Doelger City

by Steve LaBounty
November 1999

"Lying south of Golden Gate Park, and far beyond Stanyan street, lies a vast tract of waste and barren lands, whose topographical arrangement is hourly changing through the shifting of the restless sands, and yet whose favorable position - in the direct line of our westward growth which is as inevitable as fate - renders it a most desirable region for investment and for the founding of lovely and healthful homes."

--- Baldwin's Real Estate Guide, August 1887

I drive down Forty-first Avenue, between Kirkham and Lawton in the Outer Sunset. There are more parking places in this one block than in all of North Beach right now. I stop the car, and get out to lean on the trunk and breathe in the light mist.

It's a quiet treeless block. As a boy in the Richmond District, I thought of the Sunset as that strange land beyond the park that didn't have any trees.

There are no businesses around. No one walks by. I am alone with a regiment of stucco homes, lined up in 25 by 100-foot lots, waiting for the fog that sits just offshore ten blocks away. I stand on the edge of Doelger City.

Hot Dogs to Homes

No man had a greater impact on the Sunset District than builder Henry Doelger. Eighty years ago, Doelger ran a hot dog stand* on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Lincoln Way, and most of the land west of him consisted of sand dunes. In the mid-1920s, Henry joined his brother Frank in the real estate business and began building homes on 39th Avenue. A romantic newspaperman recounting Henry Doelger's career summed up those first years:

"There was only one way to sell homes out in the Sunset District of San Francisco in those days; you hammered a few nails along with the carpenters and when a prospective buyer came along, off came the coveralls, and presto, instant real estate salesman.

"That's what Henry did!"

Although they may have started off sporting coveralls with the common men, the Doelgers worked their way into a prosperous living building on the empty sand and scrub south of Golden Gate Park. They competed with the Gellert and Stoneson Brothers, Chris McKeon, and Ray Galli to fill in the blanks of the city grid out west. From 1934 to 1941 the Doelgers reigned as the largest homebuilders in the country, tossing up two residences a day.

Business only became better after the initial effects of the Great Depression. The newly created Federal Housing Administration made home purchases realistic for middle-income buyers. Bank of America helped Henry Doelger build his empire with loans that ended up totaling over $75,000,000. The sand that blanketed the western half of the peninsula for a thousand years disappeared under concrete, stucco and automobiles.

Suburbia in the City

Many scoff at these "Avenue" houses, bemoaning them as the precursor of the dull, conformist suburban-style of architecture that prevailed in America in the years following World War II. One local architecture guide states "they must have been made with a set of giant cookie cutters."

They do present a monotonous hodge-podge of style: a curlicue of French Provincial, a tile line of Spanish Colonial, the odd Moderne angle overhang: all stuffed up against each other. Each facade is a dollop from the American melting pot.

But the homes stand in good repair fifty years after their construction. Doelger used redwood frames and, as opposed to many large-scale developers, made sure his product was well built.

Doelger and his brothers constructed homes in the Richmond District, Golden Gate Heights and along MacArthur Boulevard in Oakland. During World War II they put up over 3,000 units of defense housing in the East Bay and in South San Francisco.

After the war Henry masterminded the Westlake subdivision in Daly City, where a drive down the well-manicured streets still screams 1959 California. But Henry Doelger's work is best defined in the area roughly bounded by 27th and 39th Avenues and Kirkham and Quintara Streets, the so-named "Doelger City."

If only they had put some trees in.

*In June 2001, Leslie LaManna, the granddaughter of John Doelger reported in with some corrections, notably about the Doelger hot dog stand:

"My grandfather told us the story many times of brewing bathtub gin and homemade beer to sell at a tamale stand they had in Golden Gate Park. Henry invested all the earnings from the stand in land purchased from artichoke farmers, which he was told he was crazy for trying to build on since it was mostly sand."

Apparently, Henry became more concerned about his reputation as he grew more successful, and made up the hot dog stand story, which has been repeated in many places. Thanks to Leslie for the truth!

Images: 1) Quintara Street, facing west on 30th Ave. 1940?, San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department; 2) View from Golden Gate Heights, Funston and Pacheco Streets, 1928.

Bibliography: Gateway to the Peninsula, Official History of Daly City, CA., Samuel C. Chandler; The Guide to Architecture in San Francisco and Northern California, David Gebhard; Architecture, San Francisco, The Guide, Sally B. Woodbridge, John M. Woodbridge; Biography of a Bank, The Story of Bank of America, Marquis James, Bessie R. James.

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Page updated 18 August 2001