62 F) with floor distribution than with an overhead distribution (55 F) because the intent is to cool only the zone that people occupy, not the entire volume of space up to the ceiling. Air temperature is allowed to rise closer to the ceiling as it leaves the occupied space. The reduced demand for cooling the supply air translates into a reduced energy demand on the chiller, which doesn’t have to make cooler chilled water.

What’s more, the UFAD is a low-pressure system. Because air is not forced through a network of ductwork and dampers, the system can achieve considerable fan energy savings. The interior zone of every space is one big open plenum. Only perimeter fan-powered boxes in exterior zones are required for UFAD.

In terms of IAQ, delivering air at the floor and returning at the ceiling takes advantage of the natural tendency of air to rise as it warms, drawing it through the occupants’ breathing zone in the process. This is the most effective ventilation distribution strategy under ASHRAE Standard 62.1. Manually adjustable floor diffusers are also provided, allowing the occupants to adjust the amount of air they receive and fine-tune their individual thermal comfort.

Other key energy conservation measures include low-energy LED lighting, daylighting controls, lighting occupancy sensors, and a high-efficiency domestic water heater. In addition to its use in the cooling tower, reclaimed storm water is also used for toilet flushing. 

Lead photo caption: 350 Mission is a LEED Platinum-certified, 30-story office tower on Mission Street in San Francisco, directly across from the new Transbay Transit Center in the city’s rapidly evolving South of Market district. • Completed in 2015, the $250 million project is sited on a tight 19,000-square-foot lot. The 420,000-square-foot building is Type 1 construction with a concrete structure and a total height of about 420 feet. • The tower is clad with a high-performance unitized curtain wall with alternating inward- and outward-tipping panels, giving the facade a “woven” appearance as light reflects off the surface. • The tower features a 50-foot tall lobby that also functions as a free-flowing open public space. The space uses a unique folding glass wall system that opens the lobby to the street while maintaining the interior climate with an energy-efficient radiant floor heating and cooling system. A real-time digital video canvas displays art. • All of the building’s Class A office space was pre-leased to Salesforce, a global cloud computing company.

Photo credit: © Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP | AJSNY, 2016. All rights reserved.

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The Mission’s eccentric Japanese izakaya Chome is making a move this week, opening up in a new location at 26th Street and San Jose Avenue after a temporary one-month closure.

The restaurant — with a bar — is aiming to reopen on Nov. 10 at 3601 26th St., nine blocks from its old spot at 18th and Mission streets and in the former home of Wild Pepper, a Chinese restaurant that closed in May after 15 years.

Storefront of Chome’s new location at 3601 26th St., which used to house Wild Pepper. Photo by Xueer Lu. November 8, 2023.

“We are very excited about this new place,” said Judy, an employee who has been working at Chome since it opened in October 2021. “Some neighbors already came and said hi. We are very grateful for that.”

It is unclear why the izakaya relocated, but the move will come with a few tweaks to the menu and will provide the restaurant with a bigger dine-in space, according to Judy. Most of the employees now working at Chome will be sticking with the restaurant, she said. 

The restaurant, which gained a reputation as a hidden gem, had a petite dining area with only six tables. Customers would often face lengthy wait times to get a taste of the restaurant’s various offerings — grilled skewers, udon, ramen, and other fare from the five-page long menu. 

Chome’s old location at 2193 Mission St., has become the home for Undingable, a temporary dim sum spot created by Chome’s owner, serving Shanghai-style soup dumplings, shumai, and other Chinese dishes. 

Undingable, as in “un-ding-able,” is a coined word translated from Chinese, meaning unstandable. The name came from the inside jokes among the staff at Chome when they make fun of each other. 

This tiny but fast-paced dumpling shop is currently open for business but for limited hours – only from 5 to 11 p.m. from Tuesday to Saturday. 

Undingable’s business hours. Photo by Xueer Lu. November 8, 2023.

Judy said Undingable is a transitional pop-up and will be replaced by  Shanghai Moon, the upcoming new restaurant that will occupy the spot  and serve Shanghai flavors. The crew is working on completing the signage, designing a new menu, and retraining the staff.

The “restaurant business is very hard in San Francisco so we really have to have the heart for it,” Judy said. “Hopefully the heart will keep going for years and years.”

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Chris Gaither was opening up for evening service at GluGlu Friday afternoon, standing up signs outside and polishing wine glasses at the charming wine bar-restaurant he owns with his wife right next to Chase Center. 

He’d heard the rumors that OpenAI is poised to sign a massive lease in Mission Bay, just a stone’s throw away from GluGlu. The ChatGPT maker reportedly plans to take nearly 450,000 square feet of a headquarters complex designed for Uber, but never occupied by the ride-share company, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Gaither addressed the news—that the ascendant AI company may sign the city’s single-largest office lease since 2018—with a tinge of optimism. GluGlu opened just five months ago, but has had a tough time gaining a steady clientele.

“Not a lot of people know that we’re here, and a lot of it is due to the fact that people consider this place an event-space only,” Gaither said. 

Chase Center has transformed the Mission Bay waterfront, but nearby small businesses are still grappling with volatility coming out of the pandemic. More often than not, sales are contingent on the Warriors’ season and the arena’s concert bookings

Most see the thousands of new OpenAI employees coming to the neighborhood as a hopeful sign of growth for their businesses and the community. But, with private cafeterias and hybrid work, not all of them are convinced. Jimmy Lian, general manager of Harmonic Brewing in Thrive Center, describes business as operating in “extreme peaks and valleys.”

The announcement of OpenAI potentially moving to the neighborhood has Glu Glu owner Chris Gaither feeling optimistic about the future. | Source: Joshua Bote/The Standard

“When there’s a Warriors game or a Chase Center event, like a concert, we’re always busy, but it’s those days in between that we really struggle,” Lian said, adding that the events are what keeps them afloat. Friday afternoon, the bar had already started filling up with groups of tech workers and concertgoers. (The show that night: The punk-influenced rap duo $uicideboy$.) 

Harmonic sees a consistent flow of University of California San Francisco Medical Center workers coming in after their shifts. And the days that Uber employees come into the office—typically Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus some pre-weekend happy hours—provide an additional boost. 

Jimmy Lian, the general manager at Harmonic Brewing, pours a beer in the Mission Bay brewery. He describes business at the brewery as operating in “extreme peaks and valleys.” | Source: Joshua Bote/The Standard

But given Uber’s hybrid work policy, the traffic is not always enough to break even during the NBA offseason. Harmonic has recently set up in-house events—DJ classes and trivia—to help lure more customers in. The company recently announced it would close its Dogpatch location at the end of the month. 

Derek Daniels, a research director at real estate firm Colliers, said there has been much made of AI’s potential impact on San Francisco’s lagging office market. But the OpenAI deal feels a bit different, in part due to the scale. 

Daniels said plenty of neighborhoods are vying for a slice of the AI pie—with startups taking up space in Potrero Hill, Showplace Square and the Inner Mission. That San Francisco’s buzziest tech company in years is setting up a home base in Mission Bay, which borders Potrero Hill and Showplace Square, is a no-brainer, considering its proximity to the rest of “Area AI.”

“There’s the potential to have, at some point, a couple thousands of more people in that area on a daily basis,” said Daniels, who is not directly involved with OpenAI’s prospective lease. 

Residents of the Mission Bay neighborhood walk around the intersection of Berry and Fifth Streets. | Source: Camille Cohen/The Standard

Lian said he believes the ChatGPT maker’s entry into the neighborhood could make Mission Bay synonymous with AI to residents and tourists alike. 

“I think it’ll draw some interest from people that aren’t even affiliated with the company, like, ‘Oh, they’re opening offices down there. Let’s go check it out,’” Lian said.  

Gaither agrees, saying he thinks OpenAI could help Mission Bay reach a path to becoming a “destination neighborhood” not unlike the Dogpatch, where his other wine bar, Ungrafted, is located. 

Other business owners are a little more skeptical.

SF Kebab, which is just outside the perimeter of the Chase Center and its Thrive City plaza—has seen relatively little impact on their business from Uber, despite the ride-hailing giant’s headquarters being located across the street. Owner Bawer Tekin worries that OpenAI’s presence will be the same.

SF Kebab owner Bawer Tekin poses for a portrait outside his Mission Bay neighborhood restaurant. | Source: Joshua Bote/The Standard

“I’m sure if [OpenAI] comes … they will have kitchen facilities,” said Tekin, who first opened up his shop in 2017. A marketing brochure advertising 1725 Third St., one of the buildings being considered by OpenAI, touts a full-service commercial kitchen and cafeteria on the sixth and seventh floors of the building. 

Tekin is also unsure how often OpenAI employees will actually be coming in, although CEO Sam Altman’s characterization of remote work as an unsuccessful “experiment” is likely a positive sign. A number of OpenAI job listings reference a hybrid work model of three in-office days weekly. 

UCSF and nearby biotech firms provide a steady stream of customers, especially for lunchtime and catering, Tekin said, but their sales correspond with in-office schedules. Mondays and Fridays, for example, remain slow.

Mission Bay is a neighborhood that has drastically changed from its roots as a largely industrial center to a new hub of medical research, education and innovation. Whether OpenAI’s arrival represents another shift in its history remains to be seen. 

But, for now, many business owners like Gaither are just focused on staying on stable ground. 

“At the end of the day, I’d be just happy to see more and new faces coming in,” Gaither said with a grin.

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Two high-profile figures in the contentious debate over San Francisco’s homeless crisis drew a full house at the civic and community space Manny’s in the city’s Mission District Tuesday evening. A local business owner and a prominent homeless advocate usually would trade blows and take a lot of heat for their vocal views online. 

Deli Board owner Adam Mesnick, who runs the X account @bettersoma, said he became an expert on homelessness through his personal experience in the city’s South of Market district.

“I have found two dead bodies, one in 2023, one in 2019, both walking my dog outside of my home,” Mesnick said. “If you’ve seen the conditions on 7th and Mission and you can look at me and honestly tell me that that’s humane, then I will give up.” 

Mesnick approached Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director for the Coalition on Homelessness for a public debate. The non-profit is suing the city, arguing that it had violated the law by clearing homeless encampments without offering shelter. There is a temporary limit on sweeps of unhoused people. This week, the city received court guidance that would allow them to clear certain encampments if individuals refuse shelter. 

“What we have to do to have a functioning homeless system, one of the first things we have to do, is we have to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. Last year in San Francisco for every one person that we got off, we had five more people becoming homeless,” said Friedenbach. 

Mesnick believes the city needs a tougher, more aggressive approach to handling open-air drug use, mental illness and homelessness,  

“We need medical professionals to actually screen these people and figure out what their real needs are,” said Mesnick. “One thing that I have a real issue with and I’m going to say it out loud, how in the world do you ask a fentanyl addict, in a tent, high, if they want services. You have to give these people a time to decompress a little bit, give them an opportunity to take a shower, give them hope.” 

Venue owner Manny Yekutiel gave Friedenbach an opportunity to respond to why she called Mesnick, who often posts grim street scenes, toxic.

“I think the quote was, I think he’s well-intentioned, but his messaging is often toxic,” she responded. “I think that what is happening in a lot of the debate is we’re dehumanizing folks.”

Mesnick said the city needs to make San Francisco less attractive to drug users and homeless people. 

“It’s crazy. I just saw a kid yesterday, I asked him how long he’s been here. He said three days, he came from New Hampshire,” he said. “People come here, it’s the cheapest fentanyl on the planet. It’s the easiest place to sustain on the bottom with zero consequences.” 

Friedenbach said the city needs to appropriately match people with the right services. 

“Pushing people from block to block doesn’t really [work], that’s what we have been doing,” she said. “You give someone a citation or you give them an arrest, they’re back in the same situation, they’re worse off because maybe you threw away all their stuff and they lost their paperwork.” 

Both agreed the dignity of people on the street is important, though they differ on how to best uphold it.

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Betty Yu

Betty Yu joined KPIX 5 in November 2013 as a general assignment reporter. She spent two years at WTVJ, the NBC-owned station in Miami, as a reporter before moving to San Francisco.

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More than a year before the election, the race to represent San Francisco’s Mission District is already heating up. 

Frontrunners are touting early fundraising successes, and the race—which includes several candidates so far—is already getting spicy, with a campaign finance investigation in the mix. 

Progressive activist Jackie Fielder and former tech executive Trevor Chandler released fundraising statements within days of each other last week—both designed to position themselves as frontrunners to represent District 9, which includes the Mission, Bernal Heights and Portola neighborhoods. 

Fielder, who last ran an unsuccessful campaign to unseat state Sen. Scott Wiener, currently leads the pack in fundraising with $52,000, as of June 27, and said she qualified for $255,000 in public financing. In a July 1 statement, Chandler boasted donations of $53,649 and $179,315 in expected public financing so far. 

District 9’s incumbent, Hillary Ronen, terms out in 2024 and occupies what has been a reliably progressive-leaning seat since the city reinstated district elections in 2000. 

Hillary Ronen speaks at a meeting in San Francisco on June 10, 2019. | Source: Gabrielle Lurie/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

Ronen has endorsed Fielder, along with her aide Santiago Lerma—one of five other declared candidates in the race. 

Both Fielder and Chandler have positioned themselves as progressives in the race, though they reflect differing priorities in a district that has been shaken by economic upheaval and other consequences of the pandemic. It’s also undergone demographic changes, including the growth of Asian American and immigrant communities in the fast-growing Portola neighborhood in the southern part of the district. 

Changing Neighborhood

The city’s drug addiction crisis has increased the spread of open-air drug-dealing beyond the Tenderloin and SoMa to the Mission, which is beset by marked increases in homeless encampments, illegal swap meets of stolen goods and street prostitution. 

Chandler, a former policy lead at the public safety app startup Citizen, has carved out a moderate lane on drug and public safety issues, supporting the arrest of drug dealers, closing open-air drug markets, increasing police staffing and expanding conservatorship laws. 

“We’ve built a sophisticated grassroots campaign for the long haul, and we are going to win,” Chandler told The Standard. “There is no denying I am the underdog going up against the City Hall establishment, but there is no place I would rather be.”

A pedestrian passes the Victoria Theatre, located on the corner of 16th and Capp streets in the Mission District in San Francisco, pictured on June 30, 2023. | Source: Isaac Ceja/The Standard

Fielder says she is currently in outreach mode, organizing community meetings throughout the district: “My goal is a hundred meetings, from the Mission to the Portola, to build a community-driven platform,” she told The Standard in a phone call. 

Fielder is also running on her record of advocacy for progressive causes, ranging from environmental policies to public banking; she is currently vice chair of the Local Agency Formation Commission, a local body created by state law that has been used to expand municipal services into domains such as power utilities. 

As part of that advocacy, she organized the Daybreak Political Action Committee in 2021 to support like-minded candidates and advocate for progressive policies. 

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The PAC is described by the San Francisco Independent Journal, a website run by the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America that raised concerns over its writers’ use of pseudonyms, as a way to “grow the movement built by her State Senate campaign.”

Steven Buss, head of the moderate political group GrowSF, alleged in a 2021 complaint to the state Fair Political Practices Commission that Fielder ran the PAC “as her controlled committee and a vehicle for her as she contemplates another run for office,” violating state rules by acting as the committee’s principal officer without required disclosure. 

Asked to comment on the allegations, Fielder said there was no follow-through from the state commission and that “they seemed to be satisfied with our initial response to the complaint.” Fielder confirmed that the Daybreak PAC was shut down earlier this year when she decided to run for supervisor. 

A spokesperson with the commission confirms that the Daybreak PAC investigation remains open. 

Crowded Race

Other declared candidates in the District 9 race include veteran HIV activist and open-government gadfly Michael Petrelis, Julian Bermudez and Rafael Gutierrez. 

“I am running for the District 9 supervisorial seat to participate in debates, raising important concerns regarding government transparency and accountability, and listening to the hopes and fears of voters and residents,” Petrelis told The Standard in an email. 

Bermudez, a Mission native, wrote in an email that after returning home from an Army enlistment, he found a city “with fewer people, vacant spaces, an extremely open drug market, and more homeless.” 

Rafael Gutierrez, who also grew up in the area, is a security guard who The Standard interviewed in 2021 about retail theft. 

Roberto Hernandez, a local organizer who runs the neighborhood’s Carnaval celebration, has also indicated he plans to run.

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RAWLINS — On any given day, you’ll find Kay-Marie Wilder rummaging through one drawer or another, “MacGyvering” up a fix for her historic Ferris Mansion.

Wilder comes by her MacGyver genes honestly. She was a teenager when her parents Janice and David Lubbers bought the Rawlins and Wyoming landmark Ferris Mansion in 1979, and she got to use all of her do-it-yourself fix-it genes as they worked to save the historic home from ruin.

The Lubbers have readily admitted they had no real idea the true magnitude of the task they were taking on when they bought the aging mansion at 607 W. Maple St. 

They thought the renovation work would take a couple of years, tops. Instead, it took 25 years of steady work to fully return the house to its former 1903 hardwood-and-lace glory.

“The gentleman who owned it before us was kind of an absentee landlord,” Wilder told Cowboy State Daily. “So, things were not taken care of. You could have as many pets as you wanted, it was just horrific. There was like a mattress in the Rose Room, and I don’t know what happened there. Stuff was just stuck to the walls and there was fecal matter from dogs, too.”

There was also a great deal of medical equipment strewn about. A doctor had inhabited one of the spaces at one time, so there was truly no telling what one might find lying about. 

Wilder recalls her parents tearing out all the carpet first thing and using a scoop shovel to toss truckloads of debris and rubbish out of the mansion to make it a habitable living space.

The mansion had been subdivided into apartments sometime in the 1940s, so it had lots of walls that needed to be torn out and kitchens in the strangest of places. It didn’t take long for Janice to realize the couple needed help if they were going to finish the renovation within their lifetimes. 

So she called her sister, Phyllis Lenz, and talked her into coming and helping with all the work.

“She says, ‘Well, I’ll move out for a couple of years,’” Wilder said, smiling at the memory. “She was here for 36 years. Those ladies worked great together and my dad, MacGyver, could do anything — electrician, plumber, mechanic. So he wasn’t the type to be daunted by the task of buying this place and fixing it up.”

• The Ferris Mansion in Rawlins has been restored, a 25-year effort of a family that had no idea what they were getting themselves into when they bought it in 1979. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The Lavender Room in the Ferris Mansion is not available for an Airbnb stay. Some say they’ve seen a young child looking out the curved window when driving by the mansion. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The stenciling work in the dining room of the Ferris Mansion was done by Kaye Marie Wilder’s mother, Janice Lubber. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The Rose Room features a large bed with a wall hanging celebrating Carbon County. The Ferris Mansion is one of the buildings portrayed on the wall hanging. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The landing on the second floor of the Ferris Mansion includes a cool display of period hats that once belonged to the owner’s grandmother. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The kitchen is small but quite efficient. Coffee service for guests is served here. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The Ferris Mansion is heated with a series of radiators that are still in good working order. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The dining room in the Ferris Mansion in Rawlins. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
• The headboard on the bed in the Gold Room of the Ferris Mansion. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)

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No Relation To The Ferris Wheel

The Ferris Mansion in Rawlins is both a sad and an inspiring tale all wrapped into one.

George Ferris had for his whole life pursued great wealth. On the very day he achieved it by selling the Ferris-Hagerty mine for $1 million, he was killed while riding in a runaway stagecoach. The accident happenedon the aptly named Snow Slide Hill on his way home from the mine in Encampment. 

Newspaper accounts of the time say that his stagecoach was passing an area where a team of horses had been killed by an avalanche the prior year and the stench of the dead bodies terrified the stagecoach’s team of horses. Ferris was in the stagecoach with a brother, who escaped unharmed. But Ferris was tossed and hit a brake block and brake beam on the wagon as it was overturning. 

“There is something singularly pathetic in the death of Mr. Ferris, and it furnishes a theme for the moralists who like to discourse on the vanity of life and the rewards that often come from a life of toil too late to be enjoyed,” a newspaper obituary at the time read. “Having spent all his years seeking wealth, Mr. Ferris finally attained it in a way that has made his name famous all over the land, only to have the reward snatched from his hands on the very day of his triumph.”

If his death had been pathetic, what came next could certainly be considered inspiring. 

His wife Julia announced that she would complete construction of the Ferris Mansion, a Barber and Klutz home likely sourced from the book “Modern Dwellings,” which was published in 1888.

Barber was serving a nouveau riche clientele who had made fortunes out West and wanted homes that made a statement, not only about their success, but about the success of the West. 

The cost for Julia to complete the spacious 21-room, three-story home with 65 windows and five fireplaces was in the neighborhood of $60,000 in 1900 dollars, plus an additional $25,000 for the furnishings, which she sourced from San Francisco. A glass chandelier in the home itself cost $1,000.

Colorado-pressed brick custom-designed for the home was used to form the home’s 18-inch-thick walls, which had an air space in the middle. Local sandstone was used to trim between the bricks, as well as the granite base of the home.

The roof tiles were interlocking ceramic Ludiwici tiles with a lifespan of 100 to 300 years. 

8,000 Square Feet Of Catastrophe

Restoring the home to that level of grandeur was a daunting task. Picture 8,000 square feet of mansion turned into a maze of apartments lined with tired, moldy carpets and debris, peeling paint, rotting windowsills and the occasional gaping hole for good measure.

Once the overall mess has been carted out, though, the task had only just begun.

There were hundreds of hours of work in just sanding and polishing all the beautiful woodwork in the home, most of which had been hidden behind layers of ugly and peeling paint. 

All that effort proved worthwhile, though. Behind the peeling paint, the Lubbers discovered 8-foot-tall pocket doors that were made of one of the rarest woods in the world, birdseye maple. It’s a distinctive pattern found in just 1% of all maple wood. 

A fair amount of sleuthing also was required to restore the home.

Janice subscribed to magazines and did research in the library to figure out what should be there that wasn’t. She also tracked down the location of the mansion’s original grand staircase in Encampment and bought it back. Its original newel was still intact, though the spindles were not. So, she bought replacements — 150 of them.

Old Paint For New

The couple also took off the bright red paint on the home and replaced it with a rose hue, more in keeping with what had been there when the Queen Anne-style Barber home was built.

There were lots of “MacGyver” situations in the process of doing all that work, and Wilder is proud to show a few of them off.

In the dining area, for example, some friends were dancing on the hardwood floor and their heels caused a few scuff marks and indentions. Not to worry. Janice stenciled over all of that quite nicely. It’s not noticeable at all now. 

Then there was the light fixture at the base of the stairs, original to the home, that was missing one white pane. There was no affordable way to source a single white pane of glass like that from the turn of the century. So Janice took a knife to a white plastic milk jug, carefully cutting out a replacement piece that is all but indistinguishable from the others, unless pointed out.

Similarly, when the family was given a quote of $15,000 to create curved storm windows, the Lubbers figured out how to fashion their own from heavy sheet plastic for $200.

The restoration process was not all smooth sailing, of course. One winter, a below-average cold freeze caused one of the mansion’s pipes to burst. Hundreds of gallons of water flooded out all over the beautiful work they’d done in that area, peeling plaster from the walls and leaving a disaster in its wake.

“Water just poured down and the ceiling caved in,” Wilder said. “It was just awful.” 

No problem. Janice and Lenz had recently salvaged some tin ceiling tiles from a downtown bar in Rawlins. They had already been working on restoring them to put somewhere. They would be perfect in the kitchen.

Once the damage had been repaired and the ceiling tiles were all in place, everything seemed to fit right in as if it had always been that way.

As a result of the flood, a secret butler’s door also was discovered. That made for much better traffic patterns through the home, which the couple turned into a bed and breakfast for several years and helped pay for the continued work on the beautiful old home.

Ghosts Galore

Tell anyone in Rawlins that you’re staying at the Ferris mansion and likely you’ll see eyes get round as quarters.

“Which room are you staying in?” is the inevitable question. “Is it … the round room? Driving past the house at night, I think I’ve seen a small child in the window of the round room.”

That small child is supposed to be Cecil Ferris, killed in a shooting accident by one of his brothers who was playing with a gun that an older brother had brought home and put down on a bedroom table.

Cecil happened to be passing through the door of the bedroom as his brothers were playing with the gun. The shot hit him in the neck, severing an artery and killing him instantly. 

But the ghost that Janice reported seeing in a newspaper article was that of Julia herself.

The experience, Wilder said, was a disquieting one at the time. But since the home’s restoration, all the “energy” has transformed in the house. 

Some guests have reported seeing a woman in white standing over their bed, but this reporter experienced no hauntings while in the mansion.

While the bed and breakfast Wilder’s parents started is no longer operating, Wilder has continued to offer a fabulous stay at the Ferris Mansion through Airbnb. She has three rooms for short-term stays, the Blue Room, The Rose Room and the Gold Room. Each has its own private bath, and a couple of the rooms also feature beautiful fireplaces. 

Wilder plans to sell the now regal historic Ferris Mansion as she has young grandchildren in Utah. It is for sale by owner for $750,000. It sits in a secluded neighborhood of Rawlins, where deer commonly visit to nibble on the grass.

The mansion is a grand old lady and an iconic piece of Wyoming’s history.

Renée Jean can be reached at Renee@CowboyStateDaily.com.

The post From Destroy To Regal, A Wyoming Household’s Mission To Save The Ferris Mansion appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Join us for Tag Along, where local writers, artists, food authorities, and celebrities shine a spotlight on the best food and drinks in their favorite Bay Area neighborhoods.

Colin Winnette is a long-haired, wide-smiling, game-writing bohemian living in San Francisco. Hailing from Denton, Texas, he’s worked as a bookseller on Haight Street, a copywriter for hospitals, and a ticket-taker at a movie theater. He’s also the author of seven books, most recently Users from Soft Skull Press, which earned a glowing review in the New York Times in May and another in The Nation in August. The book is about the perils and potentials of virtual reality and was written at a handful of bars and cafes in the Mission District. “San Francisco’s got a lot of heart,” Winnette says. “It’s a beautiful city to work in with deep literary roots.”

Winnette finished a book tour in spring 2023 and, on the day we meet to traipse through the Mission, he’s en route to Dog Eared Books for a print copy of the paper. He’s glad that, after emerging from COVID lockdowns, people still felt like coming out to say hello. He’s doubly thankful for the sleeper, unsung hangouts in the Mission that allowed his book to come to fruition. Join Eater SF as we accompany Winnette on a typical day of writing, caffeinating, drinking, and eating around the Mission District.

CoffeeShop

3139 Mission Street, San Francisco

Finding CoffeeShop on Mission Street is sort of like doing a word search puzzle; it’s the kind of hidden spot one could miss by blinking. The soy latte — and maybe an everything croissant on a peckish day — gets Winnette started each day. The shop itself, though, is well-known for its Sherpa, a rendition of the Bulletproof coffee trend. The joint, which has been in business for more than a decade, also freezes its coffee into cold brew ice cubes and makes its pastries in-house.

Winnette lived around the corner from this tiny storefront while he wrote Users, taking his soy latte to the sidewalk where the cafe stocks a few literal stumps. They work as tables, or in the writer’s case, a desk, as the 49 bus flies by. There are no plugs, no “work here” culture, as Winnette describes it. He gets through his coffee, works maybe an hour or so, takes stabs at early sentences, then heads on to the next destination. “I’m better when I indulge my restlessness,” Winnette says. “Rather than saying ‘Sit! Work!’”

Atlas Cafe

3049 20th Street, San Francisco

The sunny and expansive patio at this 20th Street restaurant plays host to a big daytime crowd. Winnette became a regular thanks to rock climbing sessions at Mission Cliffs a couple of blocks away; he’d come here for a smoked trout bagel, served on bread once the bagels sell out in the afternoon. The shop serves Grand Coffee from Mission Street, and the tangy espresso and foamy cappuccinos are both affordable and delectable. It’s the laid-back nature that allows Winnette to enter the writing space. “These are uninterrupted places,” Winnette says.

The bagel or a sandwich on rosemary bread, doesn’t hurt, either. He opts for a window seat, anywhere with a plug to recoup lost battery spent at CoffeeShop. But, just like that micro cafe, Winnette doesn’t stay here longer than a few hours before moving on. He attributes his frenetic approach to an undergrad interdisciplinary arts degree, one that had students in and out of various studios as a form of inspiration. The noise from the chatter of cafe-goers is still as important as the espresso and food. “It’s chaotic enough to become like the ocean lapping on the shore,” Winnette says. “Hypnotic.”

Phone Booth

1398 South Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco

This lowkey Mission Street bar, a few blocks from decidedly not lowkey Tacos Patron, opens at 2 p.m. Or, that’s what you’d think from its posted hours — really it opens whenever it opens. Walking over isn’t too strenuous, though Winnette might hop on the 14 or 49 Muni lines to get a bit closer. The move here is a gin and tonic or a beer — nothing esoteric, just to get the wheels turning in a new direction. “This is me changing drugs,” Winnette says. “From caffeine to alcohol.”

To some, this decades-old bar is the perfect dive. Its pool tables and dimly-lit ambiance let Winnette unwind a bit, though he stays focused on the writing. He and an old pal, a high school teacher who lives a double life as a Jeopardy! whiz, would sip whiskey and read each other old poetry for fun. “There’s a great writing community in San Francisco,” Winnette says. “Even though the city has priced out a lot of great artists.”

Front Porch and Rock Bar

65 29th Street, San Francisco and 80 29th Street, San Francisco

A shot of whiskey with a pony boy Miller High Life is how the author ends the day. Rock Bar is one of those haunts that serves familiar faces day in and day out — and has now celebrated the birthdays of four neighborhood dogs over the years — on an otherwise unremarkable corner. Across the street, before hitting the pub, Winnette might grab dinner to take to the bar. Southern restaurant and bar Front Porch is happy to oblige; Winnette loves the veggie burger while his wife opts for the beignets, and, for company, they order a pitcher of signature cocktail Porch Swing.

The fried okra also goes hard, and Winnette says the grits — best with a fried egg on top — might be the finest in the city alongside the fare at Brenda’s. These are the meals that keep him ready for a swim with the Dolphin Club or pondering artificial intelligence civil rights (something Winnette thinks is just over the horizon). As he winds down at Front Porch or Rock Bar, he reads the paper, trying to be a human being after being a writer, he says. Sometimes his books’ reviews appear in those papers. But, most of the time, he’s just drinking a pickle back and eating fried okra after sifting through the white noise of San Francisco for eight hours or so. The author says these bars and restaurants remind him of Denton, in that they’re ubiquitous and unpretentious. “They have a thread of home,” Winnette says.

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The post Tour San Francisco Writer Colin Winnette’s Favourite Mission District Cafes and Bars appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.