The Man Who Constructed a 40-Foot Spite Fence Round His Neighbor’s Dwelling
Nicholas Yung thought he was a lucky man. A German who immigrated to the United States in 1848, Yung had worked hard to make a living and eventually succeeded as the owner of a morgue in San Francisco. The deal enabled him and his wife, Rosina, to purchase a modest piece of land at the top of California Street Hill, where they built a quaint country-style house and landscaped a beautiful garden. Every day, California sunlight and fresh air poured in through their windows.
Yung had no reason to believe that anything could disturb his idyllic life or that anyone could somehow rob him of the beautiful days he had worked so hard for. But Yung had also ignored Charles Crocker, a very rich and very petty man who would eventually become both his neighbor and the bane of his existence. With enough lumber to build a twelve-foot fence around much of Yung’s property, Crocker and his wicked fence became a legendary revenge story, tourist attraction, and lesson in the danger of escalating emotions.
At 6 feet tall and 300 pounds, Charles Crocker made an imposing figure. He had funded his bank account by being one of the “Big Four” barons behind the Central Pacific Railroad building. In the 1870s he could afford what he wanted. And what he wanted was to soar over San Francisco like a gargoyle.
Crocker and his wealthy partners began exploring California Street Hill for its scenic views and proximity to the city’s financial district. One of his Big Four employees, Leland Stanford – former California Governor and future Stanford University founder – suggested that if a cable car could take residents up and down the hill, the area would make nice residential lot. Stanford arranged an installation, and soon a group of wealthy men, including Crocker, were buying up all of the houses in the blocks they chose. By the time Crocker was finished, he had built a 12,000 square foot mansion. With its new, wealthy residents, California Street Hill was renamed Nob Hill.
As the project neared completion in 1876, there was one annoying detail: Nicholas Yung was reluctant to sell his space in the northeast corner of the block. His cabin was dwarfed by the mansions being pulled up, but he had come to enjoy the neighborhood.
There are different accounts of what happened next. Some say Crocker offered Yung $ 6,000 for his piece of the block. After some deliberation, Yung agreed to sell the land for $ 12,000. Crocker countered for $ 9,000; Yung refused. The other story is that Yung got irascible, agreed to a $ 3,000 transaction, and then every time Crocker surrendered, he raised his price, first to $ 6,000, then to $ 9,000, and finally to $ 12,000. With this latter figure, Crocker is said to have failed, spat profanity and deviated from negotiations.
Since one or both of the men were causing pungency, the end result was that Yung did not move. Crocker’s workers were busy razing the entire block and creating a steamroller of activity that should have seen them smash Yung’s cottage like a cardboard box. As a ominous sign of his frustration, Crocker ordered his workers to arrange their dynamite explosions so that stone debris would hit Yung’s house.
If the goal was to drive Yung out, it had the opposite effect. Yung writhed and refused to move. Crocker refused to increase his offer. The two men were in a stalemate. Though Young’s obnoxious bargaining techniques didn’t make him flawless, it was Crocker who had the resources to cause real disruption.
At a reported cost of $ 3,000, Crocker had his workers erect a wooden fence on his land that spanned three sides of Yung’s house. With its 12 m high panels, the housing looked like a window curtain, shielding the sun and cool air and plunging Yung into darkness.
While Crocker was happily decorated with ivy by gardeners, Yung watched his beautiful garden wither. Despite the apparent disruption to Young’s surroundings, Crocker’s “Against Fence,” as the newspapers called it, was perfectly legal.
Without other means, Yung threatened to install a flagpole that would fly a skull, an act of defiance that could spoil Crocker’s point of view; he also wanted to put a coffin on his roof, ostensibly to promote his business, but apparently also to agitate Crocker. He had some media representatives on his side who condemned “Crocker’s Crime” and criticized the financier for using his immense wealth to harass a family by more modest means. The San Francisco Chronicle later called it a “Memorial to Malice and Malevolence.” Tourists would take the cable car and head to Nob Hill just to marvel at the massive fence. But Crocker didn’t move.
In October 1877, the Workers’ Party of California (WPC) organized a protest near Crocker’s house to condemn his attitudes towards Chinese immigrants. Organizers led 2,000 men through a demonstration; a man known only as Pickett stood up and admonished Crocker about the wicked fence, telling him it would be torn down by Thanksgiving or the WPC would do it for him. But when WPC leader Denis Kearney was arrested elsewhere for inciting a riot, he told the press that his group had no reason to target Crocker or his fence.
If Yung hoped that a civil justice system would solve the situation, it never did. He and his family threw in the towel and moved out – but they still refused to sell the land to Crocker.
Crocker might think the feud was going to end with Young’s death in 1880. That was not the case.
His widow Rosina continued to turn down offers to sell the now vacant land, which was slowly becoming a place for empty canisters and other rubbish. After Crocker’s death in 1888, his heirs were equally unsuccessful in persuading Rosina to give up the land. In 1895, she tried to appeal to the city’s street committee, arguing that the fence was a nuisance and rendering her property worthless.
The city agreed, but their lawyer did not: there was no justification for the Crockers having to remove the fence, which had been cut to 25 feet after strong winds repeatedly threatened to topple it. (About 1956 or 1956, California passed law prohibiting the construction of fences that are specifically designed to irritate neighbors and / or obstruct their view. Most states limit the height of a fence to 6 feet for similar reasons.)
When Rosina died in 1902, the rivalry with her seemed to have died. Their four daughters eventually gave in to Crocker’s descendants in 1904 and sold the land – supposedly worth $ 80,000 – for an undisclosed sum. Since there were no more neighbors, the fence was torn down in 1905.
The feud between Yung and Crocker would ultimately prove pointless. In 1906, an earthquake and associated fire swept across San Francisco, destroying the Crocker mansion and neighboring buildings. Instead of rebuilding, the family decided to donate the block to charity. And in a strange twist, the place where Crocker once memorialized malice and malice has become a home for compassion and warmth. With the donation of the site, the Crockers opened up the possibility of building the Grace Cathedral, an episcopal place of worship.
This story originally ran in 2017; it has been updated for 2021.
