AKA: City and County of San Francisco, Fire Department, City and County of San Francisco, Fire Department, Sullivan Memorial Fire Chief's Residence, San Francisco, CA, Nob Hill, San Francisco, CA

Structure Type: built works - dwellings - houses

Designers: City and County of San Francisco, City Architect, John W. Reid, Jr. (firm); John W. Reid Jr. (architect)

Dates: constructed 1925

3 stories

870 Bush Street
Lower Nob Hill, San Francisco, CA 94108

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San Francisco's City Architect, John W. Reid, Jr., (1879-1968) erected this residence, meant to house the city's Fire Chief, to resemble an Italianate fire house. San Francisco County Supervisors built the house in memory of Chief Dennis T. Sullivan (d. 1906) who perished in the Earthquake of 04/18/1906, when portions of the neighboring California Hotel fell and crushed the fire house of Chemical Company No. 3 where he and his wife lived. It took nearly twenty years for the city to erect this residential monument to the beloved Sullivan, due to a shortage of funds and location. It cost $35,000 to build the Sullivan Memorial, $20,000 from a memorial fund set up in the chief's name in 1906 and another $15,000 from San Francisco's Board of Supervisors. It was the first residence put up by an American city to house its fire chief.

Sculptor Melvin Earl Cummings (1876-1936), Assistant Professor of Modeling in the Department of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), designed a number of monuments, fountains and bas relief plaques around San Francisco and Northern CA. He worked closely with architects throughout his life, producing the Commodore Sloat Monument in Monterey, CA, Becker and Rideout Fountains in Golden Gate Park, and a bas-relief of George Hearst, for John Galen Howard's Hearst Mining Building at the University of California, Berkeley.

PCAD id: 19469